I am very pleased to announce that I will release a young adult novel, CHANGELING, on August 22, 2018. It will be available in ebook, audio and print-on-demand, wherever books are sold.
If 14-year-old Cassandra Reed makes it through her first day at Miss Castwell’s Institute for the Magical Instruction of Young Ladies without anyone discovering her secret, maybe, just maybe, she’ll let herself believe that she really does belong at Miss Castwell’s.
Except Cassandra Reed’s real name is Sarah Brown and up until now, she lived her whole life in the Warren, serving a magical family, the Winters, as all non-magical “Snipes” are bound by magical Guardian law to do. That is, until one day, Sarah accidentally levitates Mrs. Winter’s favorite vase in the parlor to keep it from being broken.
But Snipes aren’t supposed to have magical powers…and the existence of a magical Snipe threatens the world order dictated during the Guardians’ Restoration years ago. If she wants to keep her family safe and protect her own skin, Sarah must figure out how to fit into posh Guardian society, master her newfound magical powers and discover the truth about how an ordinary girl can become magical.
It's taken more three years for CHANGELING to make it to print. I had the idea sometime in 2014, while driving from Paducah to Murray State University to meet a student who wanted to interview me about publishing for a class project. I was thinking about the Voldemort credo, "Magic is might,"and nuclear weaponry - as one does - and how magic was all well and good until your non-magical opposers had nuclear missiles and how magical people would feel watching the Industrial Revolution play out, how scary it would be realizing that the non-magicals were about to outpace them.
All I had in the car was a pen and a stack of Post-It notes, so every time I hit a red light, I scribbled furiously. By the time I met with the student, I had about 15 Post-Its filled with absolute non-sense. But somehow, I manage to interpret into the first two chapters of what would become CHANGELING when I got home. And then, I didn't do anything with it for a while, because new things are scary and I made excuses to myself about contract deadlines. So I puttered around with it in between projects but didn't make much progress. When I signed on with Natanya Wheeler of Nancy Yost Literary Agency, she asked if I had any unfinished projects. And I very reluctantly showed it to her while telling her I wasn't sure I would ever finish it because I didn't know anything about writing YA books.
To which Natanya responded, "Um, don't you have a teenage daughter?"
Feeling like a total idiot, I sat down to write a book that Darcy would want to read. I asked her lots of questions, sought her advice on story and heroes and magic. She doesn't get a co-writing credit, because she didn't put any words on paper, but she definitely helped produce the book.
Through countless revisions, re-imaginings and re-edits, Natanya Wheeler championed this book. Without her guidance, enthusiasm and hard work, it would never have made it to this stage.
CHANGELING is available for pre-order here:
Audible (coming soon)