His Favorite Character

I had a conversation with a reader not long ago regarding the dedication in one of my books (Hunted), but it got me to thinking about another dedication I wrote that has a funnier meaning/back story.

It starts with the Relics of War trilogy, and my husband’s odd love of the series’ main villain, Dranamir. Dranamir is Soulless, she’s ruthless, cruel, and will do anything to see her god freed from his prison. She’s not at all a nice person, so when he decided she was one of his favorite characters, I was shocked (and a little worried.)

But events happen in the final book of the trilogy that lead to Dranamir’s demise. She’s a villain, after all, and I’m not one of those authors who likes to let the big bads live at the end of a tale. Dranamir got what was coming to her, in my mind.

Her end did not appease my husband, however.

While writing subsequent books, I would sometimes come back to my laptop (if I failed to close and lock it when I walked away) to random insertions of Dranamir in story worlds she didn’t belong in. My husband is a jokester, and this is his way of teasing me about killing Dranamir off.

I saved a couple screenshots of his Dranamir insertions:

The above insert was added to a draft of Cursed Blades. This next one was added as I was drafting Serpentus (and before he knew she’d be featured in that book):

Fast-forward to 2023, when I was preparing Serpentus for publication. After all of my husband’s pining after Dranamir, here was another book that she was part of (if only briefly.) Serpentus is a standalone, but runs in parallel to the trilogy, featuring a story arc that was only hinted at in the trilogy. Since it begins before Dranamir’s demise, she was granted a little more page time.

And when it came to writing that book’s dedication, there was only one thing that fit:

To Joshua —

I brought her back one last time just for you.

So here’s to my husband and his strange love of a particular villain.

Now you all know the story behind that cryptic dedication.