I am so excited for this book. I think it has probably been my favourite to write, so far. Ryder, the younger Williams sister, is such a fun character, and I am thoroughly enjoying her successes and empathising with her failures as she solves the ghostly smuggling mystery in Burley.
Each and every character in the books is an aspect of myself, and Ryder is most definitely my Younger Self. Impulsive and fearless, she learns by doing, not by watching and waiting. She wears her heart on her sleeve, which means it gets broken often, but that doesn’t stop her from loving and from loving love itself.
Lots of side characters are finding their own feet in Ryder’s story: Mackenzie, the younger Walker brother (everyone knows and loves Dougal, the older sibling), as well as a new understanding of Alexander Hardwick, as you will discover. I love complex characters, and Xander is certainly one of those who is deliciously fun to write.
There is one more book left to write in Ryder’s story, which I am aiming to have released in time for Samhain (Hallowe’en). This book is titled Traitors and Trysts, and that is all that I am going to say about it for now!
Writing fiction has always been my first love, and I am so blessed to be able to do this now. I am also so thankful to all my lovely readers, who are so supportive and, like me, can’t wait to see what happens next!
Unlike my non-fiction, these books aren’t planned out in detail. I have a general idea of where the story is going, as well as some major scenes that pop into my head for the characters. What happens in between, well, that’s up to the muses as I sit down at my computer every day, typing away and just letting the inspiration flow. It has truly been an amazing journey so far, and I thank the muses from the bottom of my heart for being with me during this adventure.
You can pick up your copy of Lovers and Lies (Witches of the New Forest, Book 5) from Amazonand Rakuten Kobo. Only the Kindle and Kobo e-book editions are available for pre-order, but all editions, including paperback and hardcover, will come out on the same date: Friday, 24 April 2026.
Reaching into the bowl at the little metaphysical shop a few villages over from my parents’ place in Quebec, I expected some trite little reading to appear on the papers that filled the bowl on the counter. Some sort of New Age fortune cookie-type deal, I snarked silently to myself. I handed one to my mother and took one for myself.
That piece of paper is now sitting in front of me here in Suffolk, England, on the base of my laptop, a daily reminder of something that I often forget.
“Lorsque tu fais tes demandes á l’Univers, ne te soucie pas du quant ni du comment. Lâche prise. L’Univers se charge du reste.”
When you make your requests to the Universe, don’t worry about the when or how. Let go. The Universe will take care of the rest.
As a Virgo, I like to take charge of my life, and sometimes, that of others. As a Witch and a Druid, I also have abilities to influence and nudge certain things, to create a better environment around me. But there always comes a point when I must admit to myself that it’s time to let go, to drop the imaginary reins that I am holding on to in my life.
There are so many external factors in everything that comes our way, that it is simply impossible to be in control of everything. Heck, it’s damned-near impossible to be in control of anything, in all honesty. I’ve come to realise that the only thing we can truly control is ourselves and our reaction to things, and even then, we all fail miserably more often than not.
In my work, it’s actually only the writing that I have any control over, and even then, it’s sometimes tenuous. Because the muses are flowing through me, and as I never quite know what is going to happen each time I sit down to do a little more of my book, it’s a form of letting go, even though I am typing away at the keyboard, and I am doing the work. But it’s a shared work, partnering with something bigger, or at the very least, just different from my physical form. It’s like an athlete getting into the zone and becoming their sport, or the artist becoming their painting. It’s not just them, but something else, too.
And it’s in that letting go where that magic happens.
That being said, there’s also a huge other side to being an author. It’s doing all the marketing, budgeting for the marketing, recording sales, etc., that crashes in on the wonderful artistic side of the craft. And that is where I have a much more difficult time in letting go. I want to understand algorithms so that I can use them to my advantage (hot tip: no one understands any algorithm. No matter what they try to tell you, or sell you.) I want to understand the numbers and the sales around the world, so that I can approach different audiences and expand my creative outlet. But there is only so much that I can do, and then allow the universe to take care of the rest.
Returning to my meditation practice is probably the best thing to help me let go, to just be for a little while, without the thought, the struggle, the work. It’s a time for me to set down all those heavy bags of worry, of plans, of to-do lists and just be.
It’s bliss.
And it’s something that I’m trying to incorporate more into my life, in all aspects and not just in my writing. Because, in all honesty, isn’t that what living is all about?
Sometimes, when everything in your life just seems so much bigger than before, we can often set aside the so-called smaller things in order to focus and cope with the larger things.
