Wandering Thoughts of a Writer: witch

Showing posts with label witch. Show all posts

HOW FAR INTO THE HOLLOW WILL YOU GO?

I love everything that comes with being published – the book signings, the blog interviews, the swag… I’ve never been so excited about buying a bookmark before. I also love hearing from the readers of ESCAPE FROM WITCHWOOD HOLLOW, and a few people asked me how Leon got the handgun. I would hate to disappoint the fans, so I wrote a bonus scene where Leon meets the weapon. You can access it here: http://www.jordanelizabethmierek.com/novels.html

There’s more than just a bonus scene on the website. Check out contests, book signings, future books, and feel free to drop me a line. Your suggestion might be the next bonus scene! Signed copies of my books are available by request. They make great holiday gifts. Yes, I’m winking at you.

Everyone in Arnn – a small farming town with more legends than residents – knows the story of Witchwood Hollow: if you venture into the whispering forest, the witch will trap your soul among the shadowed trees.

After losing her parents in a horrific terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, fifteen-year-old Honoria and her older brother escape New York City to Arnn. In the lure of that perpetual darkness, Honoria finds hope, when she should be afraid.

Perhaps the witch can reunite her with her lost parents. Awakening the witch, however, brings more than salvation from mourning, for Honoria discovers a past of missing children and broken promises.

To save the citizens of Arnn from becoming the witch’s next victims, she must find the truth behind the woman’s madness.

How deep into Witchwood Hollow does Honoria dare venture?

Jordan Elizabeth, formally Jordan Elizabeth Mierek, is the author of young adult fantasy ESCAPE FROM WITCHWOOD HOLLOW and contributing author for GEARS OF BRASS, both available from Curiosity Quills Press. Her next books, TREASURE DARKLY and BORN OF TREASURE, arrive in 2015. She is represented by Belcastro Agency.

No new bonus scene would be complete with a contest. Win this chilling keychain and ask yourself how deep into the hollow you will go.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

#giveaway, broken promises, discovery, fantasy, forest, hope, madness, witch, 0 Comments

How far into the hollow would you go?

“After losing her parents in a terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, fifteen-year-old Honoria escapes New York City to Arnn—a farming town with more legends than residents, and a history of witchcraft and secrets best left buried.

Everyone in Arnn knows the story of Witchwood Hollow: if you venture into the whispering forest, the witch will trap your soul among the shadowed trees. In the lure of that perpetual darkness, Honoria finds hope when she should be afraid, and a past of missing children and broken promises. To save the citizens of Arnn from becoming the witch’s next victims, she must find the truth behind the woman’s madness. How deep into Witchwood Hollow does Honoria dare venture?”

ESCAPE FROM WITCHWOOD HOLLOW is Jordan Elizabeth’s first novel. This young adult fantasy, published through Curiosity Quills Press, is now available for purchase.

https://curiosityquills.com/books/escape-witchwood-hollow/

Jordan Elizabeth, formally Jordan Elizabeth Mierek, can’t get enough of the woods, be it splashing through a stream, sitting beneath an ancient oak, or following a path up a hill. Some of those adventures have led to abandoned foundations. Exploring the rocks and crumbling bricks sparked Jordan to imagine who might have lived there before, and that train of thought carried her to a wicked legend and an enchanted hollow. You can contact Jordan via her website, JordanElizabethMierek.com.

Excerpt from

ESCAPE FROM WITCHWOOD HOLLOW

Two miles from Honoria’s stone house, they stopped the four-wheelers beside a crop of forest.

Harley removed her helmet and shook out her short ponytail. “Welcome to Witchwood Hollow.”

“Enter if you want to doom your soul.” Amanda cackled a laugh.

“This place?” Honoria swung off the ATV. The dark trees resembled the other woodlands they’d passed along the road. The two girls had be playing an elaborate joke. Maybe they would include her when they did the same to the next new student.

“How far do you dare go in?” Amanda set her helmet on the seat behind her.

Honoria walked to where weeds and ferns grew over the ditch. They seemed to wave her in as the wind stirred them. “So, I walk in and this witch grabs me?”

“And doesn’t let you out,” Harley added.

Amanda whistled. “Spooky.”

Honoria drew a deep breath. No more going day by day, seeing what happened next. She would make it in. She would live.

She’d come this far.

