• Thu. Mar 28th, 2024

North East Connected

Hopping Across The North East From Hub To Hub

Redcar writer takes us deep into Toxic City

In a post-apocalyptic world, the future of Val, the heroine from the imagination of Teesside writer Dangel Angello, comes to life in the first of her two volume masterpiece, Toxic City.

Dangel, the pen-name for Charlotte Teece, resides on the north coast of Redcar and has been writing since her early teens, creating worlds from inspiration garnered after reading science fiction as a child.

Her first taste came from the novella Z for Zachariah, as well as PC games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Fallout, places from which she builds so much of her world from.

Toxic City was the result of Charlotte being unable to find gritty sci-fi’s that air on the side of reality more than the Young Adult fiction she kept coming across.

Basically, she wrote the story she’d never been able to find.

“Val (Toxic City’s main character) is halfway towards fifteen, on the brink of adulthood when the story takes place,” began Charlotte.

“It’s in a part of her life where she’s finally found some stability after being a slave for nearly half of her life. But it wasn’t to last.

“This first volume in the series focuses on Val’s immediate struggles, whilst the second becomes more of a finisher.

“But I specifically wrote the first novel to be a stand-alone story.”

Charlotte came to the unusual pen name of Dangel Angello almost by accident, with Dangel being a name she’d seen growing up in the media, and Angello also striking a chord by a few Romanian fantasy poets as well as the artist Michelangelo.

“I also thought it detracted from my rather girly name, which I didn’t want to attribute to Toxic City because the story I wrote was meant to be as far from lovey-dovey as possible,” added Charlotte.

“There’s no space for romance in Val’s world, and I wanted this to be reflected.”

Alongside David & Kelly McCaffrey at Britain’s Next Bestseller publishers, Charlotte found the perfect mix with the Teesside duo, offering professionalism and a friendship, which gave Dangel the belief to go forward with Toxic City and put it into the public eye.

“It’s all down to them, they contacted me first,” Charlotte continued.

“David’s books are fantastic and he’s a great listener, and doesn’t push his opinions onto people. I trusted him almost immediately, even though he’d presented the idea of BNBS books before he ever owned it.

“I was dubious. But after he and Kelly took it over, and he said he wanted to give me my big break, I was buzzing.

“I’ve been writing for over half my life and always knew I’d land a publishing deal, just not with Toxic City as my debut novel. Honestly, I wrote it for me, but now that I can share it with the world, I couldn’t be happier.”

Toxic City is available now on kindle priced at 99p on launch day fromhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B078G97K85/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513596242&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=toxic+city+walks+in+the+mist, then £2.99 from December 20 before being available from amazon as paperback at £6.99 in the New Year.