The Witch Whisperer follows a young witch with glitchy magic who seeks the assistance of a reclusive magic fixer to help her fix her magic before it is too late. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The title came to me before anything else from re-watching The Horse Whisperer. I had started writing paranormal stories, witches in particular, and I did a “what if.” What if there was a witch who specializes in fixing broken magic? He has become legendary. From there, I developed the character of Willow, the perfectionist witch with broken magic. Aside from needing her magic fixed for personal reasons, she wants to avoid incarceration in her secret witch society’s dreaded Haven.    

Willow and Ravenwood want nothing to do with each other from the start but realize they need each other. What was the inspiration for the relationship that developed between the characters?

The inspiration came from my love of stories where the seeming opposite main characters must work at having a romantic relationship (even as they deny they want one) and work together to resolve the issue at hand. Nothing can come easily. 

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

Willow’s issue is her driving need to be perfect at all costs. She feels like a failure, and when her magic becomes glitchy, deeply flawed. The theme of accepting yourself for who you are and accepting that you are loved for who you are, runs throughout the book. 

Never Ravenwood, the reclusive Witch Whisperer, prefers his solitary life, needing no one, so he thinks. He carries a guilt so heavy that living without love seems an apt penance. Working through a crippling guilt to achieve a normal life is also a running theme in the book. Sacrifices are made by both characters.  

Can you tell us more about where the story and characters go after book one?

Book two, The Keeper’s Code, picks up a secondary character from The Witch Whisperer—Ash Hunter. He’s a Keeper with the Bureau of Witchery charged with keeping the world-wide society of witches a secret, an ever-more difficult task in this modern world of cameras everywhere and social media. That secret is the over-arching conflict in the planned three-book series, although each book can stand alone. The Keeper’s Code begins a year and a half after the end of The Witch Whisperer and finds Ash paired with a beautiful investigative journalist (a Reg, or a person with no magic—think Muggle). She is determined to find proof of people with supernatural abilities and win the Pulitzer with her story. Ash is out to stop her, but so is a killer witch. The Keeper’s Code is very much a work in progress.

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Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2023/02/18/fixing-broken-magic/