Jeanette O'Hagan

Today we sit down with Jeanette O'Hagan to learn about 

Book two in Akrad's Legacy series: 

Rasel's Song. Jeanette answers my five curious questions.

1. Rasel's Song is Book 2 in Akrad's Legacy series... How does it build on Book 1?

Book 1, Arad’s Children, revolves around the mystery of who poisoned the Kapok (Ruler) of Tamrin, while introducing the setting, the royal court of Tamra following a devastating civil war, and the main characters including Dinnis, Prince Mannok, Ista and (briefly) Rasel. This is Dinnis’ story as an outsider to the court. While the immediate mystery is resolved by the end of Akrad’s Children, the underlying threat to the royal family is not.

In Rasel's Song the murders and assassination attempts ramp up the threat to the royal family and the intensify the need for Prince Mannok to marry suitably, but that all goes astray when the prince encounters the shapeshifter, Rasel. Meanwhile, the Kapok tasks Dinnis with uncovering the identity of the assassin.

2. Do you have a continuing protagonist throughout the series? If not, how are the protagonists related (or not related)?

The Akrad Legacy series focuses on four main characters, Dinnis, his half-brother Prince Mannok, the shapeshifter, Rasel, and Lumi, the daughter of the main antagonist.  In Book 1, Dinnis is at the heart of the story. The focus shifts more to Mannok and Rasel in Book 2. In Book 3, Lumi’s Allegiance (aiming for 2026 publication date), Lumi is the focus, and in Book 4, the focus swings back more to Mannok. Having said that, Dinnis is a fan-favourite and he plays a pivotal role in all four books.

3. How did you arrive at the premise of the Akrad's Legacy series?

Initially, the series premise came through a lucid dream of a young princess standing in a nighttime courtyard and calling something wild to come, when a young man appears. This nighttime dream became my first (unpublished) novel, Adelphi. I took a long break from writing, and when I returned to it, I dusted off this first novel, and had ideas for sequels and prequels. And in the end decided to write the prequels first – the story of the young man’s parents. The premise of Akrad’s Legacy was birthed out of how they met and why things turned out as the did in Adelphi.

4. How does this series sit with your other books? Does it develop a favourite theme or is it new ground?

I started writing the Akrad’s Legacy before my other published books, even though Heart of the Mountain (in the Under the Mountain series) and Ruhanna’s Flight (a short story in Glimpses of Light) were published first.

Almost all my stories are set in the world of Nardva, a world I discovered as an eight-year-old and has continued to expand with each new story. The original stories began in the northern hemisphere of Nardva following the adventures of Awynallen. When I wrote Adelphi, I set that story in a new region - the southern hemisphere of Nardva (so literally new ground). Ruhanna’s Flight, The Under the Mountain series, the Akrad’s legacy series are all set in this southern with a connected history, but in different eras, cultures and places.

The Akrad’s Legacy series is a kingdom fantasy with courtly intrigue while the Under the Mountain series is epic fantasy adventure but with common themes of hope, forgiveness and finding one value and purpose in the world.

5. Give us a high concept (25 words or fewer) for Rasel's Song

With repeated assassination attempts, Prince Mannok must marry a suitable noble bride. Shapeshifter Rasel threatens to win the prince’s heart and disrupt royal plans.

 Rasel’s Song is the exciting second book in the kingdom fantasy, the Akrad’s Legacy series.

To find out more about Jeanette and her books, check out these links.

Website - http://jeanetteohagan.com

Amazon author link:

Goodreads author link

Facebook link: 

Thanks, Jeanette! 

To book your own Author Sit-Down, send an email to sallybyname(AT)gmail.com

with Author Sit-Down in the subject line. 

 

Skye Taylor

Let's welcome Skye Taylor to Author Sit-Down, Skye is working on a series with a most intriguing premise. Read on to hear all about the first book, Unspoken Promises. As usual, I asked five questions.

1.    1. Unspoken Promises, the first in the Bailey Island Romance series, is a split-level story told in two timelines. How did you come up with the idea of writing two linked stories in one?

