Books and Banter: KC Cowan & Sara Cole ~ guest post and their novel The Hunt for Winter

TITLE: The Hunt for Winter:

A stolen child, a wizard thought long-dead, and a plot to resurrect an evil menace.

RELEASE DATE: July 2017

AUTHOR: KC Cowan & Sara Cole

CATEGORIES: Epic Fantasy/Adventure

PAGE COUNT: 471

ISBN: 978-0692931776

IMPRINT: Chimera

BOOK PAGE: http://ravenswoodpublishing.com/bookpages/thehuntforwinter.html

KEYWORDS: Fantasy, Girl Power, Epic Adventure, Female Friendship, Wizards, Fairies, Action

ONE LINER:
Five years after Irene, Nan, and Kay helped defeat an evil wizard, they reunite to track down a mysterious wizard who has kidnapped Irene’s son.

SYNOPSIS:
Queen Irene's son, Winter, is missing. His wizard teacher, Seever, has tried to find the boy using his “far-away vision,” but it is blocked when he looks to the north. Since only a powerful enchantment can block his sight, Seever concludes an unknown wizard must have taken the young prince.

But aside from Winter, Seever and Kaza, there are no other wizards left alive.

Or are there?

Book two in the Irene, Nan and Kay series, The Hunt for Winter, continues the story of Irene and her best friends as they travel north in search of the Crown Prince.

GUEST POST:

To Sequel, or Not to Sequel?

By KC Cowan

When my writing partner, Sara Cole, wrote the ending to our first fantasy novel, Journey to Wizards’ Keep (JTWK), we thought, “Well, that’s that! We finished the book, it has a great ending and we’re all happy.”

JTWK ends with the reader not knowing if Queen Irene gives birth to a son, who would be a wizard, or a girl, who would be mortal. The beautiful phrase Sara ended the book on only tells you that a “newborn child cried for the first time.”

Great, right? However, I could not stop thinking about Queen Irene. Did she have a wizard baby, or will Seever and Kaza be the last wizards in the land? Suddenly, I knew exactly what happened and I sat down and wrote the first chapter of a sequel. Irene has twins, a boy and a girl! After establishing that, I jumped ahead five years (so we could have good interaction with her children) and wrote a little bit about royal life in Cabbage and a brief catch-up with Irene’s best friends, Kay and Nan.

I sent the chapter to Sara and asked her if she wanted to keep writing. She immediately responded with a firm, “Yes! And I know exactly what this book is about!” She had the plot already in her head based on reading my first chapter! (That’s what I love about working with Sara – she’s the plot queen!)

So, we were off and running on book two in the Irene, Nan and Kay series with the title: The Hunt for Winter. Unlike the first book, during which we never really actively discussed the plot and just sent chapters back and forth to each other (almost like a game), this time Sara and I collaborated much more closely. Several times a month we would get together to discuss the story arc and what was, or was not working. As before, I acted as overall “editor” and keeper of the timeline.

Since we were writing this new book while I was still polishing and pitching JTWK, when we came up with an idea for book two, such as the magical use of mirrors, I could go back to the first book and add a short bit that would help establish that idea earlier on! Not the traditional way of writing, I’m sure, but it worked for us.

The Hunt for Winter became so long that at one point, I said, “We need to end book two at a certain point and start book three.” So we did. Look for the third novel in our series to come out in 2018, but in the meantime, I hope readers will enjoy The Hunt for Winter and the new adventures of Irene, Nan, and Kay as much as we did in writing them!

AUTHOR BIO:
KC Cowan has spent her life working in the media, as a reporter for KGW-TV, KPAM-AM and KXL-FM radio, and as original host and story producer for an arts program on Oregon Public Television. In addition to Journey to Wizards’ Keep: Book One in the Irene, Nan and Kay saga, KC is also the author of “The Riches of a City,” the history of Portland. She and her husband, Glenn, split their time between Portland, Oregon and Tucson, Arizona.

Sara Cole is an officer with Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office, where she is the Crime Prevention Coordinator. Sara provides public outreach to citizens on topics such as Neighborhood Watch, ID Theft and Personal Safety. She also serves on many community coalitions, and is a board member of the Crime Prevention Association of Oregon. Sara is married and spends much of her free time in her garden and enjoying her two grandchildren.