W.L. Hawkin

Wendy is a seeker and mystic with a background in Indigenous Studies and English literature. She loves to soak up the landscape so, although she’s an introvert, in each book her characters go on a journey where she’s travelled herself. She found her voice publishing poetry and Native Rights articles in Canadian news magazines and now is an Indie author/ publisher at Blue Haven Press. http://bluehavenpress. com

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Uncaged welcomes W.L. Hawkin

Welcome to Uncaged! You’ve written four urban fantasy books in the Hollystone Mystery Series with the latest being To Kill a King. Can you tell readers more about the series? Can these books be read as standalones?

Sure. The series revolves around a coven of witches based in Vancouver who solve murders. I didn’t know I was writing a series when I started. I was just writing to escape my workaday world teaching high school and urban fantasy is a fun, freeing genre.

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, who is a freespirited polyamorous magician and also high priest of the coven, emerges as the lead protagonist and travels to Ireland to save the girl. member is arrested for murder while working on an archaeological dig in Scotland. He 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 O’Hallorhan, who headed the archaeological dig in Scotland is given a gift by a god—she can go anywhere in time to any 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 touches the metal on his leather armband she sees his face, falls for him, and decides 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.

The books can be read as standalones as each story is self-contained, but what I realized after writing book four is that the series chronicles Estrada’s personal journey. So, if you want a richer, deeper experience, it’s good to begin at the beginning.

You also review books on your website, do you post the reviews on Amazon? What is your preferred reading genre?

I love to read mystery, thriller, and action-adventure, which coincidentally is what I write! I do post reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. I also write reviews for the Ottawa Review of Books online, a site that features Canadian authors. I try to support other authors as much as I can because I know what

What is the most difficult scene for you to write? What is the easiest?

The most difficult scenes for me are action scenes. I spend way more time in my head than in my body and I’m actually quite klutzy. I tend to bang off walls and often wake up with mysterious bruises! Thankfully, my daughter is a CrossFitter and massage therapist who’s done taekwondo. So, I always run physical sequences by her to see if what I’m writing is even remotely possible. For example, if someone hits you in the back of the knees with an iron sword which way will you fall? She knows anatomy and can explain to me how the body will work in any given situation.

My easiest scenes are dramatic and emotional; sometimes love scenes, sometimes conflicts. I’m quite visual. I see and hear scenes as if they’re playing on a screen. I’d love to see these books produced for film because that’s the way they come to me and that’s the way I write them.

What are you looking forward to doing when the pandemic is over that you haven’t been able to do?

Hugging people I care about. Taking a ferry over to the islands to visit friends. I usually tour around B.C. in the summer, and I miss being able to do that.

What was the first book that made you laugh and/ or cry?

Old Yeller. I still can’t read a book or watch a film where a dog gets hurt. That’s a dealbreaker for me. A few years ago, my daughter and I went to the movies to see I Am Legend. When the dog appeared she leaned over and said, “It’s okay. Nothing happens to the dog.” A while later, she leaned over again and said, “Oh, sorry Mom.” All of my books have animals, especially dogs and horses, and I promise you that no animal gets hurt except for those pesky raven-vampires!

What are some things you like to do to relax when you aren’t writing or working?

Every day I go walking in nature with my dog, especially in the woods and by water When I’m inside, I love to watch a movie or series I can get lost in. I’m also a musician and love to have a glass of wine, play the piano, and sing.

How many hours a day do you write? On average, how long does it take to write a full novel?

I’m not the kind of author that writes x hours or words per day. When I’m into a project, I write until my eyes bleed and my back aches so much I have to stop. Other

days, I’m musing, marketing, reading, researching. Writing is a full time vocation but it’s not all about words to the page. On the average, it takes me six to twelve months to write a first draft. I don’t outline. I just write the whole book as I see it. Literally. When I close my eyes I visualize scenes; sometimes I dream them or wake up with them. Then I sit down with my laptop and write what I see and hear. Revision comes later.

Do you prefer ebooks, audiobooks or physical books? Are you reading anything now?

