Witches’ Waves: visual inspirations

It’s less than one week until Witches’ Waves breaks upon the world (11/18). I’m excited, as I always am. I’d have thought that by now I’d be calmer about book releases, but I still chitter like a baby otter learning to swim (though I’m not nearly as cute, I fear. And thankfully, not as furry.)

Before I get on to the blurb and excerpt, have I mentioned that surf-bum witch Deck Donovan looks a lot like this man? Yes, ladies (and gentlemen and others), the real-life “Thor” is a surfer. Since I started the book knowing one of my heroes was a surfer with lightning magic, it wasn’t hard to get inspired when I saw this photo series. Could life get any better for my heroine? you may ask.

Well, in this book it can, because their other lover Kyle (overly serious otter shifter, also a surfer, with a genius IQ), looks a bit like Tom Hiddleston. I swear I’m not writing fan-fiction, but I knew from the get-go he’d be darker and less massively built than Deck. So when I realized Deck looked an awful look like Thor, I had to pull Loki in too. Kyle has dark eyes and is a bit shorter than TH is, but otherwise feel free to imagine this hot actor–who, like Kyle, is a bit intense but also has a sense of humor.

The only thing that keeps my heroine Meaghan from swooning from all this masculine beauty is she can’t actually see it. She’s blind. Luckily, she’s got a delicate touch, an active imagination, and, being a witch, the ability to sense auras even if she can’t see, so when she’s sandwiched between these two hunks, she knows how lucky she is.

Meaghan looks a bit like a young Nicole Kidman, ethereal and focused at the same time:

Photo via: DEWITT REFERENCE: #262WW114075

But part of the inspiration for her came from an unlikely (visually, at least) source:

That’s my friend Randy Pierce, writer, hiker, marathon runner, black belt, inspirational speaker, and founder of the nonprofit 2020 Vision Quest. Doesn’t look much like a heroine, does he? So what’s he doing here? Well, that adorable pup with him on top of that 4,000-ft peak is his late guide dog, the Mighty Quinn. Randy is completely blind, but he doesn’t let it stop from much. (Well, driving , but once those self-driving cars are available, there will be no stopping him.) I think it might have been hard to create a blind character who does some of the crazy, death-defying, world-saving things Meaghan does if I didn’t know Randy, who’s climbed all the White Mountains–twice, in winter and summer–and is planning on Kilimanjaro next year. With that in mind, it wasn’t a big stretch to imagine what a blind person with magical abilities might be able to achieve. My lanky, very male friend is hardly a visual inspiration for my slight, fair-haired female character, but he was an inspiration nevertheless.

And it’s all taking place on the coast of Oregon:

A few shots of the beach from a writers’ retreat in Lincoln City, OR.

And at last, the book info!

The ocean is on their side. But the fight is on land—and it’s about to get dirty.

Witches’ Waves: Duals and Donovans: The Different, Book 4

Long held captive as the Agency’s secret weapon—a blind witch with visions—Meaghan has come to a line she refuses to cross. Rather than betray the infant “child of five bloods” to the Agency’s scientists, she chooses death. Except when she throws herself into the ocean, she doesn’t die. Her repressed water magic comes to life.

When the sodden, delirious witch drifts into Kyle’s arms, his otter dual instincts tell him to get her to the Donovans as fast as possible. Even though one particular surfer-dude Donovan broke his heart.

Declan Donovan continually kicks himself for pushing Kyle away, but his touchy combination of water, earth and lightning magic is too volatile, and Kyle wanted more than Deck was ready to give.

When they come together to help Meaghan control her new magic, it leads the Agency straight to the child of five bloods. They’ll have to dive head-first into total trust—in their magics, in themselves and in each other—to save the child and stop the Agency once and for all.

Warning: Contains an oceanful of sex between an ethereal blind heroine who swears like a pissed-off Marine, an overly serious otter shifter, a would-be beach bum who may be descended from a Norse god, in permutations as fluid as the sea – and themes of abuse and recovery.

Series blurb:

Welcome to an America where the non-human Different and magically gifted humans live among ordinary people. Witches are both feared and honored, but shape-shifting duals are treated as second-class citizens. The Agency, a government agency that’s supposed to monitor illegal uses of magic and Different abilities, has developed its own dangerous agenda. But when Duals and witches join forces, the Agency and other bad guys aren’t going to know what hit them.

Buy links: Samhain /Amazon / Amazon UK / B&N Nook / Kobo