Take Five and Meet Author Aileen Harkwood

Today I have the pleasure of introducing Aileen Harkwood. 

Who can resist a wedding with a bit of magic?  Not me.

And wait until you read her advice to writers.  Spot on!

Welcome to An Indie Adventure, Aileen.  Tell us, what inspired you to write your book, The Last Wedding at Drayhome?

It started with a box set I organized, MagicalWeddings: 15 Enchanting Romances, which was released this June. Here I was, spending the first half of the year coordinating stories from 14 other writers, each centered around a wedding that was either magical or felt like magic to the bride and groom, when I realized if I didn’t get cracking and write, I’d be the only one without a story in the set!

I’d recently finished the first novel in a series of five about Breens Mist, Oregon, a fictional town filled with witches and warlocks, whom the human inhabitants don’t know live amongst them. Breens is an odd place governed by something known as “place magic,” which determines what witches and warlocks can and can’t do. It gives them their gifts, but at the same time exerts near total control over their lives.

For instance, instead of a witch and a warlock falling in love and deciding to wed, the place magic creates a spell announcing a wedding will take place within the week. Just one catch, no one knows until the very moment the wedding starts who will marry, not even the bride and groom themselves.

I loved the idea and wanted to play with it, and that was the inspiration behind The Last Wedding at Drayhome.

Have you been a lifelong reader of (fill in your genre)?  What are some the first books you remember reading?

Life long. My mother tells me I learned to read at either three or four and that my earliest books were probably Dr. Seuss, though the first one I remember loving was Three Little Horses, about three horses who go from living in a meadow to living in a castle as princesses. By the time I was in kindergarten I was reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and in first grade I became fixated on the history of the Salem Witch Trials. Whenever we had a chance to go to the school library I searched for anything I could find about them.

What do you do to rev your creative juices?

Like a lot of writers, I use music. Whenever I begin a new story, I’ll find one special piece, or maybe two, on YouTube. I wrote The Last Wedding at Drayhome listening to a continuous loop of Aniron by Enya.

What would be your advice to people who are considering a writing career?

Don’t. Don’t make it a career. Write because you want to write and can’t imagine not writing. Write what you want to write. Don’t try to guess at the market because it changes lightning quick. You will never catch it, only follow. If you’re writing what you want, and you’re lucky—not everyone is, I don’t fall into that category yet—the career part will find you.

You’re having a dinner party.  What character from your novel do you hope doesn’t show up?   Why?

The High Priest from Drayhome. Horrible person. Imagine the worst politician you can think of and now give him magic. Not someone you’d relish spending an evening chatting up.

Give us a brief summary of The Last Wedding at Drayhome:

Every witch and warlock in Breens Mist, Oregon has one main talent that guides their destiny. Colleen McColly’s gift is to be caretaker and voice for Drayhome, a magical estate with a mind of its own. Sent under the guise of helping to prepare for a wedding, warlock Terry “Ax” Paxton has orders to evict Colleen, and end Drayhome’s century-plus-reign as the heart and soul of Breens Mist. It’s a duty against which Ax rebels, not just because it’s wrong, but because he and Colleen have a connection of their own, raw, passionate and too many years denied.

Buy Links:

Amazon US |Amazon UK | Amazon CA

(The set is currently at all major retailers, but as of August 27^th will be available on Amazon only. We are enrolling it in Kindle Unlimited, so readers who belong to that program have the option of borrowing or purchasing the set.)

Bio:

Aileen Harkwood is a Readers’ Crown finalist for Paranormal Romance and recent Top 100 Most Popular Paranormal Author on Amazon. The Last Wedding at Drayhome is the prequel to Spell Touched and Wedding Spell, first of the Breens Mist Witches series, due out this fall and early next spring. Her other books include Dangerous Dreams, Sapphire Ridge and Wolf’s Den. Sign up for her newsletter to receive sneak peaks of upcoming releases.

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