Neely Powell's Blog: A Word from Neely Powell

We’re asked all the time about how we write together. The answer is with a lot of planning, respect and hard work. Also, on any given day, we may have only one brain between us. LOL.

We’re long-time friends, first brought together by our love of books and desire to write fiction. Our collaborative efforts were initially laid to rest when our first two books never found a publishing home. Then Leigh started working on paranormal fiction, and Jan started editing and brainstorming with her. Four books later, we still like each other enough to keep going.

It hasn’t been smooth. We’ll spare you all the details, but the road to completing The Witches of New Mourne trilogy involved a couple of publishers and some disappointments. The publication of HEALING MAGIC on October 18, 2021, is a giant high. We’re proud we brought this story arc to a close.

As for how we cowrite—we think it helps that we’re very different. We develop plot and characters together. While the story may shift and change as we’re writing, a solid blueprint is where we begin.

From that point, Neely Powell has a split personality.

Leigh forges ahead, laying planks of story down. She loves research. For the trilogy, she explored candles, crystals, spells and potions for our witches to use. She’s a specialist in creating creatures like the one who rules the fae in our fictional town. Leigh’s a “throw words at the screen and fix them later” writer. She excels at keeping it going. 

Jan can’t do that. She edits as she writes. One sentence can take as long as the next three pages. She’s into the subtleties and details. For her, emotion is more important than plot, and she’s unafraid to let love, passion or anger rip.  

Do we drive each other crazy? Sometimes.

When Leigh gently tells Jan, “Let it go,” Jan may need to say, “Wait a minute, we need to think about what’s driving this character.” 

It’s a balancing act. 

Jan traveled this summer to Leigh’s Florida home for a planning session on a new book. The plot took a number of twists and turns. At a couple of points, we were not seeing eye to eye at all. Happily, no blood was shed, and our story has a fiery dragon residing atop a high rise in upscale Buckhead, Georgia. We’re bringing him to life one page at a time.

At the end of the day, our friendship matters most to us both. We’d hand in our laptops if Neely Powell started to interfere with Leigh and Jan, just two Tennessee girls who grew up wanting to spin words into stories. You can write a new book, but you can’t make an old friend.

We’re celebrating the release of HEALING MAGIC via FaceTime with a Diet Coke toast. Then it’s back to the dragon.

Popular witch stereotypes have them as ugly crones, wearing tattered black cloaks, pointy black hats, and flying on brooms with black cats perched onboard. Then there’s that other stereotype that has them wearing as little as possible with a come-hither gleam in their eyes.  

Our fictional witches don’t follow these patterns. They fly without brooms, wear regular clothes, and they look like you and me. Well, maybe a little better than us, thanks to some glamour spells. This isn’t TV’s Bewitched where magic is used only for emergencies. How dumb was that? And btw, when our witches dress sexy, it’s because they want to. Witches have the same rights as everyone else.

Creating our characters made us wonder about the origin of how witches look and dress. Like most stereotypes, there had to be some basis in history. 

Take, for example, the notion that witches only wear black. It likely came from associating the color black with evil, mystery and the occult. 

For thousands of years, healers have used natural remedies and spells to alleviate pain and suffering. This was an affront to early Christians, and such activities were deemed a sin and a crime. “Wise women,” known as witches, were forced underground. It’s easy to imagine them sneaking through the shadows in black, hiding their missions of aid in order to avoid condemnation or imprisonment. 

Black is also a choice for many witches as protection from negative energy. The color absorbs light from the sun, power that provides clarity and helps divine the truth. And honestly, should Stevie Nicks dress in anything but black when she twirls and swirls onstage while singing about an old Welsh witch named Rhiannon? 

Images of witches riding brooms appeared as early as the 1400s. Historians suggest the origin of this belief lies in pagan fertility rituals. Also, as women were most often associated with witchcraft, domestic tools such as brooms and cauldrons might naturally be seen as implements for their magic.

The history of the witch’s pointy black hat is complicated. Similar hats have been identified in mummified remains of purported witches from ancient China. In the 1200s, in a wave of anti-Semitism in Europe, Jews were forced to wear black hats as identifiers. As Jews were accused of black magic, the hat merged with an image of evil and devil worship.

The Quaker religion may have had the most direct impact on the witch’s hat. Rising to prominence in the 1600s, Quakers dressed in conical black hats, and they believed that people weren’t inherently sinful creatures in need of redemption and that women were equal to men. Oh the horror of it all! All those Quaker women parading in their black hats and speaking their minds perhaps cemented that element of witchy attire.

