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 Iike Kennedy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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.
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GUEST POST:
Best and Worst Thing About Being a Writer
The best thing, without a doubt, is when someone reads your book and loves it. When they write to you, gush about it, and beg for the next installment if it’s a series. I’ve had no other experience involving strangers that even came close. Although, there’s an intimacy between an author and their reader. A story told at a specific moment in the writer’s life and heard in the reader’s bed, or their commute on the train, or in their car while they wait for their children’s dismissal. A novel is magic in that way. It’s that connection that makes all the things I don’t enjoy about this business completely worth it, but I’m sure every single writer you’ve ever hosted would say the same.
As for the business of writing, the best thing is you can literally do it anywhere. You’ll rarely find me without a notebook in my hand. Any moment of down time, I’m thinking up parts of a story. Even some that never get used. I love the flexibility of it. I always tell people that I don’t mind if they’re late to meet me. Sitting alone is just a gift of a few more minutes to think. Long car rides. Plane trips, if I’m not squeezed into a middle seat, are my favorite. Your imagination is never not with you. The downside is sometimes stories and characters wake me up in the middle of the night, but I’ll take it as long as they keep talking to me.
The worst part of being a writer, for me, is it’s very lonely work. I spend months in my office writing initial drafts while the rest of the world is at their place of employment, talking with customers, going to meetings, and I hope, enjoying happy hour on Fridays. There’s very little of that going on here. I worked in the corporate world for fifteen years before I discovered writing and there are many things I miss about it, but the people are what I miss the most. Because I can literally write anywhere, I often do. It’s a double-edged sword. I have to be very careful to take time for other things. Now that I’ve been doing this for a few years, I like to think I am getting better at balance, but I’m not sure my family would agree.