The Tower: Legend of the Heartstone follows a sixteen-year-old girl who, on her birthday, enters the mysterious tower in her town and enters a realm filled with magic. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The inspiration for my story came from two places. Therapy and a dream. My therapist, Lisa (who the book is dedicated to), suggested I find something that made/could make me happy by looking back on my childhood. As a pre-teen I loved to write stories, mostly horror and mystery. I gave up writing the older I became because I felt I would be made fun of for it. (Yay for social anxiety!) So, I was playing around with the idea of what kind of story I should write, when one night I had a dream. I was standing outside of a tall, mysterious Tower and I wanted to go inside. My mother was there too, and I begged her to go inside the Tower with me. She refused, saying she was perfectly happy with how her life was. I remember choosing to enter the Tower in the dream, sad my mother wasn’t joining me, but excited for the possibilities beyond its door. I woke up and started creating the story from there. I really liked the idea of a YA fantasy story that involved a child and a parent, where both have their individual journey, as well as one together. (More of that happening in book 2!)

In a lot of contemporary coming-of-age fiction novels, authors often add their own life experiences to the story. Are there any bits of you in this story?

Yes. There are pieces of me in every part of this story. Not necessarily in the events, but in the emotions of all the characters. The feelings they feel, happy and sad, pain and sorrow, that’s where I poured out feelings I have kept inside me for years. It was a very healing outlet, and I believe it helped the characters be more relatable to my readers.

How did you handle the magic in this story, and how did it evolve as you were writing?

I had a secret weapon when it came to creating the magic system for my story. My husband, Jordan (who also drew the cover and chapter art). I came up with the core of the magic system in my story, the Heartstone, and my husband kept asking me SO many questions about the history of it, how it worked, how people used it, etc. I will admit, there wasn’t going to be much to the way magic worked in Azendor (fantasy world), but my husband was so curious and wanted more and more, that together we came up with the ins and outs of how magic worked in the world I created. I even remember one day we were out hiking with our toddler and baby, and he was asking about spell creation and how the common person could use magic in Azendor, not just the students at Refudawn Academy. I had NO idea whatsoever how to answer his question. So, I looked around at the forest we were hiking through and was inspired by nature. Realizing that with the shattering of the Heartstone, some of the magical energy had to be expelled out into the realm. Why not have it jump into nearby plants and animals? Then people could collect those things to obtain magical properties. I won’t go into much more on that, but that’s where the magic system for my story really jumped off from. The magic evolved as I wrote, because my characters kept using it more and more, which meant my husband would question/catch more loopholes to how the magic worked. He was reading each chapter after I finished its first draft, and he really helped in creating the way magic works in this story.

When will book 2 be available? Can you give us an idea of where that book will take readers?

I am hoping book 2 will be available mid to late March of this year (2024). Book 1 takes place in Ena’s hometown, and the main town of Azendor, Refudawn. Book 2, The Quest, will take readers throughout the realm of Azendor. There will be more interactions with the magic of the world, and the people who live there. The kingdom of the sky dwarves, the elven forest, the ocean-side settlement of the Kiri (skin changers), and meeting the realm’s remaining dragon, Rahu. I really enjoyed writing book 2 and am so excited for people to learn even more about Ena’s mother’s past, why the dark lord is after Ena, and who her father is. AND which boy has the best chance of being her love interest (no spice – just sweet young love, it is YA after all).

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