But here’s the thing: it’s the small things that add up over time, which help us to deal with the big stuff.
From December until now, in mid-March 2026, my daily routine and ritual consisted of a short prayer to my goddess, and occasional walks when I had the time out on the heath. Over the winter holidays, when I was travelling, even this fell by the wayside until I returned home. Daily meditations went out the window because I thought I just didn’t have the time.
What I forgot was this one essential truth: we can always make time for the things that really matter in our lives.
It was the end of February, and after a long, hard day editing my latest book, Lovers and Lies (Witches of the New Forest, Book 5, coming out in April), I went upstairs to sit at the window in my disused meditation space. This seat offers me a wonderful view of the back garden and beyond, down the little valley that leads to the stream at the end of the lane that eventually flows out to the sea. My mind was a mess of worry, busy thoughts, and more.
And then I put them all down for ten brief seconds.
I watched the pine trees swaying in the breeze, and heard the blackbird singing in the evening light. And for those ten seconds, seeing the natural world just outside my window, just being, doing its own thing, I left all my mental baggage and enjoyed a moment of just existing, quietly, in that very moment.
It brought tears of relief to my eyes.
It is so difficult to describe that feeling in words. It was like I was carrying heavy luggage around in my mind and body, and I had simply set it down and taken a long, steadying breath.
And I then realised that I didn’t want to pick up those heavy bags again.
On and off, when I could, at the end of each working day, I went upstairs to look out that window and reconnect for a few minutes. Sometimes I was successful. Most of the time I was not. And then I knew that I had to do more. I had to reinstate my daily meditation practice.
And so I am. For fifteen minutes a day, to begin with, I am going to just sit and release all the thoughts that are whirring around in my brain. I want to feel that beautiful release of setting down that baggage and instead walking through life with just my carry-on. Light, easy to carry and easy to set down, this is how I want to move through the world again. We can lose sight so quickly of what really matters to us. There are so many distractions, so many so-called refuges that are anything but. For me, I know what works. And that is sitting quietly, observing all my crazy whirlwind thoughts, and then letting them go, one by one, as I set down my baggage for the day and walk into the world slightly less mentally encumbered.
Just as whenever I fly back to Canada to visit my family, I only ever take carry-on luggage. Easy to move, small and lightweight, no extra expenses. No worries about lost luggage, no waiting in the luggage area after a flight, I can just walk out of the airport and get on with my holiday. This is how I plan to move through life. It’s only the essentials that matter.
I’d like to thank that pine tree and blackbird, who reminded me of what it is that I needed to focus on in my life right now, when I had lost my way.
And I will meditate and give myself the time to remember this valuable lesson.
Being a bit of a hermit living out on the far eastern edges of England and not engaging all that much online in favour of working with the land and the local people around me, I miss a lot of the intensity, drama, and other goings-on in the Pagan/Witchcraft/Heathen/Druid community. The online community is but one of many communities in which people can gather, and yet for the last decade or two seems to have taken prominence over others. Whether this is a good thing or not I am not going to judge. What I will comment on in this blog post, however, is the validity of one’s own practice, religion, or path in light of the divisiveness that communities can create, which in today’s day and age the loudest seems to be the online community.
This is nothing new. Communities are where people gather, and where people gather there will always be shit-talking. People are people. They are wonderful and loving, they are kind and compassionate, they are cruel and mean, and they are stirrers and troublemakers. There’s nothing you can really do about other people, online or off, and the only real changes you can make are to your own life, letting that be an example for others.
In a magical community, there are extra forces at work, different powers at play, and yet at the heart of it all is simple humanity. There is good and bad in the world, there are good and bad people and everything in between. We all have actions, deeds, or thoughts we regret, as well as beautiful acts of generosity and love. What we need to remember, and indeed foster, is something that I heard Maxine Sanders say in an interview with the Museum of Witchcraft back in December 2017.
She stated that we need more peace and less of the joy of viciousness in our lives. That there is nothing worse that sanctimosity without the holy. These phrases have really struck a chord with me, and make me think of what so many people tell me about the online community today, and what little I have myself experienced over the last twenty years. Before we had the internet these things still occurred, and as I have already stated, people are people. But the far-reaching abundance and ease with which sanctimosity and viciousness can occur online behind a screen of anonymity is something totally new to humanity, and is indeed changing the way that we humans think and behave in the world at large. And it is something that does indeed frighten me.
