Legacy of the Witch Guest Post #GoddessFish

 

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

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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Guest Post

I don't want the characters in my head to behave. I want them to be so in character that they know exactly what to do and how to do it, even when I consciously don't.

Maybe that's just the way my mind works because I'm neither a pantser, who free-writes a story, nor a plotter, who knows exactly what's going to happen in each scene before sitting down to write. Instead, I'm somewhere in between. I have a loose plot, giving myself room for inspiration as I go. 

However, one thing I do before sitting down is go deep into the character's personality and emotional wounds. That way, I have a better sense of how they'll act, because in fiction and on screen, personality IS action. It's what we do and what we say, even if our internal monologues run contrary to those actions.

I believe people buy a book for the story and emotional tone, but they stay for the characters. Fans have told me they've re-read my mysteries, which surprised me. After all, once you've read it, you know whodunit. But I think what keeps readers coming back is revisiting characters they enjoy spending time with. Character matters.

So if a character is doing something unexpected, it either means I've done a really good job figuring them out and my subconscious is letting them do their thing. The alternative is that I don't know the character well enough, and this is a warning that I need to take another look at what I've written and who I think they are. Either is a win. Either I'm on target, or I've received a heads-up that something needs to change.

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 INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

Kirsten Weiss will award a $10 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway