So. . . what exactly is going on?
Meet Alyssa Cooper! She's on a mission--a mission to self publish The Witches of Armour Hill.
About the book:
Margaret May Reis knows how strange she is; people have been telling her for years. At sixteen years old, though, Maggie begins to realize that strangeness is only half the story. Maggie isn’t just strange – she’s a witch.
Sent to live with a cousin she’s never met, in a city she doesn't remember, Maggie is sure that life as she knows it is over. It doesn't take her long to learn that Peterborough is not at all what it seems. Her first week in the city, Maggie meets a stray cat named Elowen, who seems to appear out of thin air, and a strange girl named Rhosyn, who introduces her to a coven of witches, and assures her that life will never be the same.
The newest member of an ancient coven, Maggie discovers new friends, new powers, and a new lease on life. As she works with her young sisters to hone their magical skills, they stumble across the coven’s darkest secret, one that their governing council has kept hidden for over a century. Caught up in a conspiracy that began with the very first generations of witches, Maggie and her friends tumble down the rabbit hole, reaching blindly for the truth.
It will take three young witches to uncover the secrets that their Matriarch left behind over a century before.
Sounds interesting? Go support Alyssa on her Kickstarter campaign HERE!
Also, be sure to check out some of her other published works HERE!
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Want some more? Check out an excerpt from The Witches of Armour Hill below:
Margaret May Reis stared up at her closet in horror, her green eyes wide and wet. The three small walls were scorched black, but the flames had mostly died away. Once her clothes had burnt up, there was nothing left for them to feed on.
Her blistered hands were still shaking.
Oh no, she thought miserably, a hard knot of tears pulsing in her throat. Why did I have to do that? She racked her brain for a solution, a way to fix it, anything, but what could she do? She reached out a tentative hand for the last hanger still clinging to the closet bar; it fell to ash at her touch.
“Maggie?” The Aunt’s harsh voice froze her blood. She could hear her moving through the house below, coming toward the stairs. “Maggie, what was that noise?”
In a panic, Maggie tore out of the room and down the hall, putting the stairs at her back. Under a square door in the ceiling, she leapt for the string that would reveal a hidden ladder up to the attic. She missed once, twice, but just when she was sure she would be caught, when The Aunt’s heavy steps had reached the bottom of the stairs, the ladder fell from the ceiling and Maggie scrambled up into the gloom of the attic.
She pulled the ladder up behind her, as quietly as she could, sealing herself alone in the dusty dark. Crawling on her hands and knees, she weaved through the towers of musty old boxes until she reached the place where the rafters met the floor. There, she folded herself up small, pulling her knees to her chest.
In the hallway below, The Aunt called out apprehensively, “Maggie? What’s that smell?”
Her hands shaking, Maggie pulled an old stuffed cat from a nearby cardboard box. She clutched it to her chest, closing her eyes tight, rubbing the soft fur against her cheek and ignoring the stink of mould.
I’m with grandma, she tried to convince herself. I’m back home with grandma and grandpa.
The Aunt shrieked from below. “What the- Rich! She did it again!”
A moment later she heard The Uncle stomp up the stairs. Maggie pressed her fists into her ears when The Aunt started to yell. Only a few words broke through. She heard The Uncle say “Honey, come on, she’s only twelve years old.”
She heard The Aunt say, “I want her out, Richard.” Her feet stomped back down the stairs and her husband followed, pleading.
And then she heard a door slam.
The silence that followed was strung tight, humming in Maggie’s ears. With a strange sense of calm, her heartbeat like a metronome in the quiet room, Maggie opened her eyes. Her gaze swept from one pile of dusty old boxes to the next, and time seemed to slow, so she could see motes of dust drifting by at a snail’s pace. She breathed, listening to her lungs, and all at once, the tower on her left burst into hot and hungry flames. Maggie shrieked, kicking away from the corner, away from the flickering heat that licked her cheek. Another tower ignited as she scrambled away, and then another, and another, until the heat and smoke were so thick that she could no longer see the room around her. She couldn’t see the door, or the window, or even the ceiling above her head.
In her bright, flickering hell, Maggie started to scream.
