Witch
Resurrected
War-N-Wit,
Inc.
Book
1
Gail
Roughton
Genre: Paranormal Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Books We
Love, Ltd.
Date of Publication: September 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-77145-314-1
ASIN: B00NSY9NZ8
Number of pages:192
Word Count: 63,858
Cover Artist: Michelle Lee
Book Description:
Ariel Anson thinks she has her
life in order. She’s young, smart, and beautiful, even if she doesn’t believe
the beautiful part. She’s a paralegal with a great career and a fiancé who’s a
CPA. You just can’t get any steadier than that. Then she meets private
investigator, bounty hunter, process server Chad Garrett.
What does War-N-Wit, Inc. stand
for anyway?
Warlock and Witch? For real? Oh,
yes! For real.
Her life as she knows it is over!
Instead of organizing corporate documents and pleadings, she’s chasing bail
jumpers and taking down serial killers. And investigating secret societies.
Like Resurrection.
Not everyone can join, just the
elite few who remember their past lives. Only the Seer knows if those memories
are truth or fabrication. There’s just one problem. The new Seer is missing in
action. War-N-Wit’s new assignment is a blast from the past! But whose past?
Available at Amazon
Excerpt
I came abruptly out of total black but not into full light.
Candlelight, that was it. And firelight. I was upright and could pass as a
duct-tape dispenser, my arms secured at wrist and elbow bend to the arms of a
chair. For good measure, another swatch of duct-tape ran on top of and across
my fingers, rendering them immobile too. From the curve of the arms and what I
could see, I was in a straight-backed chair of the Empire style. And just in
case that didn’t hold me, another few turns of duct tape ran under my breasts
and around the back. My ankles were crossed and looped with the damn stuff,
too. Well, standing up and taking the chair with me was out. At least for now.
Taped as they were, I couldn’t stand flat and didn’t think I could balance on
the sides of my feet.
I looked around the room. I knew I was in the Bull Street
house. The Empire style chair itself was a dead give-away and so was the room.
It was wallpapered in dark red that seemed almost black in the muted
candle-fire glow. It had been almost five o’clock when I’d seen the newspaper.
It had to be full dark by now though the heavy velvet drapes, also dark red and
trimmed with gold edging, wouldn’t have let much light in in any event.
It was a bedroom. Against the far wall stood a heavy
canopied bed matching the décor of the last century that dominated the whole
house. There was an antique washbasin, complete with a water pitcher in
Wedgewood blue and white. The knick-knacks on the fireplace mantel looked like
somebody’d robbed the British
Museum
But the kicker was the man sitting in a matching chair
across from me. He was dressed in a three piece suit, complete with watch fob
and chain. He wasn’t stuck to his chair with duct-tape. I didn’t think he
needed to be. He was a lot more immobile than me. He stared straight ahead, but
I was pretty sure he wasn’t seeing anything. I’d never seen anybody in a
catatonic state. Until now, that is.
“Hello, Mr. Hedgepath,” I said. “We haven’t met before, have
we? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure you haven’t left this room in a while, have you?”
No response. And no surprise.
The door opened. It creaked. Surprising, really, in a house
this recently restored and so well-maintained.
I wasn’t surprised to see Oliver Hedgepath walking in. Or at
least, the Oliver Hedgepath we’d been seeing.
“Well,” he said. “Ariel Garrett. The new Seer of the Tear of
Isis. You’ve led me a merry chase.”
I didn’t respond.
“Cat got your tongue? Oh, dear, where’s that caustic
repartee I’ve come to know and hate? Can’t think of any new names to call me?”
“I know exactly what to call you. Dead man walkin’.” I
deliberately spaced out my next sentence, punctuating each word. “My. Husband.
Is. Going. To. Kill. You. You know that, don’t you? Whoever you are?”
Mean
Streets
War-N-Wit,
Inc.
Book
2
Gail
Roughton
Genre: Paranormal Romantic
Suspense
Publisher: Books We Love, Ltd.
Date of Publication: October 17,
2014
ASIN: B00NT22DXI
Number of pages:194
Word Count: 58,274
Cover Artist: Michelle Lee
Book Description:
Daytona Bike Week. Biker’s
paradise. The perfect place for Chad and Ariel Garrett to take a few days off
and relax with Chad’s buddy Spike and Ariel’s little sister Stacy.
But nothing ever goes as planned
with that magical duo. Trouble just stalks them like a black cat. A missing
agent riding with an outlaw biker gang, a call from Chad’s past, and War-N-Wit,
Inc.’s riding again, with romance blooming in the midst of danger. From
Daytona, the crew heads back to Vegas and another family wedding. Spike and
Stacy are ready to say “I do!” In the Tunnel of Love Drive-Thru at the Little
White Wedding Chapel in Vegas, of course. It’s become a family tradition.