The main point that I am trying to reach in a rather circumventuous (yes, I just made that word up and I like it) route is that I feel there is a real need to concern yourself less with what others are doing in their own spiritual practice/Craft/religion and to focus on your own work more. It is far easier to belittle, attack or comment on other people’s work than to take a good, hard look at your own. Looking outwards is usually always simpler than looking inwards. But understanding your own self will help you to better understand others far quicker than focusing outwards all the time, in my opinion.
I wrote a blog post at the end of last year about what your life is like when no one is watching, and I feel that ties in neatly with what I am trying to say here. Concern yourself less with what other people think, and take the time to really know and understand what it is that you think, feel, and should work towards. In a magical life and practice, this will certainly be different for every individual, based on their life circumstances such as upbringing, environment, culture and society, economic stability and a whole host of things that fit within Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (although needs don’t necessarily form a hierarchy). If each person’s practice is unique according to each person’s life experience, then how on earth can anyone tell another that they are doing it wrong? Is this not an ego and control issue, rather than trying to further the Craft/spirituality/religion?
Let’s take Maxine’s advice to heart. Let us find the holy in our own lives, without being sanctimonious about it. Let’s leave off the joy of viciousness in favour of more peace in our own lives. Let’s focus on ourselves and our own practice, and stop comparing them and our lives to others’ on the internet or in the real life community, because we are not getting the full picture in either situation. We can be inspired by those whose words and actions lift us up, and open up new pathways of being, for sure. But living a life of comparison is an empty one.
Live your life, and work your magic as it best works for you.
Here it is, the video for this year’s deer rut! I didn’t have as much time as I normally do to get out onto the heath for filming, what with the book release of Smugglers and Secrets, Book 4 of the Witches of the New Forest series at the end of October. But I did manage to film some old favourites, including Aelfric, Boromir, Faramir, Theoden, Merry and Pippin!
I hope that you all had a lovely Hallowe’en, Samhain, Winter Finding/Winter Nights, etc. Even though it has warmed up here in Suffolk, England these last few days, it still feels like winter is nearly here. There is a scent in the air, something indescribable that forebodes the season of long, cold nights. The light in the sky has turned wintry, the scudding clouds across the moon look moody, and the wild winds are here—yes, the Wild Hunt has certainly begun!
This weekend was the book launch for Book 4, Smugglers and Secrets from my fiction series, Witches of the New Forest. It’s been a crazy weekend, but I am overwhelmed by the amount of support for this series. The book sales were phenomenal, and Smugglers and Secrets reached number 11 in the top 100 paranormal ghost romance books on Amazon! It is still in the top 100 bestsellers in all three of its categories, and I am just so chuffed about it all. As well, production for the audiobook of Hedge Witch, Book 1 in the series, has begun!
Some friends and I had a lovely ritual in the back garden on Friday, followed by a meal indoors. I had found some writings on an old Suffolk ritual called Horkey, or Horkney, and so tried to recreate some of that for us. It was fun! My neighbour even played her accordion for us during a part of the ritual where we sat and thought about our ancestors after laying down offerings for them. It was a very special moment, with the rising moon shining in the sky, the wind blowing and the darkness descending. It’s a memory that I will cherish for many years to come.
The deer rut continues, though it feels like it is winding down now. I shall endeavor to get some more photographs before the end, and share them with you here. Below you will find the few that I have managed to get in between the work of getting this book out, and the planning for the ritual we shared.
I love the month of November. The dark, windy days just seem to set the mood for this time of year. I don’t mind the encroaching night, nor the loss of the warmth. Instead, I love going out for walks, feeling the reflective and melancholy nature of this time, when everything is winding down, the skies are often grey and the feeling of the year’s work rest wearily in my bones. I’ve done all that I can do, and now it is time to simply be, to rest, to let everything go as the wild winds howl, the leaves come down, the rain lashes and the cold nights settle in.
I often feel a pull towards celebrating and working in the pre-Christian traditions of my Germanic and Scandinavian ancestors at this time of year. It’s a soul-deep yearning for connections to the gods, the wights, the ancestors. Though I work with the goddess Freya all year round and Skadhi during the cold season, this winter I might explore working with other deities, perhaps ones I haven’t tried to connect to before such as Freyr, Ullr or Odin. I enjoy the simplicity of a blót, the connection of a sumbel, the forthrightness of the core values that are held dear and the feeling of rootedness that it brings to me, as if I am walking with my ancestors from an age long gone, but which is returning to the modern world.
From here on the Suffolk coast of England, I wish you all Waes Hael!
