Danielle Valentine knows how to instill fear in her readers.
The young adult fiction writer has covered everything from From gruesome murders to paranormal apparitions and chilling exorcisms since she published her first book in 2012.
However, for her fast-paced 2023 thriller, ‘Delicate Condition,’ Valentine was inspired to write about something more personal and much scarier: pregnancy loss.
The author was seven months pregnant with her daughter Harriet (now four years old) when she began to let go of her own “painful” and “horrifying” experience in 2018, an experience that left her in the emergency room for hours without knowing what. she was happening to her own body.
The chilling novel serves as the basis for the twelfth season of American Horror Story, subtitled Delicate, and starring Emma Roberts and kim kardashian.
The book, which is available now, highlights the nightmare stories that 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 ‘painful’ and ‘horrifying’ miscarriage in 2018, an experience 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 overjoyed to finally get pregnant after multiple rounds of IVF. She soon suspects that a malevolent force is preventing her from successfully becoming pregnant.
In season 12, Kim Kardashian, 43, returns as Anna Alcott’s (Emma Roberts) sly and suspicious publicist.
Despite having an uncomplicated pregnancy, Valentine was devastated to learn of her pregnancy loss; an experience that, according to her, was like “being in a horror novel.”
“I ended up going to the emergency room and was there for hours and hours,” he recalled. “If they knew what was going on, they didn’t tell me, and that was shocking to me.”
Valentine said he has seen a significant “increase” in book sales since the release of American Horror Story. The chilling novel highlights the horror stories many women experience during IVF and complicated pregnancies.
The author (who also uses the pseudonyms Danielle Rollins, Danielle Vega, and Ellie Rollins) was also shocked by how “textbook” miscarriage was. It was “exactly the way she reads and hears about these things that happen,” she said.
And yet, Valentine felt totally in the dark and remembered: “There was a complete two-day break where I didn’t really know what was going on in my own body.”
“Most of what you hear about miscarriage is how common it is, but you don’t hear as much about how horrible it is.”
“It was almost as if saying it was common or saying it happens frequently was supposed to somehow insulate people from the horror of this.”
“It was unimaginable pain,” he told DailyMail.com. “It was devastating beyond belief.”
However, Valentine revealed that writing about her own experiences in thriller form was a therapeutic exercise for her.
The first draft “started with me cathartically writing myself into this story,” he 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 group of men tried to think of the scariest thing they could think of, and what they came up with was the idea that there might be something growing inside their body that they have no control over. It’s doing these things and it will eventually come out of you,’ he said.
In the wake of the traumatic miscarriage, Alcott (played by Emma Roberts) suspects she is still pregnant, even as her husband and doctors continue to prompt her to think otherwise.
Valentine told DailyMail.com that “most of what you hear about miscarriage is how common it is, but you don’t hear as much about how horrible it is.”
Speaking of her own experience with pregnancy loss that resulted in an “hour-long” visit to the emergency room, Valentine remembers feeling totally unaware of the situation. ‘There was a complete two-day break where I didn’t really know what was going on in my own body’
“They basically just wrote a story about pregnancy.”
Delicate Condition follows 39-year-old actress Anna Alcott (played by Roberts), who is overjoyed to finally get pregnant after multiple rounds of IVF, before doctors announce that she has suffered another miscarriage.
The novel centers the actress’s struggle to strike 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 preventing her from successfully becoming pregnant.
After the traumatic miscarriage, Anna suspects she is still pregnant, even as her husband and doctors continue to prompt her to think otherwise.
The story delves into the realm of the supernatural, but it is the real-life horrors that resonate the loudest.
Valentine says the heartbreaking miscarriage scene was “quite removed” from earlier drafts, which at one point had the sequence worked out over 20 pages.
Delicate Condition wasn’t Valentine’s first book choice, but it is her first book to become such a big show.
“When they told me it was Ryan Murphy (director and producer), it was an incredible dream come true.”
While the author hasn’t participated in season 12 of American Horror Story, she says, “It’s been so much fun to watch, I’ve been a total fan the whole time.”