In our modern era, The Wizard of Oz presented The Wicked Witch as a green, snarling hag in that black dress, hat and on a broom. The iconic witch image was cemented. The movie also planted the idea that all bad witches are green. Thanks to that, millions have spent hours scrubbing off green makeup after Halloween parties. Real witches only achieve a greenish glow the morning after indulging in too much potent brew, just like most of us.

The notion that witches are all wart-faced hags likely came because warts were once called “the devil’s mark.” Like all unfounded fears, this became distorted, turning someone with a facial wart into a witch who meant great harm.

Any fully-stereotyped witch is also supposed to wander around with a black cat, known as a witch’s familiar, their closest companion and protector. First of all, not all familiars are cats, and not all witches have familiars. We’ll get into that at another time. Second, black cats have an unfounded bad reputation as symbols of bad luck and death. Black felines can be as lovable and cuddly or cantankerous and standoffish, as any other cat. And have you considered that caring for an animal might help you be the sort of person who makes their own good luck?

As we discovered how some of the presumptions about witches came to be, we decided to ignore some of them in our books. That’s the great thing about writing paranormal fiction; you can make your own world. Please enjoy the world of The Witches of New Mourne, our bewitching trilogy. https://bit.ly/NewMourne

The heroine of our paranormal romance HEALING MAGIC is a witch, healer and empath. Eva Grace Connelly uses crystals to soothe physical and emotional pain, and she and her coven embrace the natural power of crystals for protection and insight. The witches need all these tools in this action-packed final book of THE WITCHES OF NEW MOURNE trilogy.

These sister witches are carrying on an ancient tradition. Crystals have been used in healing rituals for thousands of years in cultures all over the world. For strength and fortification, gems and crystals have adorned swords, armor and thrones. 

Crystals and gemstones work with our internal rhythms, drawing out the negative energy and letting the positive flow in. They can help steady and sustain you. Holding a stone won’t heal you, but it can help.

The Powell half of our writing team has had a citrine crystal for decades. Citrine enhances the body’s natural healing. She often holds this smooth, polished stone when she prays or meditates or is looking for peace, insight or strength. She also uses geodes in her home décor (pictured), and moonstones are her favorite earrings (also pictured). 

We believe the natural world is infused with magic. It’s not always the flash-bang of magic we see in the movies. It’s in the rhythm of the seasons, the veins in a leaf, the cry of a bird and beautiful crystals mined from the earth. 

We loved incorporating the use of crystals into the WITCHES OF NEW MOURNE trilogy, particularly in HEALING MAGIC. Eva Grace is an amazing heroine who learns her strong, healing power can save her life, freeing her for a new path with a new love.  

Here’s more information about some of the crystals our characters used in THE WITCHES OF NEW MOURNE:

Amethyst – A powerful blood cleanser that strengthens psychic and channeling abilities, at once energizing and calming you. It’s a great tool for meditation. 

Aventurine – Used to release anxiety and fear while encouraging independence. 

Bloodstone – The right choice if you’re feeling confused or anxious and seek courage or prosperity. 

Carnelian – A versatile crystal that can help you through grief, improve creativity, sharpen your memory and even find a new mate. 

Citrine – Aids you in boosting self-esteem, promoting hope and joy, and lowering your self-destructive tendencies.

Dalmatian Jasper – Girls just want to have fun, and this crystal can help you by strengthening long-term relationships and accepting your strengths and weaknesses.

Fluorite – Helps ground your energy and boost your concentration. It can be used when attempting interdimensional communication. 

Green Moss Agate – A deep connection to nature allows this crystal to help increase your self-confidence and optimism. You’ll be open to success and prosperity. 

Hematite – A natural stress reliever, it enhances your personal magnetism and brings you courage. 

Labradorite – Helps you remember and understand your dreams while it promotes wisdom and patience. 

Lepidolite – Another excellent choice for help in dream recall as well as success in business. 

Mookaite Jasper – Helps provide balance and strength in times of trouble by blocking unwanted outside influences and improving your adaptability.  

Moonstone – A calming, protective stone that calms while also raising your sensitivity, and intuition. It’s a stone of protection and love. 

Obsidian – Provides powerful protection against negativity and psychic attacks. It can promote success and help you remain grounded. 

Picture Jasper – Use when seeking balance and harmony and you need mental healing. It can help you reveal your hidden hopes and fears. 

Quartz – A crystal for emotional balance and heightened consciousness, it scatters negative energy. 

Red Snakeskin Jasper – Promotes insight into difficult situations and encourages compassion and fairness.

Rose Quartz – A crystal with multiple uses, it can ease anger, fear, jealousy, and sexual and emotional imbalances. It promotes forgiveness and love. 

Selenite – Used often for help with concentration, clarity and decision-making. 

