Guest Post: Daniela Sarcerdoti

Hello everyone! :)

Today I have Dani Sarcedoti doing a guest post on the inspiration for her character Sarah Midnight in her new book Dreams.

Goodreads: “You’d never think it could happen to you. You’d never think that one day you’ll stand in a graveyard, rain tapping on a sea of black umbrellas, watching your parents being lowered into the earth, never to come back. It’s happening to me. They said it was an accident. Only I know the truth. My parents were hunters, like their parents and grandparents before them, hundreds of years back, scores of ancestors behind me, fulfilling the same call. I must follow in their footsteps. I am the only one left to keep the promise. I can never give up the fight, this fight that has been handed down to me, thrust upon my unwilling shoulders. I’d rather be buried with my parents, my brave, fierce father and mother, who lived and died by the Midnight motto: Don’t Let Them Roam.”

 Ever since her thirteenth birthday, seventeen-year-old Sarah Midnight’s dreams have been plagued by demons—but unlike most people’s nightmares, Sarah’s come true. Her dreams guide her parents’ hunt as Sarah remains in bed, terrified but safe, sheltered from the true horrors of the Midnight legacy. But all this is about to change. After the murder of her parents, she is cruelly thrust into a secret world of unimaginable danger as she is forced to take up their mission. Alone and unprepared for the fight that lies before her, Sarah must learn how to use the powers she’s inherited and decide whom to trust before it’s too late...

Sarah Midnight is a Secondary school pupil who lives in Scotland. For real.
I saw her at a bus stop once, years ago – she was wearing a school uniform, she had long black hair and she was texting on her phone while listening to music. The expression on her face made me do a double take – she had that uniquely teenage way of looking sulky and yet vulnerable, childlike and grown-up all mixed together. I thought I have to put you in a story.
Then came the Midnight mansion, home to one of my best friends – a grey stone fairy tale villa. And this is where you live.
Third came…no, not Sean. Third came Niall, a red-haired boy that I kept seeing in the town centre, another student – long hair, fiddle case in his hand, looking incredibly cool. And you have the Power of Song.
I admit it’s a little weird to see people and decide to put them in books…but please, if you catch me looking at you while you stand at a bus stop, don’t be alarmed, I’m plotting! How frustrating it was, a few weeks ago, when I saw SEAN HIMSELF walking down Buchanan Road! I should have stopped him for a pic – “never mind calling the police young man. Trust me: I’m a writer.”
So the story started brewing, until finally it was ready to come out. I wrote the first few words: You’d never think it could happen to you. You’d never think that one day you’d stand in a graveyard, rain tapping on a sea of black umbrellas, seeing your parents being lowered into the earth, never to come back. Except I wrote it in Italian, and it was going to be another five years before the story took shape.
A few eventful years later, after having had two babies and having become a stay-at-home-mum, I went back to it, this time in English. Sarah became an anxious little girl who grows up to be an anxious young woman, yet incredibly brave and strong. I wanted to portray a heroine who’s vulnerable, lonely and longing to be loved, but has a backbone of steel and is courageous and proud. I put her in terrible predicaments over 90.000 words worth of adventures, and she seems to find a way to survive and come out stronger. Sarah is a force to be reckoned with.
I’m fascinated by how so many wonderful women I know, from my friends to my mother, and indeed myself, host such a contrast in themselves: being vulnerable, swept by emotions, but when the need arises they turn out to be unbelievably strong. Sarah is very much a “girl, interrupted”: she carries heavily in her heart an unhappy and lonely childhood, and her challenge is to grow over the past, exorcise her family history and build a new life for herself. She does that in contrast with Cathy, her nemesis, who’s unable to get over her painful past and ends up losing her soul over it. Sarah has a huge power running in her veins, but she doesn’t know how to use it – in the course of the first book she learns to channel it, while unravelling truth from lies. To me, Sarah’s story is the story of a girl growing up - in a rather uncommon circumstances, but facing the same challenges that so many young girls face.
This book is for girls – and boys – just like her: strong, vulnerable, and looking to channel and master the power that runs in their veins, whatever that might be.

Many thanks to Steph for letting me be a guest on her lovely blog – thank you!


~ No problem! Thanks for doing a guest post! Dreams sounds amazing, don't you think?

If you'd like to read the first chapter, look below!

Dreams Web Advance Preview Copy Chapter One[2]