The Chic Crone – The Story Behind the Story

We’re only a week away from the release of The Chic Crone, a paranormal romance with a midlife adventure! It’s been a marathon over the past month. My middle grade books have all been traditionally published but this one I’m indie publishing. And it’s a whole new cauldron of spells!

To back up a bit, a number of people have asked where I got the idea to write the book in the first place as it’s very different from the three middle grade novels that I have out. So here’s the scoop, the idea for the book popped into my head when I signed up for a course on How to Write a Novel with Reedsy.com. I’d been thinking about writing an adult novel and the course sounded interesting. It was, and it was intense, and I met some wonderful people from all over the world (it’s a virtual course).

One of the course’s key ‘asks’ is that we each write the first draft of a novel (75k words) over the fifteen weeks of the course – I did say it was intense. But along the way there was plenty of opportunities for feedback and the feedback I received motivated me to continue to the finish line.

Questions that had to be answered

What genre are you writing in?

I’d been reading a lot of paranormal women’s fiction and thought it would be fun to try. I love the notion of magic, mayhem, and a faced-paced midlife adventure. You’re never too old to have another adventure! And a woman stepping into her true power later in life shows there’s no need for us to simply fade away.

How did you choose your main character, Olivia?

If I was going to write paranormal fantasy, I had a whole host of interesting character types to pick from. Witches and the fae were my favourites so they had to be first and foremost. Then there was the age range. The three archetypal stages of a woman’s life are the maiden, the mother, and the crone. The word crone has a bad rap, evoking a mental image of an old woman bowed with age and sporting a hooked nose and chin. But archetypally the crone is the wise woman with a profound connection to the natural world. The Crone encourages turning inward, allowing for deep understanding, spiritual growth, and creativity. Witches have the same hierarchy and only after a witch has achieved a certain level of wisdom and experience as well as age was she considered a Crone. So, bring on the Crones!

But chic? Where did that come from?

It was originally my little joke because we certainly don’t associate the two words chic and crone together, do we. However, it gave me a unique premise to base my main character , Olivia, on. And the notion of a popular self-help author who finds her own life in the dumpster was a compelling one. That she needed an extreme life makeover was a given. That it was supernatural? Not so much. Thus we have The Chic Crone.

And then there’s Gaelin

For a paranormal romance, I needed both a supernatural romantic interest and a complicated situation. With the ongoing war between the Crones and the High Fae, it was obvious that he had to be High Fae. Making him swoon-worthy was easy as he became more and more conflicted between his duty the kingdom of The Summerlands in the fae realm, to his brother the king, and his growing attraction to Olivia. Add in some political intrigue in the fae realm and there was suddenly lots to explore there.

So here we are …

Once these initial decisions were made I was off and running. If you have any other questions about the book, the characters, the setting or whatever, pop them in the comments below.