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8 months ago
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Danielle Valentine knows how to strike fear in her readers.
The young adult fiction writer has covered everything from gruesome murders to paranormal hauntings and spinetingling exorcisms ever since publishing her first book in 2012.
Yet, for her 2023 pulse pounding thriller, 'Delicate Condition,' Valentine was inspired to write about something more personal and far more terrifying: pregnancy loss.
The author was seven months pregnant with her daughter Harriet (who is now four years old) when she began to put down her own 'painful' and 'horrifying' in 2018—an experience that left her in the emergency room for hours without knowing what was happening to her own body.
The chilling novel serves as the basis for the 12th season of American Horror Story, subtitled Delicate, and starring Emma Roberts and Kim Kardashian.
The book, out now, highlights the nightmarish stories many women experience during IVF and complicated pregnancies.
Danielle Valentine, 40, is a young adult fiction writer whose latest novel, 'Delicate Condition' serves as the basis for season 12 of American Horror Story. The book was inspired by Valentine's own 'painful' and 'horrifying' miscarriage in 2018, an experience that she said was like 'being in a horror novel'
Season 12 of American Horror Story on FX follows a young actress named Anna Alcott (played by Emma Roberts) who is thrilled to finally be pregnant after multiple rounds of IVF. Soon she suspects that a malevolent force is keeping her from successfully becoming pregnant
In season 12, Kim Kardashian, 43, returns as the cunning and suspicious publicist to Anna Alcott (Emma Roberts)
Despite having an uncomplicated pregnancy, Valentine was shattered to learn of her pregnancy loss; an experience that she said was like 'being in a horror novel.'
'I ended up going into the emergency room and for hours and hours,' she recalled. 'If they knew what was happening, they weren't telling me, and that was shocking to me.'
Valentine said she has seen a significant 'bump' in book sales since the premiere of American Horror Story. The chilling novel highlights the horror stories many women experience during IVF and complicated pregnancies
The author (who’s also gone by the pen names Danielle Rollins, Danielle Vega, and Ellie Rollins) was also struck by how 'textbook' the miscarriage was. It was 'exactly the way you read and hear about these things happening,' she said.
And yet still, Valentine felt totally in the dark, recalling: 'There was a full two-day break where I didn't really know what was happening in my own body.'
'Most of what you hear about miscarriage is how common it is, but you don't heard nearly as much about how horrifying it is.'
'It was almost as though saying it was common or saying that it happens a lot is supposed to somehow insulate people from the horror of it.'
'It was painful beyond imagining,' she told DailyMail.com. 'It was devastating beyond imagining.'
However, Valentine revealed that writing about her own experiences in the form of a thriller was a therapeutic exercise for her.
The first draft 'started out as me kind of cathartically writing myself into this story,' she explained.
She revealed to Shondaland that the book was also, in part, inspired by the 1979 film 'Alien.'
'It’s kind of ironic that a bunch of men tried to come up with the scariest thing they could think of happening, and what they came up with was this idea that there might be something inside of your body growing that you have no control over, that’s doing these things to you, and eventually is gonna erupt out of you,' she said.
In the aftermath of the traumatic miscarriage, Alcott (played by Emma Roberts) suspects that she is still pregnant, even as her husband and doctors continue to gaslight her into thinking otherwise
Valentine told DailyMail.com that 'most of what you hear about miscarriage is how common it is, but you don't heard nearly as much about how horrifying it is.'
Speaking about her own experience with pregnancy loss that resulted in an 'hours long' visit to the emergency room, Valentine remembers feeling totally in the dark about the situation. 'There was a full two-day break where I didn't really know what was happening in my own body'
'Basically, they just wrote a story about pregnancy.'
Delicate Condition follows 39-year-old actress Anna Alcott (played by Roberts) who is thrilled to finally be pregnant after multiple rounds of IVF, before doctors announce that she has suffered from another miscarriage.
The novel centers the actress' struggle to achieve a balance between her rising star power and her arduous IVF journey.
At the same time, the character begins to suspect that a malevolent force is keeping her from successfully becoming pregnant.
In the aftermath of the traumatic miscarriage, Anna suspects that she is still pregnant, even as her husband and doctors continue to gaslight her into thinking otherwise.
The tale delves into the realm of the supernatural, yet it's the real-life horrors that resonate most powerfully.
Valentine says the harrowing miscarriage scene was 'pulled back quite a bit' from previous drafts, which at one point had the sequence elaborated across 20 pages.
Delicate Condition wasn't Valentine's first book option, but it's her first book that was made into such a big show.
'When they told me it was Ryan Murphy (director and producer), it was such an incredible dream come true.'
While the author hasn't had an input in season 12 of American Horror Story, she says, 'It's been so much fun to watch, I've been a total fangirl the entire time.'
English (US)