Fantasy Five Friday: Interview with Heidi R Kling

I am super excited to have one of my all time favorite authors, Heidi R Kling, by the blog today for another Fantasy Five Friday!

Heidi R Kling is the author of Sea as well as the series, The Spellspinners of Melas County. Witch’s Brew, the first book, came out last week! She also has short stories in three anthologies, Truth & Dare, The Visitors Guide to Mystic Falls, and The First Time. You can find her on the web at her website, Goodreads, and Twitter.

Here’s a bit about Witch’s Brew:

Spellspinners is an “Active Fiction” title, a new type of e-book from Coliloquy. In this Active Fiction series, your input influences future books from this author. Specifically, in Spellspinners, your input influences what happens to star-crossed lovers Logan & Lily. Spellspinners is a young adult series about a witch, a warlock & their forbidden love. Once soulmates, the witch & warlock covens have been estranged for a century. Twice a year, their teens meet in the Solstice Stones, a magical battleground, to draw energy from each other. Logan & Lily have trained their whole lives for the Stones. In Witch’s Brew, Lily is torn between her feelings for Logan & her loyalty to her coven. The lovers race against time, their distrust for each other & their powerful elders to unravel the mystery of the past before their future is destroyed. While Lily & Logan’s fate may be decided, the author explores several paths to get there. The author sees the aggregate statistics on what option gets picked the most, so the more you read, the more you influence what she writes!

Could you give us the one sentence pitch of your book?

A witch, a warlock, and their fight to save their magic–and their forbidden love.

Since you have a fantasy novel, the next question I obviously have to ask is: If you were a fantastical creature, which would you be?

While I would LOVE to be a witch like Lily, I’m going to go with my first reaction: a unicorn. (Sorry Team Zombie.)

Do you have a favorite fantasy read?

Most recently I’ve liked A Discovery of Witches–can’t wait for the sequel!

Generally speaking, which comes first: the world, the characters, or the plot?

This go round it was the world. I could see it with such shimmering clarity. I knew from the get-go I wanted to combine nature’s innate magical elements with supernatural charms and enchantment. Setting the Spellspinners series in a modern beach town make perfect sense to me. There’s something so magical about the ocean and the coastal redwoods near where I live.

And then, once the town and the plot were in place, the characters popped into the places they intrinsically belonged.

They are always coming out with new editions of board games. If your book could be a special edition of any board game, which would you choose?

Oooh AWESOME question. How about a Spellspinner edition of MONOPOLY. Where players can gain a power, lose a power? Confront Jacob and Lose A Life?

Or Chess. A Logan chess piece. Now that’d be cool.

Thanks so much for stopping by Heidi! And I would LOVE that edition of Monopoly or a Logan chess piece! Make sure to check out my review of Witch’s Brew, which I absolutely adored!

Buy Witch’s Brew