I prefer physical books. I usually read in bed at night and find the screen hard on my eyes. I do sometimes read on my kindle if someone sends me a book to review but honestly I find it more difficult to engage in I just finished reading and reviewing two Pacific coast thrillers by Owen Laukkanen — Deception Cove and Lone Jack Trail. I loved them both. Owen’s passion is to save dogs and one of the main characters in this series is his rescue pit bull, Lucy. I actually got to meet Lucy recently and I see why she’s become a celebrity dog.

What would you like to say to fans, and where can they follow you?

If you’re looking for something a little different that you can sink inside, give my series a try. I write cross-genre so be prepared for mysteries, thrillers, adventure, travel, some steamy romance, and always something supernatural—witches, faeries, ghosts, or vampires. You’ll find spells and rituals, mythic and literary references, and a whole lot of drama.

Enjoy an excerpt from To Kill a King

To Kill a King W.L. Hawkin Fantasy Mystery

“Her fingers flew to the fey butterfly tattooed on the back of her neck. Her friend, Yasaman, had designed it for her when she finished grad school. It was her symbol of freedom. Sorcha never wanted to be a professor bound to lecture halls—all she ever craved were the wild places and their stories. Now she was deep inside Ruairí’s story. Sometimes the butterfly brought her joy; other times, inspiration . . . but always a sense of hope. And she needed all three in this moment for her heart was breaking to see her man so broken.”

Sorcha just wanted to warn Ruairí of his fate until she saw him and fell in love. How could she leave him to be ritually murdered and cast in a bog to cure for two thousand years?

Though he’s lost and grieving the loss of his lover, when Estrada realizes his fiery friend, Sorcha O’Hallorhan, is trapped in Iron Age Ireland, he demands that Cernunnos take him and Dylan back through time to rescue her. The Horned God obliges but states the rules: you cannot change history or develop bonds with anyone. How can Sorcha, the spirited archaeologist, survive this prehistoric warrior culture? Assuming she’s fey, Ruairí’s unscrupulous rival wants her power; but worse still, Ruairí’s lover, the wicked Crow Queen, wants her dead.

Can Estrada use his Wiccan powers and magician’s skills to defeat these Iron Age Druids and

Excerpt

The Cattle Raid at Croghan The Previous Beltane

When the shiver struck Sorcha’s belly, she opened her eyes. Something was off. It seemed she’d awoken inside a Van Gogh painting. Spiraling masses of stars studded an indigo sky. Dawn was breaking, creating a liminal gold glimmer on the horizon. Leaves fluttered, caught by the night breeze, and the sweet scent of apple blossoms perfumed the air. Also, the scent of fresh cow manure.

With a gasp she sat up, wrinkled her nose and glanced around to see just how close they were to the patty. Then a branch snapped in the undergrowth and the curious face of a cow appeared.

Its nose and ears were as red as her own ginger hair; its white face flecked and freckled. An Irish Moiled cow. She’d seen them once at the agricultural show in Galway. A native breed, the name derived from the Gaelic maol or dome that stood atop its head. The beast flicked an ear and Sorcha giggled. If she were ever to be reincarnated as a cow, surely this would be the creature.

She turned to Cernunnos who slept beside her. “What’ve you done, man?”

Her whisper stirred the horned god, who sat up, gathered his long black hair in his fist and let it fall over his right shoulder. In his human form, the god resembled Estrada, the man from Canada she fancied but had never had, and she suspected this was no accident.

Cernunnos ran his fingers across her cheek and over her lips, then turned her face to his. His black eyes flashed deviously. “I’m not a man. I’m a god, and I’ve given you a gift.” “A gift?” She caught his hair in her hands and be-

gan spinning it into a fishtail. Her mind was spinning much the same. The horned god had come to her camp at Kilmartin Glen in Scotland on the eve of Beltane and offered to take her anywhere in the world, to any culture or time she desired. But an Irish Moiled Cow? Had they just blown across the sea? In all her years in Ireland she’d never seen it look this verdant, this fecund, this pristine.

Turning his face to hers, she stared into his eyes. “Tell me what you’ve done.”

“You’re home, Sow-r-ka.” He said her name the ancient way, drawing out the vowels and trilling the r with a breathy flick of his tongue.

