LEGACY OF THE WITCH
Kirsten Weiss
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GENRE: paranormal women's fiction mystery
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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!
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Excerpt
Three:
And there was someone inside the yellow coat. A
silver-haired man.
For a moment I thought it was a bad joke, he wasn’t real.
Then, heart banging, I hopped over the stone ledge.
Heedless of the brambles tugging at my clothes, of the muck
squelching beneath my shoes, I stumbled to the supine man. He lay staring with
one broad hand pressed to his chest. Blood stained his neck and pooled in the
hollows around him.
“Oh my God,” I breathed, fumbling for the phone in my jacket
pocket.
His head turned toward me, and I yelped.
I dropped to my knees beside him. “You’re alive. It’s okay.
I’m calling for help now.” What had happened to him? Had he tripped and fallen?
But what had he been doing in the circle?
“Can you put pressure on the wound?” I asked. If he
couldn’t, I’d need to. I’d need a cloth, something to staunch the flow.
But first, help. Hands shaking, I called 9-1-1.
He lifted a hand and pointed toward the trees. “Look
beneath,” he whispered. “The brotherhood.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m calling now.” I pressed the phone
to my ear. “I’m calling...” My voice faded.
His blue eyes grew as cold and impersonal as the Atlantic,
and he stared without seeing at the sky. A thick dullness fogged my chest. I
was too late. He was dead.
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Plotting Legacy of the Witch
Plotting a mystery novel,
especially one with a magical and romantic subplot, can get tricky. Not only do
you have to plant red herrings and misdirections, but you have to build a
believable romance and somehow tie the magical subplot to the main plot AND the
romance. There are a lot of threads to keep untangled.
My challenge is that I’m not
what they call a “plotter.” I don’t outline intricate plots upfront. So once I
got the idea for Legacy of the Witch, I started with the characters. Who are
they? What drives them? What emotional wounds will they have to overcome? Then
I roughly plotted the mystery—whodunit, how and why? Once I understand all of
that, it’s much easier to plant clues and to figure out how the characters will
behave. Gradually, the outline gets denser. I plot the points in the
romance—the moment the hero and heroine meet. The points where the emotional
and physical attraction begin to grow. And then I sketch out the final scene
where the heroine confronts the bad guy.
If it sounds like there’s a
lot missing in there—there is! I usually only plot the first ten chapters plus
the ending, and then I start writing. As I wrote Legacy of the Witch and
built a better understanding of the characters and the magical world of Penn
Dutch country, I plotted forward. And… I confess, I frequently had to go back!
Because alongside all of that, my heroine, April was receiving emails from a
mystery school with messages and witchy exercises that reflected the challenges
she was dealing with. In some cases, I had those messages plotted out. Others I
had to add in after the fact.
My style of “plotting” would
probably drive other writers crazy, but my mad method works for me. 😉
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
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.
http://www.kirstenweiss.com
https://www.facebook.com/metaphysicaldetective/
http://www.twitter.com/kirstenweiss
https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Witch-Paranormal-Fiction-Mystery-ebook/dp/B0CH3T41JS/ref=sr_1_1
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GIVEAWAY
Kirsten
Weiss will award a $10 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
