Month: February 2025

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New look!

It’s been a busy week so far, and we are only Wednesday! But I’ve been working late into the evenings, getting my new fiction book series, Witches of the New Forest, up to date and ready for the third book, The Witch’s Compass, which is coming out in the late spring.

So, what have I been doing? Well, after much consideration, I decided to change the cover of Hedge Witch. This is so that the other books in the series can follow a theme: forest scenes. As the series is set in England’s New Forest region, it only makes sense to have all the covers correlate not only to that theme, but also to each other.

And so, here is the new book cover!

The colours work well with the second book, almost being a reverse of the greys, blues and orange/peachy tones. I’m pleased with it, but then, I designed it, so there you go!

Hedge Witch has been doing well in the book rankings, last week coming in the top 100 of three different categories: Women’s Fantasy Fiction, Magic Romance ebooks, and Paranormal Witches and Wizards Romance. But this book, and all the others in the series, are so much more than romance novels (though I do love a good love story). They tell the tale of coming into one’s own power, the different boundaries that exist both within ourselves and our society, and also contain a large portion of modern Witchcraft and Druidry thrown in for good measure!

It’s been getting really great reviews as well, for which I am super pleased. It’s so wonderful that this book and the second, The Veil Between the Worlds, is really resonating with folks. I’m two thirds of the way through writing the third book, which will round off Hunter’s trilogy, and then we can begin exploring Ryder, her sister’s story, in the fourth book.

Come and join me in the New Forest!

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The topic of ‘Romantasy’

I was a call-in guest today on the Jeremy Vine BBC Radio 2 Show today, and we were discussing ‘romantasy’ as the new genre that’s getting everyone talking. Here’s a link to the episode, and for those who are unable to listen, please see the short transcript below.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0027mf4

Tina Daheley – Joanna is in Woodbridge, Suffolk – Joanna, ‘Romantasy’, what is your view?

Joanna van der Hoeven – “I think it’s wonderful that it is so prevalent now, because it is saying to women, ‘Don’t be ashamed to like, what you like’. You will see women on the trains, on the buses, reading these books, and it is allowing you to just say, ‘Yes! This is what I am going to consume, this is what I like,” and to not be ashamed of it, because far too often we are made to feel small, or ashamed for anything to do with sexuality, as women. And so, the whole ‘Fairy Porn’ thing, when I first heard that it made me laugh out loud, but then I thought, ‘Well, isn’t it the same thing as the patriarchy trying to tell women not to be sexual creatures?

TD – “So it’s reductive, you think, calling it “Fairy Porn.”

Joanna van der Hoeven – “Exactly, yeah. As an author myself, as a romantasy author, I find that it is empowering for women to say, ‘This is what we like, so let’s continue with it.’

TD – “Alright, Joanna, thank you very much!”

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Website re-vamped!

So, I spent all weekend updating and refreshing my website. When you run the whole show in your author life (on the self-publishing side), you start to learn and develop a whole new set of skills, such as creating your own website, designing your book covers, your marketing visuals, and more. And so this weekend was a big change (at least for me) on moving forward with my writing career.

I wanted to add something fun to the website as well, and thought, what if I created a music playlist for the different books in my Witches of the New Forest series? So I did!

Each track is a mood, emotion, or scene from the book, run in sequential order through the chapters. It was a new way of looking at the work, and Ioved creating it!

I will also be adding some bonus scenes in the next few weeks for both Hedge Witch and The Veil Between the Worlds. I hope you like them!

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Writing through the Depth of Winter Into Spring

As I returned from my holiday back in Quebec, Canada, spending time with my family, I dove straight into writing the third book for my new fiction series, Witches of the New Forest. The first two books in this series flowed out of me like water, and I wrote like a woman possessed (which may entirely be the case when you’re knee-deep in awen). This third book has somewhat followed suit, and I am halfway through writing it as we speak. But it is providing me with new challenges as well.

Being the final book in Hunter’s trilogy, and the culmination of the books before, (Hedge Witch and The Veil Between the Worlds) there is a lot of pressure on this final book before we move on to her sister, Ryder’s story. The build-up and the expectation is there from the readers (and from myself), and this can sometimes restrict the flow of awen, the flow of inspiration, because I am letting myself and my worries get in the way of writing. It’s hard to admit to, but there it is.

So, I’ve just got to get over fretting what other people are going to think of this book, and just let it happen. It’s how the other two were written. I had a general idea, a few of scenes came to mind while either out wandering the forest and heath (or in the bathtub, terribly inconvenient for writing key points down), and then I just sat down and let the characters do their thing. Now, I feel like I’m worrying over them like a mother hen, and they just can’t do what they want, or need to do, to finish the work.

The characters need the freedom to express themselves and work out their own dynamics without me getting involved. Yes, this is a bit of an oxymoron, as there are parts of me in each character, but it’s only when I allow them the freedom to interact with each other that the magic (or magick) really happens. Worry doesn’t really help the artistic process one bit!

So, following on from my previous post which I wrote back in December, I need to get my Zen on. I need to stop striving and just let it be.

Easier said than done.

I think that there is also a lesson to be learned (at least for myself) in this latest book, which is all about how Hunter is allowing her past to dictate her future. Through the Witch’s Compass, she is able to navigate herself to her true nature, and find her authentic self in all its glory and all its disaster. When we accept this and stop striving, we can move forwards with more awareness. I need to stop trying to be perfect, to stop allowing negative incidents from my past colour my current perceptions, and be open to receiving guidance and the divine inspiration that is all around me.

Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy.

As we move into spring, I think both Hunter and I will make it through this, though there are still going to be challenges and set-backs along the way. But we both have a great network of people that are with us, and though the person that supports me on a daily basis may not be a Druid/Park Ranger like Jack, he is still my foundation and my rock. His science-mind is a great complement to my magickal mind, and who knows? That may even be the inspiration for much of Ryder’s story, yet to come…