“Home?” The red-haired archaeologist had traveled the earth uncovering and analyzing ancient civilizations, but no place felt like home except . . . “So, it’s Ireland, is it?”

“Ériú,” he said, pronouncing each syllable.

“Err-oo,” she echoed, and suddenly realized that, although she’d grown up speaking Irish at her school in Galway, they were speaking a dialect she’d never heard before.

A corner of the god’s lip turned up in a grin as he watched her face. “You wanted to meet your ancestors.” “Aye?” “And see the tortured king you envisioned as a lass.” “The tortured king?” She’d studied cultures throughout time in Ireland, but could it be him? Old Croghan Man? The king who was ritually killed atop Croghan Hill? Whose body was mutilated and sunk in the bog over two thousand years ago?

The god’s face twisted thoughtfully. “But a glamor is needed. We must appear in the fashion of the day.”

“A glamor?” Suddenly, a cow crashed through the bushes, its hooves coming within inches of Sorcha’s face. She jumped up and out of its path, but it was followed by another near miss. She’d never seen cows move so fast.

Veering right, she raced into the trees and dashed behind a tall ash. Moiled cattle were everywhere. Careening through the grass, into the trees, and on over the rise of the far hill. Red and white blurs against the emerald green of the land and the goldstreaked morning sky.

Then near-naked riders appeared among them, waving their arms and whooping astride stout horses, their hair flying free or sticking straight up from their scalps in terrifying spikes.

“Cernunnos!” Where the hell is he? He didn’t leave me here in the middle of a cattle stampede?

She decided to go back to the place she’d last seen him and finding an opening, made a mad dash through the trees and into the glade. That’s when she saw them—two horsemen bearing down on a huge white bull. The top of its skull was crowned in an enormous white maol. Red nose pointed down; it was barreling straight at her.

A voice in her head screamed run! but her feet were stuck to the earth. Then an arm wrapped around her belly and she was hoisted and flung onto the front of a horse veering sideways at a gallop. Her face hit the animal’s sweaty hide and bounced and all she could smell was horse. The rider’s knees pressed against her ribcage and hips as he steered the animal out of the path of the charging bull. When the horseman stopped at last in a thick grove of trees, he shoved her down to the earth. As her feet touched the ground, Sorcha fell backward and smacked her tailbone. She cursed.

“You shouldn’t be here.” His amber eyes flickered as he huffed like an angry bear. “Why are you here?” Embarrassed, she stood up, rubbing her sore back. Then, hands on her hips, she glared back at the

horseman. “That’s none of your business!” He nudged his horse with his heels so it pranced about nervously, sides heaving, its jet black hair curly with sweat, and she had to get out of its way. But her retort had unnerved the man and she smirked. Perhaps a woman had never addressed him in such a tone.

“What’re you called? What’s your clan?” he asked, voice raised but composure back intact. This was a man who led. A man who asked questions and got answers.

“My name is Sow-r-ka,” she said, pronouncing it as Cernunnos had, in the old Gaelic way. “And I . . .” Stopping, she backed up a step and blinked. She knew his face. Had seen it before in the National Museum in Dublin. In a vision. When she’d touched the copper mounts on the twisted leather armlet he wore above his elbow. The armlet he wore now. She’d seen it countless times in the museum where it still encircled his arm, though his torso was as flattened as a leather jacket. That armlet signified his nobility and had survived over two thousand years in a peat bog.

To see the tortured king you envisioned as a lass, Cernunnos had said. And here he was. Sorcha’s gaze dropped to his hands—the enormous hands of a man, six-and-a-half feet tall. Hands that had been photographed and published in endless articles.

Old Croghan Man. His torso had been pulled from the bog in 2003 when she was fourteen years old. Standing before her was the reason she’d become an archaeologist. A rush riveted through her body and she wavered, unable to breathe. He was staring at her, waiting for her to finish her sentence, and she couldn’t. The sun had risen behind him and backlit this vision who seemed too beautiful to be real. But was. She could smell his body, had felt his hands as he swept her off her feet, had heard him speak in the old Gaelic tongue. He was clean-shaven, nose long and straight, cheekbones high and shadowed. His glittering amber eyes swept up at the corners, both amused and annoyed. The sides of his head were shaved close around his ears, but his copper hair was gelled up in eight-inch spikes that made him appear over seven feet tall. Mud and sweat were smeared across his chest. He was a huge man, broad, muscular, and naked save for a leather loincloth.