She picked her way through the vegetation. Briars caught on her jeans. Go back, they seemed to say, or we will prick your heart. A sweet, earthy scent tickled her nose. Stepping deeper into the woods, autumn leaves created a shield around her as damp soil sucked at the soles of her sneakers. The darkness became an envelope and she the letter, seeking a destination she couldn’t foresee.

“Hey.” Amanda’s call pierced her mind.

Honoria stumbled, grabbing a thin tree for support, and glanced back. The road peeped at her through the trunks and bushes. Did I really walk all this way without realizing it?

Something beckoned her on, a silent call. Once she reached it, she would be complete. All her fantasies would greet her.

“Wow, you are tough.” Harley’s laugh sounded too shrill.

“Come on out.” Amanda’s voice wavered.

“I will,” Honoria whispered. “Just a little further.”

The beckon soaked through her skin into her nerves, mingling with the blood in her veins. The gentle call caressed her ears.

“Honoria, come to me….”

She pushed through the trees at a run, heading deeper into the darkness.

“Keep coming, Honoria. Come to me faster.”

“I’m coming.” The darkness slipped by her as though she parted a cloak. The folds would close and that warmth would seal her inside.

Jordan Elizabeth is offering up a free eArc of ESCAPE FROM WITCHWOOD HOLLOW. To enter for your chance to win a copy of ESCAPE FROM WITCHWOOD HOLLOW, you will need to share the cover. This can be on your blog, Facebook, Twitter… Each time you share the cover image, log it into Rafflecoper to record it. It will give you more chances to win. There are other ways to enter. You’ll have to take a look to see what those are! The drawing for the winner will be held on November 16.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

blog tour, fantasy, giveaway, Legends, mystery, secrets, witch, Witchcraft, YA, 0 Comments

Summary from Amazon.com

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.

Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.
　
I give this book 3 stars
　
I’ve been wanting to read Beautiful Creatures for a while now and finally broke down and bought it.

The setting of the story is in Gatlin, South Carolina. I love the opening line. Kami and Margaret did a wonderful job hooking the reader.

Sixteen-year-old Ethan Wate was the main character in this story, told in his point-of-view. I liked his character because he was a good person. His mom had recently died and I felt bad for him because his heart ached for her.

The story began with Ethan having dreams about a girl. He was free falling in the air, in a black hole made of mud. A girl called to him, falling as well. Ethan clawed at the mud, trying to catch her, but she slipped through his fingers. He could smell her: lemons and rosemary. And he felt like he couldn’t live without her. When he awoke with a start, a weird song played on his iPod. The lyrics started out as sixteen moons and sixteen years. He thought he’d heard it before, though, he didn’t know where. When he yanked the covers back, he discovered dirt in his bed, and his finger nails were caked with mud, just like the last time he had the dream. Of course, he stripped his bed and stuffed the dirty linen in a hamper to hide it from Amma.

Amma was the housekeeper who not only helped raise Ethan but his dad as well. She was the authority figure in the household and one of my favorite characters. Think aunt Be with a southern attitude, superstitious, and a Seer. Amma made charms and would stick them in the windowsills to ward off evil spirits. She made little dolls and placed them in drawers. She also did tarot card readings. So it took me by surprise when she didn’t question the dirty sheets, and Ethan wasn’t freaked out enough about his dream to have shared it with Amma, knowing she would have believed him. But as a reader, curious about the overall story, I overlooked it.

Link (Wesley Jefferson Lincoln) was Ethan’s best friend. I liked his character as well. He was a true friend and always had Ethan’s back.

As the story rolled forward, I became annoyed with the repetition of Ethan saying nothing ever changed in Gatlin and how he desperately wanted to leave. Mentioning it once was enough. Twice, I could pardon it. But three or more times . . . nerve grating.

Lena Duchannes was the new girl, the girl in Ethan’s dreams, smelling of lemons and rosemary. She stuck out like a sore thumb among their classmates. Gatlin rarely had new comers in their small town, which automatically made her an outcast. She wore the wrong clothes and was Old Man Macon Ravenwood’s (the town’s recluse who lived in Gatlins’ oldest plantation) niece. She drove a hearse, adding to her reputation as being the niece of the town’s freak. But despite his peers shunning Lena, Ethan found himself drawn to her. While at school, Ethan heard her play on a violin the same song he heard on his iPod, and he smelled lemon and rosemary. He knew then Lena was the girl in his dreams. Not only that, they suddenly were able to talk to each other telepathically ( kelting–an unspoken word of communication), which I thought added a cool twist to the story.

