My New Novel

I am dedicating this post to what I have been consumed with over the last week. I have finally found the bones of my new novel and have started constructing the characters, setting, and plot while researching the local history of my hometown. The history and facts surrounding the witch trials of 1618 will form my story’s main plot and twists, but I will develop fictional characters, themes, and tensions that will hopefully add to creating an engaging read.

I love writing historical fiction and blending the truth and facts of a historical event with my own ideas and fictional characters – it is truly exciting. This novel will be the prequel to The Last Coven and is set 30 years before in the neighbouring town of Irrvin. Where the abbey was a vital feature of The Last Coven, the Toll Booth and The Old Kirk will be critical aspects of A Coven Lost. Some of the coven sisters the reader came to know and love in the first novel will be featured in the prequel, albeit a good bit younger.

The Last Coven followed the lives of the coven sisters with a particular focus on the Swan sisters, Cassandra and Lydia, and their niece, Aradia. The third sister, Emily, Aradia’s mother, we discover had died alongside Aradia’s father in the first book and in the prequel; we are transported to 1618 and come to know Emily, who is eighteen. She engages in her coven initiations whilst Thomas, Aradia’s father, also a coven member, desperately tries to get Emily’s father’s blessing so he can marry her. This is where the prequel is quite different from the first book, The Last Coven, in that the coven members are all female. In A Coven Lost, we can experience a coven comprising female and male members.

As we discover a dark secret, there will be many twists and turns, tensions and exciting dialogue. The Triquetra Coven is the most revered and respected in Scotland. Coven leader Margaret Barclay has a vision for her coven; she believes it can become the most powerful of its kind as she endeavours to push her members to hone and develop their many gifts and talents.

Emily and Thomas, newly initiated and soon to be married, want a different future for their coven. They wish to see it accepted in society and no longer hidden on the periphery, shielded from those in the community they could help. But trouble awaits, as Margaret and her closest allies begin a journey of retribution to avenge a slight made against the coven leader as a twisted and dark choice is made which could bring the coven and its members one step closer to being discovered by the church.

As the clergy close in and the selfish decision to seek justice is uncovered, can the coven survive what is coming? This historical novel blends fact with fiction and seamlessly bridges the gap between both books; the reader finally learns about the events that caused upset and the decades-long turmoil that brought The Triquetra Coven to its knees 30 years later in The Last Coven.

I am enjoying the process of researching, writing, and building my story. Already 15,000 words into the prequel, I feel the words are flowing, and the novel is beginning to take shape. This post has been a nice break from the book, but I feel it calling. My words are needed as the ideas continue to flow into my mind. I hope you enjoyed this overview of my work in progress. If you wish to check out the first book, please see the link below.

The Last Coven

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