But what’s supposed to happen in
Vegas just refuses to stay in Vegas. And you’re not going to believe this
side-trip!
Available at Amazon
Excerpt
I frowned as I settled into the front seat of the SUV. So
far everything had run smooth as silk. We were flying into Vegas from
Jacksonville, Mom and Dad would arrive about the same time from Atlanta. But
something was wrong. Something was missing. I did a mental run-down of the
checklist. All luggage loaded? Check. All pending War-N-Wit, Inc. jobs done?
Check. Pine Whisper Plantation’s caretaker par
excellence Buddy McAfee all set to look after all the animals while we’re
gone? Check. And for us, that just wasn’t normal. What was missing? Oh, yeah!
Ringtone signaling incoming trouble—magic world, Chad’s past law enforcement
affiliations, whichever. Sometimes both, but gotta have at least one. And there
it was, coming in loud and clear from the dash. Check. The nerve-pinging tingle
from the theme for The Twilight Zone.
“Knew it was too good to be true,” Chad said. “Answer it.”
“Hello?”
“Yo, whut up?”
“You tell us, G.”
“You don’t have to sound so cautious, I don’t bite.”
“Much,” said Chad.
“I resent that. And besides, I was just calling to wish you
a good trip. And send good wishes to your brother and sister. Glad Spike
finally broke out of the closet. Been meaning to call and suggest you introduce
him to us but I just haven’t had a chance. We can always use some more of the
good ones, Spike and Stacy’d be welcome.”
“We’ll be sure to relay the message,” I said.
“Have a great time in Vegas, do the Strip right. Oh, and
while you’re there—”
“I knew it.” Chad shook his head mournfully.
“Hey, it’s nothing! We just got wind one of the magic shows
playing right now might be using some low-level magic to con some of the
audience. Nothing big, just since you’re there anyway—”
“I hate magic
shows. Remember?”
“That’s a hell of thing for the guy so many people call
Magic Man to say.”
“G, you couldn’t pay
me enough to go near a magic show.”
“Uh, honey?”
“What?”
“Sorry to tell you this, but Mom loves magic shows. There’s
three playing on the Strip right now. Stacy’s already told her about ‘em.”
“Should I groan now?”
“’Fraid so. She’s planning to hit every one of ‘em. Which
one’s using the low-level magic con, G?”
“Magician by the name of Damien. So you’ll keep an eye open
for us?”
“Sure,” I said. “No problem.”
Author Interview
First, tell me a little about your book :)….
Well, War-N-Wit, Inc. is a rather unusual private
investigation firm founded by Chad Garett, a rather unusual private detective.
He’s a reincarnated warlock on the hunt for his soul mate, the witch he’s
reincarnated with many times over the centuries. Ariel Anson’s a top-notch
paralegal who calls on War-N-Wit to
serve a complaint on a defendant down in Chad’s area of operations. He knows
right away he’s found his witch. Poor
Ariel takes some convincing, seeing as how she doesn’t even have a clue she’s a
witch this time, let alone that she’s been one over the course of many
lifetimes. War-N-Wit, Inc. has lots of “real” cases, of course, it’s a
business, after all, how they earn their bread-n-butter. But because of the special skills and talents
of the War-N-Wit team who operate it, they also have clients of a more magical
nature. I guess you could even
say sometimes they have clients of a celestial
nature. I’d just come off a stretch
of rather serious writing at the time I conceived the idea for War-N-Wit and I
wanted something light and fun and funny.
And then the characters just took off on their own.
Do you recall how your interest in writing originated
or did you always just know?
I’d
always been a good writer insofar as school assignments, school newspapers, and
the like and I’d always been an avid reader, but I really wrote my first book
because of simple boredom. I was
working in a one man law office and there were times when there was absolutely
nothing left work-wise to do. I’d read myself current with all my favorite
writers, so I started writing a book.
What inspired you to write your first book and what was
it?
The first book I ever wrote, the first book ever
accepted for publication, or the first book actually published? The answer’s different for all three. The first book I ever wrote was a paranormal romantic suspense titled Yesterday’s Regrets. I wrote it almost thirty years ago and threw
it in the closet. I threw my first six
or seven books in the closet, in fact, and kept them there for twenty plus
years. In its present form, Yesterday’s Regrets will never see the
light of day. I’m pretty sure I could
take the characters, the basic plot and the title and turn it into a good book,
but even with its many flaws – and nobody’s first books are pub-worthy, trust me on this –
it’s still my first-born and I really don’t want to change it. It’s special to me and that’s good enough. The first book ever accepted for publication
was actually my, let’s see, either fifth or seventh book ever written,
depending on how you number them. I’d
started it during a break from my fourth book and then stopped writing it and
eventually finished it. Vanished. And it’s a paranormal fantasy, a through the
Bermuda Triangle plot. But the first
book ever actually published wasn’t even written at the time Vanished was accepted. It was The
Witch, the original first War-N-Wit novella, which has now been merged with
Resurrection, the second War-N-Wit
novella, as Witch Resurrected. And it
pubbed a month before Vanished did.
Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in
your own life?
Yes and no and I think that’s true with all writers. Nothing’s based on any one thing, one person,
or one event, of course. We pick and
choose. We take a little of this and
that, here and there, now and then, and turn it into something else altogether.
And if we’ve done it right, the reader feels he’s been vacationing somewhere
else with some really cool people.
How do you chose when/which characters die in your
books?
Oh, my, that’s funny.
Because I don’t actually choose when characters do anything. They have to tell
me.
Are there any new authors that have grasped your
interest?
At the moment, I have to confess I don’t
read very much. I have a limited amount of time for writing, so it gets
priority. That being said, I have lots
of writer friends now, so usually when I read, I’m reading their works in
progress, we writers are very dependent on our fellow writers and we’re not
looking for praise so much as “catches”. Catches of misspelled words, typos,
boo-boos in the timeline, plot holes, and the like. My standby writer friends
to read (and the writers I depend on to read me) are Stuart R. West,
Roseanne Dowell, Jude Pittman, Jamie Hill, and Graeme Smith. And I might also
add—pretty much any book you pick up by a Books We Love, Ltd. writer won’t
disappoint you.
Who do you look up to as a writer?
I grew up on the classics, branched out into Mary Stewart
(that woman was magic), Victoria Holt, Alistair Maclean, discovered Stephen
King, Dean Koontz, Charlaine Harris, Janet Evanovich, Diana Gabaldon, Robert
Parker, pretty much all the big names. I admire
many writers of all genres, but the three who’ve probably had the most
influence on my own writing would have to be Harper Lee, Stephen King and
Robert Parker. Harper Lee only wrote one
book, To Kill a Mockingbird, but she
had a dry and ironic voice that was frequently legalize (I’ve been in a law
office for 40 years, so I recognize legalize when I see it and speak it
fluently myself. It’s hard to describe, but it’s a matter-of-fact recounting of
the factual situation that, when done properly, I find absolutely
hysterical—because I’m sort of strange).
Stephen King is just an absolute master of story-telling. He doesn’t follow rules except his own, he
never lets anything get in his way when he’s telling a story. And Robert Parker was an absolute master of
narrative. His characters spoke volumes
in one word sentences, especially Hawk of the Spenser series. So I guess
you’d have to say I’m a real hodgepodge of writers and genres.
If you had to do it all over again, would you change
anything in your book?
I’m very lucky there. Because of a change in
publishers, I’ve had the chance to have a second and even third run at all my
books and right now, based on the writer I currently am, I can honestly say no,
except of course any typo that might have slipped by. And it’s a rare book by any writer published
by any publisher who doesn’t have one or two of those that have slipped by all
the final edits. That wouldn’t be the case had I not had the chance for a
second go at my books, and it might not be the case in five years, but for right now, I’m a very lucky and contented writer;.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in
your writing?
The first sentence.
Always.
Who designed the cover? And do you help with them?
Michelle Lee designs all the covers for my publisher,
Books We Love, Ltd. and one of the publishers, Jude Pittman, is very hands-on
during the process. And yes, Books We
Love authors are very fortunate in that we do have the opportunity to participate
a great deal in the process.
Do you have anything specific that you want to say to
your readers?
Ariel Anson Garrett, the Wit of War-N-Wit, Inc., said it best.
There’s a little bit of magic in all of us.
About
the Author:
Gail Roughton is a native of
small town Georgia whose Deep South heritage features prominently in much of
her work. She’s worked in a law office for close to forty years, during which
time she’s raised three children and quite a few attorneys. She’s kept herself
more or less sane by writing novels and tossing the completed manuscripts into
her closet.
A cross-genre writer, she’s
produced books ranging from humor to romance to thriller to horror and is never
quite sure herself what to expect when she sits down at the keyboard. Now
multi-published by Books We Love, Ltd., her credits include the War-N-Wit, Inc.
series, The Color of Seven, Vanished, and Country Justice. Currently, she’s
working on Black Turkey Walk, the second in the Country Justice series, as well
as the Sisters of Prophecy series, co-written with Jude Pittman.
Another War-N-Wit plot always
seems to be brewing on the back burner, too, whether she’s actually trying to
brew one or not, and usually boils quicker when she’s trying not to brew one at
all.
Amazon Page: http://amzn.com/e/B007JVZCKQ
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/GailRoughton
Web-Blog: www.gailroughton.blogspot.com
Books We Love, Ltd. http://bookswelove.net/roughton.php
Twitter: @GailRoughton
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Resurrected
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