 Unlike some authors, I am not a detailed plotter. I have detailed dossiers on my characters and a clear idea of where the story starts and where it will end, but the actual action is often as much a surprise to me as my readers. In the first book in this series, I started with a heroine who just lost everything: her sons off to college, her husband leaving her for another woman, the home she’s shared for the last 20 years is where her hubby grew up, so he’s given her a month to vacate. And then her boss tells her he’s moving their fun little company halfway across the country for family reasons, so no job, unless she wants to move to Dallas. Then she finds out she has inherited a “cottage” from a friend who recently died childless. With nothing else going on, she heads to Maine to check out this cottage and finds it is a large, nearly 200-year-old landmark home. When she discovers a wedding dress that had never been worn in the attic while exploring her new digs, she brings it downstairs to try on. To my surprise, the next chapter begins with a young woman wearing the same dress in front of the same antique mirror with a woman kneeling on the floor pinning up the hem. It’s 1943 and her fiancé goes off to fight in Europe. That’s how the historic story came to life.

2.  What are the names of your main characters? How did you choose them?

Kenzie Ross is my main character and I chose her name because I liked Kenzie and Ross sounded good with that name. The new man in her life is Sam Philips and he got his name from my two little angel grandsons: Sam who died of SIDS at 5 months and Philip who was killed at 18 months when an unsecured gate fell on his head at a park. For stories set in the past, I do a google search to find the most common names in whatever year and place I’m setting my story. I also have a ghost in this new series who is named after my granddaughter. Anna Rose thinks it’s fantastic that I’d give an important character her name. I also have a couple supporting characters named after friends who thought it would be fun to appear in my books.

3.      Do you prefer writing finite series or standalones--why?

Not sure I prefer either above the other. I have two standalone books, one a time travel that was inspired by an excursion to explore a deserted island I’d read the history of and one mainstream suspense that was partially influenced by the years in which I came of age during the Vietnam War. That one begins in the present with a candidate running for president of the United States who is handed a photograph during a meet and greet session that takes him back to a time he’d done everything to put well into the past and emotions he never wanted to relive. I got some serious help creating Matt Steele from my brother who did serve in that war although he never chose to become a politician.

The first book in my Camerons of Tides Way series was a standalone when I wrote it, but after pitching it to an editor at a conference, she asked for the manuscript and suggested I submit ideas for at least two follow up stories for a series. That series ended with 7 books. I also planned to make my police procedural mysteries a series. There are two books out now and one in the writing, but it’s slower going because for a mystery I really do need to have an outline and that is a major challenge for an author who writes by the seat of her pants.

4.    4. How did you choose the setting for this series?

WWhen I was vacationing in Maine a year ago, a friend loaned the first of my Tides Way series, which is set in a fictitious town in coastal North Carolina, to a friend of hers. That lady enjoyed it so much she bought the whole set. Then she found me on Facebook and asked where in Maine I was vacationing. I told her, not thinking for a minute that anyone in Florida would know where Bailey Island was, but to my surprise, she did know and ended by asking why I didn’t write a series set there. Once that seed was planted it took root and the first book came out in June with the second set to release early next year. 

5.     5. Hit us with a high concept pitch (25 words or under) for the series.

When Kenzie inherits The Captain Patrick Murray House, she dismisses tales of a ghost keeping watch on her roof but loves finding treasures in the attic that tell stories of the women who lived in this historical old mansion in the past.

OR: I like the longer version better but neither are less than the 25 words you asked for.

Comment from Sally: (It's perfectly fine to change up a question.)

 When Kenzie Ross inherits The Captain Patrick Murray House on Bailey Island she claims she doesn’t believe the stories about a ghost who mans the widow’s walk. Treasures found in the attic bring forward other stories from the past: a wedding dress that was never worn because the groom went away to war in 1943 and a journal written by a girl seduced by an engineer who came to build the bridge in 1928. It isn’t until Kenzie’s new love goes missing after a boating accident that she meets the widow who still maintains a vigil for her husband who never came home from the sea.

Here's your “Log Line” or High Concept for just the first book in the series; Unspoken Promises:

Two women, a cottage by the sea, and three generations of love and loss . . . .

 

To see more about Skye and her books, check out her website: http://www.Skye-writer.com

To check out the book, go to BUY HERE

If you're reading this in August 2025, see the cover in the All Author Cover of the Month contest.  HERE

Skye's bio:

Skye Taylor, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, returned Peace Corps Volunteer, and published author, loves history, books, beaches and chocolate. Her published work includes: Unspoken Promises, A Bailey Island Romance, Bullseye & Crossfire (A mystery series set in St Ausgustine, FL,) The Candidate, The Cameron’s of Tide’s Way (a contemporary romance series) and Iain’s Plaid. Visit her website at: www.Skye-writer.com.  She is a member of SinC, FWA, RWA and WFWA.

