Good morning, squiders! I’ve got a guest post today from Kirsten Weiss, who is promoting her new paranormal mystery, Legacy of the Witch!
GENRE: paranormal women’s fiction mystery
BLURB:
Seeker: As societies grow increasingly fragmented, hopelessness, nihilism, and division are on the rise. But there is another way—a way of mystery and magic, of wholeness and transformation. Do you dare take the first step? Our path is not for the faint-hearted, but for seekers of ancient truths…
All April wants is to start over after her husband’s sudden death. She’s conjuring a new path—finally getting her degree and planning her new business in bucolic Pennsylvania Dutch country. Joining an online mystery school seems like harmless fun.
But when a murdered man leaves her a cryptic message, she catches glimpses of another reality she’s unwilling to acknowledge. A reality where bygone enchantments cast cryptic shadows, and the present brims with unanswered questions.
As April works to unearth the mystery, every step brings her closer to a truth she’s been evading. And to a conspiracy of hexes that may end in her demise.
Legacy of the Witch is a spellbinding, interactive tale of a woman’s midlife quest to understand the complexities of her own heart. A paranormal women’s fiction murder mystery for anyone who’s wondered if there might be more to their own life than meets the eye…
Book 1 in the new Mystery School Series featuring the UnTarot, a deck of cards for meaning making. Start reading now!
UnTarot deck app included!
EXCERPT:
Of all the life-ruining mistakes I’d ever made, being late was not going to be one of them.
I double checked the campus map. My advisor’s office should have been directly ahead of me. Instead, there was a wide swathe of grass dotted with crimson leaves and way-too-young students.
At least they seemed too young to me. They had to be too young, because the alternative was that at forty-seven, I was too old. Too old to start over. Too old to rid myself of my growing collection of ghosts. Too old to get a degree. Too old to use that degree as a springboard for my dream business and dream life and dream whatever the hell I was doing.
But I couldn’t think that way. I had to have hope or I’d be stuck in the purgatory of widowhood.
I crumpled the campus map in my gloved hand. What was I doing? Everything was shifting—inside and out, above and below, and—
GUEST POST:
Inspiration for Legacy of the Witch
For at least a year I’d been planning a spin-off to my Doyle Witch series. In the last (?) Doyle Witch novel, the witches created a mystery school. I thought it would be fun to use that school as a platform for future witch mystery novels, featuring different students as amateur witch detectives.
Mystery schools have existed at least since the ancient Greeks. The aim of these schools seems to have been the pursuit of enlightenment – a deeper understanding of our existence and our place in the universe. Initiates delved into subjects like metaphysics, alchemy, and Tarot to unlock the hidden truths within ourselves.
It made sense to use the spiritual quest in the mystery school as a vehicle to highlight the heroine’s character arc and inner growth. I also wanted the story structure to be a bit more experimental in nature, including emails and assignments based on the mystery school’s UnTarot deck, so readers could “participate” in the assignments, if they wanted.
On top of all of that, I’d long dreamed of setting a witchy murder mystery in Pennsylvania Dutch country. The Penn Dutch have their own form of folk magic called Braucherei (or Powwow). I heard a little about it from my father, who was Penn Dutch, but not enough to base a story on.
Fortunately, a professor in the region, Patrick Donmoyer, has done extensive research on the practice. I had to mail order his book, Powwowing in Pennsylvania, and I relied on it heavily when I described the heroine’s encounter with the Braucher. I love it when I can justify buying a book on magic for work!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
I believe in free-will, and that we all can make a difference. I believe that beauty blossoms in the conscious life, particularly with friends, family, and strangers. I believe that genre fiction has become generic, and it doesn’t have to be.
My current focus is my new Mystery School series, starting with Legacy of the Witch. Traditionally, women’s fiction refers to fiction where a woman—usually in her midlife—is going through some sort of dramatic change. A lot of us do go through big transitions in midlife. We get divorced or remarried. The kids leave the nest. Our bodies change. The midlife crisis is real—though it manifests in different ways—as we look back on where we’ve been, where we’re going, and the time we have left.
Now in my mid-fifties, I’ve spent more time thinking about the big “meaning of life” issues. It seemed like approaching those issues through witch fiction, and through a fictional mystery school, would be a fun and a useful way for me to work out some of these ideas in my own head—about change and letting go, faith and fear, and love and longing.
After growing up on a diet of Nancy Drew, Sherlock Holmes, and Agatha Christie, I’ve published over 60 mysteries—from cozies to supernatural suspense, as well as an experimental fiction book on Tarot. Spending over 20 years working overseas in international development, I learned that perception is not reality, and things are often not what they seem—for better or worse.
There isn’t a winter holiday or a type of chocolate I don’t love, and some of my best friends are fictional.
https://www.facebook.com/metaphysicaldetective
http://www.twitter.com/kirstenweiss
Kirsten is also giving away a $10 gift card.
a Rafflecopter giveawayThanks, squiders! See you later!