Sorcha released her breath and swallowed. When at last she found her voice, she asked timidly, “What’s your name?” It was a question that had haunted her for fifteen years. “Ruairí Mac Nia.” Rory, she repeated, trilling the consonants in her mind. Rory, son of Nia.

Sliding down from his horse, Ruairí approached her and feeling suddenly threatened, Sorcha backed up. “You’re safe with me.” His eyes swept over her body and she followed his gaze. Seeing her watching him, his face flushed and he turned away. “Fine. If you’d rather stand with your cloak in that.” Sorcha glanced down then and took in the glamor Cernunnos had created. He obviously meant for her to be regarded as a woman of rank. This was a stratified society and the Brehon Laws were clear about who could wear what. Only kings and nobles were allowed to wear multiple colors, purples and blues, and slaves wore only brown. Her long, woven sapphire cloak was fringed in gold and fastened by a circular gold brooch at the breast. The bottom dragged in the grasses and, aye, dangled in a cow patty. Fortunately, it wasn’t as fresh as the first one she’d seen. Beneath the cloak she wore a long, narrow saffron jacket as bright as the sun. Underneath, a soft white linen frock fit tightly around her breasts and was drawn in at her waist by a woven leather belt and purse. Soft leather sandals covered her feet. She couldn’t wait to see how they’d been constructed. Her hand strayed to touch the gold brooch and she choked back a gasp. It was La Tène, a culture that

had crossed the sea from the mainland with the Celts. Images of gold hordes and wood-framed skin boats flashed through her mind. Decorated in the triple spiral, it was more beautiful than anything they had in the museum.

Nervously, Sorcha touched her hair, then realized it was drawn up and plaited elaborately, and held in place with pins. Thin gold bangles jangled at her wrists and sent small sparks up her arms.

She was nobility, as was he. Ruairí Mac Nia would not harm her. But someone intended to harm him. That was a fact. She’d seen the evidence.

“I’ll come.” As she walked toward him, he leaned down and made a stirrup with his entwined fingers. She placed her foot in his hands and he lifted her gently onto the bare back of the black horse. He needed no help to mount but rather raised his leg and leapt up behind her in one fluid motion.

She felt his broad chest against her back and his arms encircling her as they rode through a forest more enchanting than any she’d ever seen before. It was primordial. Virgin. Even the air seemed drunk with untainted oxygen. She felt drunk herself. Intoxicated by the moment.

“Why are you out here alone?” The question startled her. “I-I came here with my brother-in-law. I’d never traveled this way before, so he brought me along. When the cattle stampeded, we got separated.”

“Brother-in-law?”

Did they not have such terms? She’d have to watch what she said. Just because she spoke their tongue didn’t mean she understood their ways.

“Cern is . . .” She paused, wondering what to say. There was a good chance Cernunnos would appear at some point. She was surprised he hadn’t yet. He wouldn’t bring her to a place two thousand years in the past and leave her there. This adventure with the tortured king, as he called him, was obviously part of the gift. Sorcha sighed. “My older brother married Cern’s sister so . . . It’s complicated.” He laughed. “When is family ever not complicated?”

The sound of his laughter sent a shiver up her spine and put a smile on her lips. Ruairí Mac Nia was a man—no different than any man she’d ever met despite his appearance.

As they left the shelter of the forest the land opened up and far in the distance, she spied an Iron Age hill-fort atop Croghan Hill. The hilltop where he would be inaugurated as the Sun King and then ritually murdered, quartered, and sunk in a bog. Sorcha squeezed her fists in the horse’s black hair. She’d seen the scars on the bog man’s leathered chest, the slit nipples, and the stab wound to his heart. She couldn’t let that happen. Forget history! At the very least, she must find a way to warn him of his fate. If he knew what was coming, he could change destiny himself.

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A n YA M o RA

Anya Mora lives in the PNW with her family. Her novels, while leaning toward the dark, ultimately reflect light, courage, and her innate belief that love rewards the brave.