The Gifts of Our Mothers
Hazel Black
(The Witches of Auburn, #1)
Publication date: October 2nd 2017
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult
In the dark woods I’m forbidden to go into, lying on top of the one person I swore I’d stay away from, and hiding from the men who chased him, I hold still as Ike Kennedy whispers in my ear, “Don’t leave me.”
The questions of why my mother packed up our lives and moved us to Auburn, New Jersey when she, herself, fled here twenty years ago, plague me every day. Her past and the people in this town loom over our family with a haunting understanding of the coven I was born into, but realize I know nothing about. The enemies I heard stories about as a child attack without warning or regard for human life, but I don’t know who they are.
I’m Ever Ayars. I can fly. I can disappear. I can move things with my mind, but my gifts are my only clarity. Lost within a new school, new friends, and a new life, there is only one thing I know for sure.
I’m not leaving Ike Kennedy.
Guest
Post:
How
do you select the names of your characters?
I feel like “select” is too simple a term. I
literally dwell on character names as if I’m giving birth to the people in my
stories. The very first character I wrote about, Charlotte O’Brien, was first
named Kathryn then Adrianna and finally, after months of consideration, Charlotte.
I was standing near a fireplace at a Halloween party dressed in my spider
costume, and my neighbor kept yelling “Charlotte” at me from across the room.
It was perfect.
As for the witches, I have charts and lists,
notecards and scraps of paper everywhere with names scribbled across them. I
have tortured my closest friends with the witches’ names. I think we’ve finally settled on these glorious
women’s identities. I hope, since they’re now out in the world.
I’m known for including the names of people I personally
know in my manuscripts. Until the witches, they were always random mentions,
never a main character. The security guard, the guy you meet at a party, the
cab driver. The characters that need a name, but you might never hear from them
again after that one scene in the story. These names I pull from different parts
of my life. For FULL SHARE, a story written about a young insurance claim
representative, you’ll find many of the names of people I worked with during my
own tour of duty as a claim rep. For THE WITCHES OF AUBURN, who are either
alumni or students at the high school I attended, you’ll find a lot of the
teachers’ names that came right from my yearbook.
Naming characters is fun. Except for the evil villains.
What name should you choose then? Will it be the name of a reader’s daughter?
Their dog? For MY NAME IS NOT ISLA, I had this clever name for one of the
disturbed characters—there were a few in that book. The name was a nod to the character’s
representation of all mankind with its insatiable need for celebrity secrets,
but when I let my friend read a copy pre-release she was like, “Why does his
last name have to be mine?” That was the first time the coincidence struck me.
All characters are a challenge to name, but the
unsavory ones are almost impossible. That’s why, in the witches, I started to
play with words. An evil witch is named Emily Rottingham. (See what I did
there?”)
Author Bio:
Hazel Black graduated from Rutgers University and returned to her hometown in rural South Jersey. Her mother encouraged her to take some time and find herself. After three months of searching, she began to bounce checks, her neighbors began to talk, and her mother told her to find a job.
She settled into corporate America, learning systems and practices and the bureaucracy that slows them. Hazel quickly discovered her creativity and gift for story telling as a corporate trainer and spent years perfecting her presentation skills and studying diversity. It was during this time she became an avid observer of the characters she met and the heartaches they endured. Her years of study taught her that laughter, even the completely inappropriate kind, was the key to survival.
She currently lives in New Jersey with her family and a misbehaving beagle named Odin. As an avid swimmer, if Hazel is not with her family and friends, she’d rather be underwater. While she enjoys many genres, she is, and always has been, a sucker for a love story…the more screwed up the better.
Hazel Black writes contemporary romance as Eliza Freed. To keep up with all new releases and giveaways, sign up for her newsletter here.
1 comments:
Great post, ladies! Thanks for hosting today, Nancy! :)
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