MC Dalton | Melanie Page
Collaboration Sensation
By day Michelle and Melanie are professionals, both with careers that offer a mix of knowledge, skill and service, living and working in the beautiful Moreton Bay region of Queensland. By night though… they write tales of epic romance!
They used to meet regularly though a local writer’s group, now they hang out or chat online as often as they can.
This can range from working on their own upcoming releases to supporting each other’s writing as they both also write individually.
Melanie, a high school English teacher, is also a writer of Regency romance and soon to be published YA Author. Most recently she even dabbled in a how-to book, aiding novice writers to craft the perfect short story – Tale Spinning.
Michelle, a registered nurse and wrangler of triplet teenage sons writes under the names MC D’Alton and Michelle Dalton. Michelle is a successful self-published author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction books – two of which have won readers’ choice awards.
They also support other budding authors where they can with a weekly online writing session that Michelle hosts on a face book page called Heart & Craft.
Collectively however, they write The Iron Universe.
Their series came to life when Michelle mentioned that she loved monsters and that she wanted to write a book about a monster (like Frankenstein who happens to be her all-time fave) who is the love interest.
Melanie quickly pointed out that this was not possible. Ideas were batted back and forth until inspiration struck and et voila! A quartet of sublime steampunk romance was conceived.
The first in The Iron Universe series, Iron Heart is very much a ground-breaking medical steampunk romance. Our hero Beauden is the kind of Frankenstein’s monster people will immediately fall in love with. Galena the heroine, well she’s just rock and roll, a pure mix between an aspirational modern woman and the suffragette or bluestocking of yesteryear. She grabs you from the opening line.
Book two was released end of February 2021 and Iron Fist has us again peeking into the Somerton’s lives, but takes off in a very different direction. Again, we have a mysterious and deeply secretive hero, but this time our heroine is a touch more flamboyant with skills that certainly weren’t seen to be very ‘ladylike’.
In Iron Fist, our plot takes a turn toward the dark world of espionage and secret keeping and, with a nod to James Bond, we have the most spectacular gadgets making cameos all the way through our adventurous romance. Melanie who is a history tragic, adds authentic strands of colour as we are taken for a ride down memory lane – with a roller coaster twist.
Two more books are to follow over the next two years. And like their predecessors Iron Will and Iron Alibi will expand the Iron Universe with their own themes while keeping true to its origins. The Iron Universe is about brave, loyal, determined people. They deserve happy endings.
Both Mel and MC would love to hear from you. Do you have any questions? We have many answers on how we created our universe, what it’s like writing collaboratively and how our characters speak to us.
You can connect with them here:
