Witch’s
Cursed Cabin
Coon
Hollow Coven Tales
Book
Two
Marsha
A. Moore
Genre: Paranormal romance
Date of Publication: 4-27-16
Number of pages: 380
Word Count: 111,000
Cover Artist: Marsha A. Moore
Book Description:
Eager to be on her own away from
home, twenty-year-old Aggie Anders accepts a relative’s invitation to live in
Coon Hollow Coven. Although she’s a witch from a different coven, what locals
say about the Hollow confuses her. How can witchcraft there live and breathe
through souls of the dead?
Aggie’s new residence in this
strange southern Indiana world is a deserted homestead cabin. The property’s
carriage house serves as the coven’s haunted Halloween fundraiser. It’s a great
opportunity for her to make new friends, especially with the coven’s sexy new
High Priest Logan.
But living in the homestead also
brings Aggie enemies. Outsiders aren’t welcome. A cantankerous, old neighbor
tries to frighten her off by warning her that the homestead is cursed. Local
witches who practice black magic attempt to use their evil to drive Aggie away
and rid their coven of her unusual powers as a sun witch.
Determined to stay and fit in,
Aggie discovers not only that the cabin is cursed, but she alone is destined to
break the curse before moonrise on Samhain. If she fails, neither the living
nor the dead will be safe.
About the Coon Hollow Coven Tales Series
The series is about a coven of
witches in a fictitious southern Indiana community, south of Bloomington, the
neck of the woods where I spent my favorite childhood years surrounded by the
love of a big family. The books are rich with a warm Hoosier down-home feel.
There are interesting interactions between coven members and locals from the
nearby small town of Bentbone. If magic wasn’t enough of a difference between
the two groups, the coven folk adhere to the 1930s lifestyle that existed when
the coven formed.
Book One
Excerpt
from Chapter One: The Homestead
A shove of my
shoulder pried the rusty hinges on the heavy log cabin door loose. I flung my
blond braid to my back and peered inside. Beings and critters, alive and furry
as well as undead and translucent, flew, crawled, or slithered across dark
recesses of the hallway, sitting room, and stairwell.
“You weren’t
kidding. This place is haunted.” I shuddered and looked over my shoulder at
Cerise. She looked perky as always with her dark bobbed hair and lively brown
eyes beneath horn-rimmed eyeglasses. “Were those things relations or varmints?”
I took a cautious step over the threshold to escape the blustery weather and
unbuttoned my corduroy jacket.
“Oh, both,
Aggie. Ghosts of witch kin and their talking animal familiars,” she said and
moved past me to lift sheets off the sitting room furniture.
I raised a brow,
curious about what talking familiars were but was too afraid to ask. She didn’t
seem to think they were bad, and I needed a place to stay.
Cerise dropped
the sheets in a pile and wiped her dusty hands on her skirt. “Those sorts of
ghosts are in all the homes here in Coon Hollow Coven. Maybe some animal
spirits, too, from the surrounding woods. This property has at least fifty
acres of forest. The ghosts are harmless, part of the family. At least no
neighbors have complained, that I’ve heard.”
Eyeing corners
of the parlor and the length of the hall, I wondered if I could ever get used
to living with ghosts of people who’d lived here before. In New Wish, Indiana,
where I’d spent my entire twenty years, we only had an occasional ghost.
Usually lost souls who, for some reason, hadn’t found their peace before death
took them. Most times, those folks had been tormented by darkness and
experimented with black magic while they’d lived. Or so Mom told me, but I
always thought that was just her way of keeping me in line.
I pushed those
thoughts out of my head. I wanted a place of my own more than anything else,
and not in the tiny town of New Wish where everyone knew me…or thought they
did. They all said I was the spitting image of my Aunt Faye, with the same
light blond straight hair, deep blue eyes, dark brows, and quiet personality.
Everyone thought I’d grow up to be like her with a houseful of kids, seven or
more. Fact was, they didn’t know me. I wasn’t sure I even knew myself. There
was so much I wanted to learn and do that wouldn’t happen if I stayed at my
parents’ home.
Cerise struggled
to open the stuck window. “Aggie, can you help me here? Some fresh air might
tempt a few spirits outside. This place has been vacant since my mother passed
in 2009. We might find just about anything in here after five years.”
About
the Author:
Marsha A. Moore loves to write
fantasy and paranormal romance. Much of her life feeds the creative flow she
uses to weave highly imaginative tales.
The magic of art and nature spark
life into her writing, as well as other pursuits of watercolor painting and
drawing. She’s been a yoga enthusiast for over a decade and is a registered
yoga teacher. Her practice helps weave the mystical into her writing. After a
move from Toledo to Tampa in 2008, she’s happily transformed into a Floridian,
in love with the outdoors where she’s always on the lookout for portals to
other worlds. Marsha is crazy about cycling. She lives with her husband on a
large saltwater lagoon, where taking her kayak out is a real treat. She never
has enough days spent at the beach, usually scribbling away at stories with
toes wiggling in the sand. Every day at the beach is magical!
Website: http://MarshaAMoore.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/MarshaAMoore
Google +: http://google.com/+MarshaAMoore
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/marshaamoore/
Amazon author page: www.amazon.com/author/marshaamoore
Interview
Where are
you from?
I live in Tampa, Florida and have for the past seven years.
