Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I grew up in rural Ontario but drove West twenty years ago seeking a milder climate. I now live in an ecovillage in a small rural community east of Vancouver, B.C. with my beautiful yellow lab and write under the name W. L. Hawkin which stands for Wendy Louise. Over the years, I’ve written eight novels. I started Indie publishing the Hollystone Mysteries in 2010 and there are now four in the series.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
I just released To Kill a King—book four in the Hollystone Mysteries series—on March 21, 2021. Since it’s the fourth book, I need to tell you a little bit about the first three. The books are standalones but follow in sequence so it’s a richer experience to know something about what went before.
The series revolves around a Vancouver Wicca coven who solve murders using ritual magic and a little help from the gods. The main protagonist, Estrada, is a free-spirited polyamorous magician and also high priest of the coven. I realized after writing the fourth book that in each tale, Estrada grows as a person and travels somewhere to save someone he cares about.
In To Charm a Killer, a serial killer is abducting witches and the coven spins a charm to catch him before he can do anymore harm. But spells create ripples. A teenage girl gets caught up in the charm and everyone starts misbehaving. Estrada travels to Ireland to save the girl and makes a startling discovery.
In To Sleep with Stones, Dylan McBride, another coven member is arrested for murder while working on an archaeological dig in Scotland with Sorcha O’Hallorhan. Dylan calls on Estrada to find the real killer and get him out of prison. But, while Estrada’s in Scotland helping Dylan, his lover, Michael Stryker, gets targeted by a vampire and makes a mistake that propels us into book three, To Render a Raven. When the vampire steals Estrada’s baby on the eve of her first birthday, the coven travel up the BC coast by yacht to rescue her.
To Kill a King spins off To Sleep with Stones. Sorcha, who headed the archaeological dig in Scotland is given a gift by a god—she can go anywhere to any time and place she desires. Well, when she was fourteen, Sorcha saw Old Croghan Man’s remains in the National Museum in Ireland. His torso had been dug from a bog in the Irish Midlands. Sorcha has the gift of psychometry and when she touched the metal on his leather armband she saw his face, fell in love, and decided to become an archaeologist. So, the god takes her to Iron Age Ireland to meet the man she once envisioned. Knowing he will be ritually murdered and thrown in the bog to cure for two thousand years, Sorcha determines to save the bog man from his fate. When Estrada discovers that Sorcha is stranded in Iron Age Ireland with Celtic Druids, he and Dylan demand that the god send them there so they can rescue her. It’s a romantic, prehistoric, time-travel thriller.
I saw photographs of Old Croghan Man in a National Geographic and was immediately struck by the artifact—he was 6’6″, in his mid-twenties, had manicured nails, and was perfectly preserved, except only his torso, arms, and fists were unearthed. The rest of him has yet to be discovered. Since he’d been ritually murdered, I wanted to make his life and death meaningful. I traveled alone to Ireland in 2017, stayed in Trinity College, and spent days sitting with his remains in the National Museum in Ireland. I also spent time researching Iron Age Ireland at a downtown Dublin Library, then went to sacred prehistoric sites, and eventually climbed Croghan Hill which is the hill where he would have been inaugurated as king and then ritually murdered and cast in the bog.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
It’s not really a habit. It’s my process. I don’t outline. I just draft the whole story by connecting with my muses—spirits and characters. I meditate and ask questions. The answers come in conversations, visual scenes, and dreams which I then write on the computer. Characters surprise me. I never know what’s going to happen.
I work with archetypes as well, and there is a journey in each book. I’ve travelled to research all the locations in this series. I love to soak up the energy of the landscape, get inspired, and add sensory details that I uncover along the way. Ireland is one of my favourite places and I’d love to live there! I’m always surprised when I read the whole book at the end!
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Joseph Campbell who wrote The Power of Myth is like a mentor. I’m also inspired by Diana Gabaldon who wrote the Outlander series now so popular on TV. Diana is brave, intelligent, generous, and doesn’t hold anything back. I like that.
What are you working on now?
I’ve just completed a contemporary small town romance and I’ve almost finished drafting a romantic suspense novel set at a lighthouse where I once worked. Since it’s a romance, there are two protagonists. Gracelyn and Caleb were best friends as children at the lighthouse where her parents were the keepers. When her mother jumped off a cliff, she and her father left. Seven years later on the anniversary of her mother’s suicide, Gracelyn’s father burns to death in his sailboat and leaves her a note: “Your mother didn’t jump. I pushed her.” He asks Gracelyn to go back to the lighthouse and read her mother’s hidden journal so she’ll understand why he did it. The trauma triggers a latent ability in Gracelyn to see ghosts. Apparently her mother and grandmother were mediums too.
Gracelyn returns to her childhood home reluctantly and reunites with Caleb. But her new ability spawns a series of misadventures as they attempt to solve the mystery of her mother’s death.
If you’re curious about lighthouse keeping, I chronicled my adventures on http://lifeonthebclights.blogspot.com
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I signed with Creative Edge in March and now do all kinds of publicity. I don’t know what media form works better. I do TV, radio, podcasts, blog tours and anything that’s offered. They’re all opportunities to connect with readers and other writers.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Write what you love so you pour your passion into your piece. Finish it and then get other eyes on it. Send it to beta readers or work with a critique group. Hire an editor if financially possible. Listen to what people say and don’t get defensive. This is how you learn.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Focus on bringing joy into your life—let everything else go.
What are you reading now?
I have been writing reviews for The Ottawa Review of Books for the past three years. Right now I’m reading Cathy Ace’s latest Cait Morgan cozy mystery. So far, I love it and it’s set locally which is even more fun for me.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Either Book Five in the Hollystone Mysteries or another romance. We’ll see what my muses say.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth—it changed my life.
Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, 1982
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Why not?
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