Tuesday, May 25, 2021

By Invitation : Marilyn Messik and her novel, 'Witch Dust'

 

I’m delighted to welcome Marilyn Messik and her brilliant paranormal thriller ‘Witch Dust’ to Writers at the Gate.

Read on to find out more...


 

About the book…

‘When your Father spends most nights cutting your Mother in half, life’s not exactly  run of the mill.’

As the daughter of Adam Adamovitch and the lovely Ophelia, purveyors of illusion, delusion, sparkling eyes, flashing teeth, little-left-to-the-imagination costumes, and death-defying stunts, Sandra’s accustomed to the unusual. But when Adam’s eye lights on yet another conquest, it’s a chorus girl too far for Ophelia, and Sandra’s coerced into restoring her distraught mother to a family nobody knew existed. It’s a situation that even for her - and she’s had years of bizarre – is unnerving, but one thing’s clear, the sooner she puts distance between herself, the newfound nearest and dearest, their alarming tendencies and failing hotel business, the happier she’ll be!

There are just a few issues she thinks she should sort first  - a possessed chef, hanged housemaid, fly-on-the-wall documentary. Then there’s a doppelgänger, crazed shape-shifter, and an age-old grudge. Things slide swiftly from bad to farce, then turn a whole lot darker. One minute Sandra’s trying to shore up the family business, the next trying to keep them all alive - honestly, you couldn’t make it up!

 

·         Publisher : Matador (27 Jun. 2017)

·         Genre : Paranormal Thriller

·         Language : English

·         Paperback : 288 pages

·         ISBN-10 : 1788033728

·         ISBN-13 : 978-1788033725

·         Dimensions : 23.3 x 2.4 x 32.2 cm

 

 'Witch Dust' is available from Amazon HERE




About the author…
 

Marilyn Messik is a: Wife, Mother, Grandmother, Book Lover, Housework Hater.

Professional: Author of Paranormal Thrillers… Default Setting: Mild hysteria. 

A feature and fiction writer for various national magazines, and a regular columnist in Mother & Baby. Marilyn’s first business was setting up teams to sell children’s party goods, she subsequently opened two shops, adding books and educational toys to the mix. 

When she sold the shops, she moved into the travel market, creating tailor-made, of-the-beaten-track trips to America. Based on the success of her U.S. Welcome booking & planning service, she set up a Publishing Company and created U.S. Welcome, Selected Hotels & Inns, a full-colour annual publication. When several years later she sold the business to an FTSE 100 company, she launched her copywriting consultancy.

As well as writing for businesses, Marilyn has continued writing fiction, features and editorials, she’s blogged for The Telegraph Online, created and published the Vintage Ladies Collection, written four business books, and four paranormal novels - taking care not to mix the two.

Follow Marilyn on Twitter


Brief Interview…
 

When did you start writing your new book? 

'Witch Dust' was started around 2016 and is the first of the 'Witch' series.
 
 

What was the inspiration behind the book?

Watching various brilliant magicians and illusionists through the years and concluding the simplest and most logical explanation was ‘real magic.’ 

Can you describe your route to publication from concept to completed novel?

When I first started a few years ago writing full-length fiction as opposed to short stories, I submitted to a few agents and was delighted to get a positive response from three of them. However, one wanted me to change my story one way, the second wanted to change it in another direction, and the third had yet another set of ideas. Weighing up one against the others gave me a dreadful headache, a whole heap of indecision as to which one might be right, and the conviction I was probably  too obstinate to listen to any of them. 

What ideas do you have for any future books?

Well, Book 2 of the Witch Series will be started as soon as I’ve finished Book 4 of my  Strange Series. When I first started writing it was very much seat of the pants but now I tend to at least have a rough idea of where I’m going when I start. Naturally, I suffer from all the usual writer’s distractions and procrastinations – another cup of coffee, maybe a chocolate biscuit? If I put a quick wash on now I won’t have to do it later, and hey there’s a bird sitting on the fence. 

Which publishing services would you recommend?

Definitely print on demand which at the moment I do with Amazon. It makes so much more sense than having a print run which is either too small, meaning you have to have more done - or too large in which case you have excess books lying around reproachfully. 


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