Author of The Coven’s Son
To get you in the mood for the witching month of October, and to gently lead you to All Hallow’s Eve, today I am chatting with the author of The Coven’s Son, Preston Allen.
Welcome Preston. To start us off please tell us a little about your book.
Preston: The Coven’s Son is set in a world where all witches’ first born child is a female who siphons magic from her mother during birth, which explains why the word “witch” is so commonly associated with only women. But, Dev’s first child is a male who she named Oak and their coven discovers secrets that were held from the world when researching ways to control Oak’s out of control abilities..
Helen: Oak certainly faces some challenges and I thoroughly enjoyed your unique take on a witches’ coven. I will be posting a book review in due course, so watch this space!
Have you got the writing bug? Are you working on another novel?
Preston: My current WIP is an adult tongue in cheek dark comedy about what happens after you die. Think of the waiting room from Beetlejuice. I poke fun at death while also creating a detailed view of the afterlife without holding back from descriptive, gory details. Although, its release depends on the success of The Coven’s Son!
Helen: I wish you every success with The Coven’s Son as I hope we get to read more of Oak as well as other characters currently bubbling in your imagination. Talking about characters, which character do enjoy writing the most? Heroes or villains?
Preston: I love villains and the ability to make them a bit more over the top than the average person. You get to make them appear the way we all want to express ourselves if our society wasn’t so uptight and judgmental. Writing their visual descriptions and painting a sinister picture in someone’s head just creates a movie scene in the mind of the reader.
Helen: I love all the concoctions the witches make and the descriptions of the still room. Did you have to do a lot of research to come up with the ingredients for the spells?
Preston: A LOT. The Coven’s Son has so much historical accuracy and easter eggs hidden in it. I made sure that no matter what area of the book you want to google, you will most likely find some sort of link to history. I am also planning a trip to NYC for the future to do location research for my next book.
Helen: You created a complex world of witches with a unique spin. Where did you get the inspiration for your book from?
Preston: I love visiting oddity shops and metaphysical stores. There’s so much visual stimulation to create stories from. Everything around me gives me ideas. In The Coven’s Son, there is a huge section based entirely off the title of an arcade machine I saw while in a gametime, it sparked an idea that had my mind spinning with ideas.
Helen: I can imagine that would be a trove of wonderful prompts. Speaking of prompts, how did you come up with the design for your book cover?
Preston: I woke up from a dead sleep at about 3 a.m. knowing exactly what I wanted the cover to look like. I had to get up and scribble it out so that I didn’t forget. The cover was re-done three times by two different illustrators before I approved the final version. It is a scene directly from the story.
Helen: Thank you so much, Preston, for spending time with us today. We wish you all the best with your book: The Coven’s Son. You can find out more about Preston and where you can purchase his book on his website here.
Helen Garraway 