Originally, I’m a Midwesterner, having lived in Indiana and Ohio for decades. In
fact, my Coon Hollow Coven series
is about a coven of witches in a fictitious southern Indiana community, south of Bloomington in Brown
County, the neck of the woods where I spent my favorite childhood years
surrounded by the love of a big family. The books are rich with a warm Hoosier
down-home feel. There are interesting interactions between coven members and
locals from the nearby small town of Bentbone. If magic wasn’t enough of a
difference between the two groups, the coven folk adhere to the 1930s lifestyle
that existed when the coven formed.
Tell us your
latest news?
Witch's Cursed Cabin, the second book in my Coon Hollow Coven Tales series has just
been released!
A note to
readers: although this is book 2, the series is written to be read in any
order. The series is about one community and its residents may pass in and out
of various books, but each book has its own unique and special story to be
told.
When and why did you begin writing?
I’ve followed a circuitous path to end up as a fiction
writer. I graduated with a degree in Biology, minoring in English. I wanted to
pursue Literature and Fine Art, but my parents encouraged me to study Biology,
so I might eventually find a reliable job. That was fine, since I liked that
subject also. I wrote essays as a fun break from my full load of Science. Yes,
weird that I thought writing essays was fun…still do!
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
With the publication of my first book six years ago.
What inspired you to write your first book?
Through the years, I picked up a hobby of writing music reviews
for record companies. During that time, I was inspired by some of those
experiences and tinkered with fiction. Initially, I wrote fiction based on the
world of rock music. Through a lucky happenstance, a man who worked for a major
book publishing house read my first attempts at fiction, which were posted on a
music forum. He repeatedly encouraged me to submit my creative writing to
publishers. Over time, I came to believe him and did. After that, a new world
opened up and it’s been a wonderful time.
Do you have
a specific writing style?
My process begins with a setting I find interesting,
somewhere I’d like to spend some time. In writing fantasy, world-building is
everything. Then, I create the main characters, appearance and personality.
From there, how they will become involved goes hand-in-hand with developing the
plot. I do outline a lot, since there are many interwoven subplots in this
series. Outside of the key features on the outline, I allow the in-between
progress in each chapter to flow freely, which I enjoy a lot. Some of the most
imaginative bits arise that way. I tend to write in extended spurts, immersing
myself in the story. Perhaps because I’m writing a very involved epic tale, I
need longer periods to keep the storylines straight. Or, it’s just more
enjoyable for me to feel like I’m in the world for several days—like on a
vacation!
How did you
come up with the title?
I struggle
with titles, jostling keywords around until I end up with something that sounds
good and will help readers know what the book is about. I create titles during
the planning stages before I write a book.
Is there a
message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
The driving theme
of Witch’s Cursed Cabin is the need
to belong. When the heroine, Aggie Angers, moves to Coon Hollow Coven she struggles
against being labeled an outsider. Some in the coven try to scare her away
because her magic is different than what witch’s use in the Hollow. Aggie’s
tough and determined to stay. It’s her first home of her own away from her
parents. But she learns that acceptance must be earned.
How much of
the book is realistic? Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in
your own life?
The series is about a coven
of witches in a fictitious southern Indiana community, south of Bloomington, the neck of the
woods where I spent my favorite childhood years surrounded by the love of a big
family. The books are rich with a warm Hoosier down-home feel, and many
characters remind me of my aunts and uncles.
While I’m not a practicing
witch, the magic in Witch’s Moonstone
Locket is a creative blend from my research and my imagination. In
preparing to write this book, I enjoyed learning about traditional witch and
wiccan lifestyles. My library grew so much that I had to clean out and
rearrange my office area!
What books
have most influenced your life most?
There are so many. Magical realism books like The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah
Addison Allen and Practical Magic and
The Green Witch by Alice Hoffman are
delicately woven with the most sparkling magic. Other books that captivate me
are Natasha Mostert’s Season of the Witch
and Erin Morgenstern’s Night Circus.
In both of those, magic caused mental effects for both the giver and receiver.
I enjoy the complexity of that theme and often employ it in my writing.
What book
are you reading now?
I’m reading the Wicked Lovely series by Melissa Marr
and Moonheart by Charles de Lint.
Loving both!
Are there
any new authors that have grasped your interest?
Paula Brackston
is a fairly new author who I love to read. The
Witch’s Daughter was amazing.
What are
your current projects?
I’m writing
the third book in the Coon Hollow Coven
Tales series, titled Blood Ice &
Oak Moon. This story is about a young woman, Esme, who returns to Coon
Hollow Coven at the age of twenty-seven. When she was a child, her mother
wanted to keep Esme from witchcraft and took them away. But her mother couldn’t
deny the warm relationship the girl formed with her Grammy Flora, a well-respected
hedge witch in the Hollow. When Grammy Flora passes away, she leaves her coven
property to Esme at a time she needs to escape problems and start a new life. Esme
works, best she can, as a hedge witch, who must rely on help from the hedge
world of faeries to find all the healing herbs she needs. The fae are shrewd
traders. When they open their world to Esme, she’s expected to face the darkness
her mother ran from. But if Esme can meet those dangers, the king of the Winter
Court will give her a wonderful gift that will change her life…just what she
needed to find when she returned to the Hollow.
What would
you like my readers to know?
I love
hearing from my readers. I’m happy to talk with them in any social media or
through email.
Thanks for interviewing me today!
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