Ethan and Lena hooked up. Of course, she tried to push him away several times, using mysterious excuses on why Ethan would be better off without her. But he wouldn’t give up on her, and then finally Lena opened herself and her world to him.

She was a Caster (a.k.a. witch). On her sixteenth birthday, under the moon, there would be a Claiming. Her family was cursed, and Lena could turn dark or light on that fateful night. Her path would be chosen for her. If she turned dark, she’d become a different person. Turning into a heartless, evil person was what Lena feared the most, so she and Ethan went searching for answers on how to break the curse.

As the story progressed, so did the enchanting world of Lena’s life. I found it distracting because there was too much magic going on. It reminded me of watching a movie overwhelmed with special effects, stealing the heart of the story. Also, Lena’s cousin, Ridley, who was dark, had me rolling my eyes. Not because her character was under developed. Kami and Margaret did a fine job creating Ridley’s character. However, I thought it was cheesy Ridley would carry a red lollipop with her and ever time she would lick and suck it, mortals would do her bidding. But other than that, she was a great addition to the cast.

I didn’t care for how some of the scenes were cut short, as if you were talking to somebody on a cell phone, and then the line would disconnect in the middle of the conversation. And then there were other scenes that bled together and became sort of confusing. I think they should have been given their own stage to shine. Or, flowed together more smoothly.

But despite those flaws, I think this was a good story for being Kami and Margaret’s first novel. And although this 563-page book could have been shorter, I appreciated the author’s hard work.

book review, caster, curse, magic, South Carolina, witch, 0 Comments

Yay! I was finally able to get on Blogger tonight. I don’t know what happened, but I’m so glad it’s working now. :)

Oh! Have you guys ever heard of the ‘walking taco?’ It’s one of the coolest ideas ever. You take a grab bag of Doritos, crunch the bottom of the bag up with your hand, cut the top of the bag off, put lettuces, taco meat, onions, taco sauce, black olives, tomatoes, and cheese on it. And then you get a fork and can walk around with it without having mess.

Pretty cool, huh?

I never heard of a ‘walking taco’ until we moved here to North Dakota.

Now, moving on to what I had planned to post yesterday . . .

As most of you know, I grew up in a family that dealt with the paranormal, and although my parents had gone their separate ways when I was eight, the paranormal world still remained a constant in our household. I have no doubt in my mind that is why I love writing and talking about the supernatural world. And what is cool is, I can take my experiences and weave it into my stories. It’s kind of comical though, I fell in love and married a person who is totally not into this type of thing. It’s not like Kevin doesn’t believe in this stuff, but his argument is this: why go there? There’s too much going on in this world, and if we were to focus our energy on the supernatural world, we could easily slip into Peter Pan land and would want to stay there because it would be much more interesting than the mundaneness of our daily life.

True. I can understand that, however, my comeback to his argument is this: if you’re a logical, levelheaded person who can still live your daily life and not fall into the trap or allow your mind to be easily swayed into living a hocus pocus life, then why not? But what I appreciate about Kevin is he doesn’t expect me to mold my ideas and beliefs to his. He doesn’t want me to, which is a good thing because there’s no way I would anyway, and he respects the fact I’m my own person. Granted, it would be awesome if he were into it, but I could understand his beef about it.

Anyway, I ran across this video of a shadow person or spirit and wanted to share it with you. When I was very young, we lived in a house that was haunted. I remember this one night, I went into my sister’s room and crawled into her bed. She asked me what was wrong, and I told her I saw a witch. Before I had done that, my sister had seen a shadowy figure go down the hallway towards my room. Of course, being as young as I was, for some reason I thought it was a witch. Maybe because I used to have the same dream over and over again of being in the woods and seeing a figure wearing a cloak, beckoning me towards it.

Weird, right?

So check out this video. I had to post the link because the video won't post here.

http://dai.ly/a4kdxk

So what do you think? I know a lot of videos tend to be bogus, however, this one reminded me of the shadowy figure in our house, and of other ones I've seen throughout my life. I could even go as far as to say it was a dark spirit from my Beyond the Eyes series. But there's more to it than that, and those who have already read my book know what I'm talking about.

*grins*

Talk to ya later.

*waves*