It’s at this time of the year when we Witches, Druids, Heathens and Pagans come to attention of many, especially in the media circles. Some are genuinely interested in our way of life, our beliefs and how we interact with the world. Most, however, just see us as a bunch of kooks to be brought out into the light of the jack-o-lanterns of Hallowe’en.
I have wondered lately how long this perception of us as crazy, misguided, weird or strange will last. How is it that believing in deities that are associated with nature is considered bonkers, but a dead guy claiming to be the son of God being resurrected is totally sane? Other religions (because for me, Witchcraft is a religion as well as a Craft) are, for the most part, not treated in a similar manner. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism—most of “isms” apart from Paganism—are treated with more respect. The constant mockery of our own past and attempts to reconnect to it just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to me.
Do some of us like to dress up in robes and carry out ritual observances? Sure, but so does the Catholic Bishop, the Buddhist monk and the Taoist priest. Is it because we Pagans are not considered ordained clergy in the same regard (even if some of us have gone through legal ordination where we live?) and are just “play-acting” at being something we are not? That doesn’t make sense given our huge cultural influence of Protestantism, where one does not have to be a priest in order to connect with deity (or ancestors, spirits of place, whatever one chooses to have a relationship with). One can deny it all they want, but threads of Protestantism are rife within Western culture, from the work ethic to the ideas of self-sufficiency, both in the mundane and in the spiritual sense.
I am so tired of being considered an “outsider” simply because I want to research and recreate a spiritual tradition based on my pre-Christian ancestors and cultural roots. In the grand scheme of things, Christianity is so young, and we as a society have barely even begun to be Christianised, let alone stop being Pagan. We anthropomorphize non-human beings and objects, we have folklore and superstitions that are embedded in every culture, and we have such a real, visceral need to connect to nature that nowadays, when we cannot, we are medically diagnosed as suffering from “nature deficit disorder”.
When will the time come when at a party or gathering if someone asks you about your personal life and you tell them that you are Witch, or a Druid, or a Heathen, you don’t get a strange look, a raised eyebrow, or an instant dismissal of some kind? That people won’t question your intelligence or your sanity because you choose to follow a spirituality that is earth-based, or that incorporates ancestral veneration, or that you have relationships with more than one deity? That won’t scoff when you say that you practice the magickal arts, even as they go to church and take part in the Eucharist where the wine becomes the blood of Christ through consubstantiation? When will all aspects of Paganism become “normal”?
Then again, do we want to be normal? Is there even such a thing? I certainly don’t think so. But it would be nice to not have to explain that we are not worshipping the Devil (unless you are, in which case, it should make for an interesting conversation to say the least, if the person you are talking to doesn’t go running and screaming for the hills), that we don’t dance naked around a fire (unless that’s your thing, but it’s usually too bloody cold or buggy here in the UK for that), or that you can turn people into toads (if only). That the jokes about all these things would be considered politically incorrect, and that we would no longer have to put up with this nonsense. That we wouldn’t be considered freaks, weirdos or nuts. That we just want to practice what our ancestors have done, and try to recreate some of the old ways as much as we possibly can so that we don’t forget our heritage. That we find new ways to practice and adapt the old ways in order to fit into a modern life.
There are some benefits to being an outsider. You can look at things more objectively, when you are not right in the thick of something that is considered culturally normal, even superior. That you are transgressive, in some way, which kind of makes you a little dangerous (and who doesn’t like that feeling every once in a while?). But it is also a constant battle of wills, to try and be seen and heard for what you are without the ridicule, mockery, disbelief and sometimes outright hatred. We think we have moved on from the witch hunts, but just how much have we progressed? And how far do we have to go?
The layers of Christianity and patriarchy that underly all of Western society certainly doesn’t help. But we are in 2025, for the goddess’ sake. In my lifetime alone, we have seen amazing advances in technology, society and psychology. But there is still so much more that needs to be done. And I often wonder if I will ever see a significant change in my lifetime. Will I ever be able to meet someone new, and not feel awkward about telling them about my spiritual life, if they should ask? Will it ever just be easy?
Maybe it’s just not supposed to be easy, at least not yet. There are still many mountains to climb, both literally and figuratively. Maybe we still need to the be the ones who wake others up to a world that lies beyond their own.
But dammit, some days it’s just friggin’ exhausting.
Exciting news! Hedge Witch, Book 1 of my Witches of the New Forest fiction series, is now available in hardback! All the books will soon be available in hardback editions, which makes me so pleased. There is nothing quite like a hardback edition that will last a lifetime
Down the Forest Path 