Guest Post by: Ani Gonzalex
Hi, my name is Ani Gonzalez. I write paranormal romantic comedy and cozy mystery and Community Book Stope has kindly agreed to host the book tour for Fortune Favors the Witch, the second book in my Main Street Witches cozy mystery series.
Main Street Witches is a spin off of my haunted town romantic comedy series, Banshee Creek. Three witches head to America’s Most Haunted Town to open up business and find romance and mystery along the way. The series was inspired by my love of all things witchy (just like Banshee Creek arose out of my enthusiasm for all things haunted).
As a writer, I find inspiration in popular cultures, and I often end up writing the story I want to read, but can’t find anywhere. In this case, a witchy romantic mystery with tons of obscure paranormal detail (in this case UFOlogy, cartomancy, and astrology). Books are a huge influence on me, on here are some of the stories that inspired and/or influenced the series.
1. The Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World. Victorian spiritualism at its best. Great book. Did you watch the Houdini and Doyle television show? If you liked that, you'll like this book. Fortune Favors the Witch is inspired by this story.
2. Hallow’een Party: A Hercule Poirot Mystery. A Halloween-themed Agatha Christie mystery? Sign me up! I loved this book, and the fish-out-of-water theme and the small village atmosphere influenced my series enormously.
3. A Season With the Witch: The Magic and Mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachussetts. A writer spends a Halloween season in the witchiest town in the world. This was one of my Banshee Creek research books, and it’s fantastic!
5. Rosemary Edghill’s Bell, Book, and Murder – A witch detective solving murders in Manhattan. I loved the quirky protagonist and the realistic view of neopagan life in New York City.
6. Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches – A witch family, a New Orleans manor and a mischievous spirit. This was the book that started my love affair with magical houses. The plot turns into mush toward the end of the series, but the atmosphere is fantastic.
7. Jane Crowcroft’s Witch Love – This is a crazy 1970’s tale of time-traveling witches. It’s terribly outdated, of course, but it was my first foray into witch romance and I still remember it fondly.
8. Mary Janice Davidson’s Queen Betsy series – One of the first (and still one of the best) humorous paranormal series out there. These were the books that taught me that paranormal stories could be laugh out loud funny.
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