 Thanks, Skye! 

Author Sit-Down is a blog dedicated to talking books. If you've written a book (or several) and would like an author sit-down, you can contact me at sallybyname(AT)gmail.com. Nominate your book and tell me a bit about it and I'll send you five questions. In the meantime, check out the other posts on this blog. Each author has an entertaining and enlightening story to tell.

 

Katie Stewart

 

Today's author sit-down is with Katie Stewart. Katie and I go way back, though we've never met in person, so I was delighted to ask her five curly questions about her new picture book, You're Too Little.

 1.     Can you remember the moment the idea for You're Too Little popped (or crept) into your mind? If so, please tell us about it.

 I don’t think there was any one moment. Pygmy possums have always been my favourite marsupial, so as I kept writing stories, I kept thinking, ‘I really should write one about a pygmy possum’. After my last book I decided that now was the time and I started brainstorming ideas. What problem could a pygmy possum have? Being considered too small seemed a good fit, so the story developed from there.

 2. Who is your protagonist?

The protagonist is Western Pygmy Possum, who like all pygmy possums is very small. I always use the animal name for my characters to avoid too much personification. Through most of the book, she’s simply known as Pygmy Possum, but the other characters are all Western Australian animals, so I needed to use ‘Western’ at the beginning of the story. It also says ‘young’, because an older Pygmy Possum would already know what she can and can’t do.

3. High concept of 25 or fewer words to "sell" your book to us?

“A tiny creature shows how important it is to know what your skills are and to believe in yourself to achieve your goals.”

4.     How has your rural background impacted your writing?

Living in the country for most of my life has brought me closer to nature, so I think using animals as characters is only natural. As a child, I was always out watching animals and birds on the river and it’s something I carried on when my husband and I  were on the farm. The themes of the stories, though, come from my subconscious after my years of teaching and motherhood. I don’t set out with a theme in mind. Sometimes it’s so subconscious that when I go back and look at it later, the theme surprises me. That is definitely the case with ‘You’re Too Little’. Yes, I was writing about a pygmy possum, so the idea of her being told she was ‘too little’ by others was the obvious plot. However the idea that she not only believed in herself because she knew what she could do, but also that she needed to use all her abilities to make it work came out without me thinking about it. I do believe that children need to learn to ‘give it their all’ to achieve their goals, but I didn’t set out to write that.

The book that most relates to my rural background is probably “When I Can Fly” which, sadly, has been my least successful book. I think people in the city saw it as a take-down of city life, when it really wasn’t. It was based directly on my second son’s experience and was more about the fact that you can really want something and work towards it, only to find that you don’t like it when you get it – and that it’s also okay to admit that you don’t like it.

5.     You are both artist and writer. Which talent is more "you”?

That’s a really good question. I always enjoyed both writing and art. I was good at English, especially creative writing, but it was Art that I really loved and Art that won me prizes. Surprisingly though, it was only because of my family moving towns that I ended up doing Art in my final two years of school. Even though I loved Art and wanted to go on to do Art after school, I’d been pressured by the school principal to choose ‘real’ subjects, so I put down to do German. But the new school didn’t offer German, so I had to do Art instead! Unfortunately, my mother didn’t see Art as a real job prospect either, so my dream of going to Art School was stymied. I went on instead to do a degree in English, hated it (how would I know what an author was really thinking?) and changed to Archaeology. By the time I finished, I’d lost confidence in my artistic ability and took a very long time to get back to it seriously. The fact remains though, that Art is my ‘thing’. Even when I’m writing, I think in pictures. I have the book spreads clear in my head as I go.

In short - if I had to choose between writing and art, it would be art every time. Even when I’m not doing a book, I’m in my studio doing something artistic. If I can’t draw or paint, I’m miserable. So art is “me”.  

Facebook:  facebook.com/KatieStewartAuthorIllustrator 

Instagram: instagram.com/katiestewartillustrator/

Thanks so much for this, Katie. I love finding out why creative people do what they do and when they do it...and how!

Author Sit-Down is a blog dedicated to talking to authors and other creatives and showcasing their creations. Because I ask different questions, every author sit-down is new material...it's never someone's existing press hand-out. If you'd like to talk about a book you've written, or just talk up books in general, drop me a line at sallybyname(AT)gmail.com with Author Sit-Down in the subject line. Also, we'd appreciate it if you read one or some of the other sit-downs and give us a comment.