Snowflake Obsidian – When change or negative emotions threaten your balance, it helps promote serenity and centering. You’ll see situations more clearly. 

Sodalite – Aids in creativity and communication and calming your fears. 

Tiger Eye – Helps you connect with your personal power and will. While promoting clear perception and insight, it helps keep you grounded. 

Tiger Iron – A formidable, proactive stone that helps sharpen the mind and body’s strength while enhancing will power, motivation and creativity.  

Unakite – Frees emotional, spiritual, and mental energies to help you find love and heal from separation or abandonment.

Zebra Jasper – Helps you find tranquility, joy and the energy to realize your dreams. It’s used in meditation to transition to the astral plane.

When we began research for the Witches of New Mourne trilogy, we wanted characters who were witches with Irish roots. We created a full backstory, revealed in AWAKENING MAGIC, HAUNTING MAGIC and HEALING MAGIC. You can read the first two books now, and HEALING MAGIC will be out soon.

The original Connellys came from the Mourne Mountains in County Down, Ireland, located south of Belfast and north of Dublin. We picked this area because both of us are from Tennessee and appreciate the beauty of living surrounded by mountains. Choosing a real place also gave us a rich history for our characters.

The Connelly witches arrived in America in the 1750s, fleeing the Second Ice Age that decimated their homeland. They made their way from Savannah, Georgia, to the mountains of what is now North Georgia. Towering peaks filled with granite and marble reminded the Connellys of home, and they named their town New Mourne. Their early years were rough, but the coven did what they needed to survive—with deadly consequences for generations to come.

Today, New Mourne, Georgia, is a small town with a big heart, a sanctuary for supernatural beings to live side by side in harmony with humans. Though they abide by all human laws, the Connelly family coven provides protection and peace for this haven.

Let’s take a walk through New Mourne and visit the places our characters frequent.

At the town’s center is the courthouse where all county government business is conducted, including the sheriff’s department. The current sheriff is a shapeshifter who aligns with powerful witch Brenna Connelly Burns against evil forces in AWAKENING MAGIC.

One of the favorite stops in town is Bitta’s Bakery, where wonderful doughnuts, pastries, and cakes are made with a hint of magic by a kitchen witch. At the Clip ‘n Curl, you can get the latest styles from the pages of fashion magazines, or you can visit the two stylists who specialize in the teased and sprayed “helmet” hairstyle the elder Connelly aunts prefer.

In the heart of Main Street is Mary’s Diner, serving Southern favorites such as biscuits and gravy, chicken-fried steak and cornbread. All the locals, tourists, and residents of nearby towns love Mary’s home cooking. If you come to town for the fall foliage and hiking, you can stay at the Red Oak Tavern and Inn.

Dagan’s Trunk is the local antique store, and don’t be surprised if interesting events occur when you visit. Furniture can be haunted too. Speaking of hauntings, F. Burns Paranormal Investigations is in a storefront nearby. Fiona Connelly Burns is the local medium and witch whose story is told in HAUNTING MAGIC.

At the end of Main Street in a quaint historic home is Siren’s Call, a shop specializing in crystals, herbal remedies, candles, and other magical accouterments. It’s owned by healer and witch Eva Grace Connelly, heroine of the upcoming HEALING MAGIC.

As you head out of town, you’ll find a fork in the road. Go to the left and you’ll end up at Calle’s RV Park, owned by a family of shifters. The right turn will take you to the Connelly family homeplace and other Connelly homes. There’s also Devil’s Creek Road, a stretch of land where nothing has grown or thrived for years.

Heading toward Interstate 75, you’ll find The Enclave, an affluent new development filled with former Atlanta residents who’ve escaped the busy metropolitan sprawl. Most are unaware they live among witches, werewolves, shapeshifters, and faeries.
One of the mountains overlooking New Mourne is called Old Baldy by Native Americans. Legend has it that a dragon lives there...but that’s another story.

Come explore our magical town and meet its supernatural and human residents in The Witches of New Mourne trilogy. Keep an eye out for announcements about upcoming books.

Most of us live lives of heightened anticipation. We can’t wait to finish school, get a job/TV/apartment/job, and then a bigger, better job/TV/gaming system/home/car/etc. Then we want to live in luxury on Social Security. (Note: not all goals are linked to reality).

Truthfully, nothing comes as fast as bills, gray hair and kids growing up. Life is long, messy, funny, painful and beautiful. Sort of like writing our latest book HEALING MAGIC.

This is the third book in the Witches of New Mourne trilogy, and it took seven times longer to write than we intended. Take that in and ponder it—seven times longer. Ouch.

What happened? We could recount the highs and lows, but we won’t. People have to work and create their way through the good and bad life hands them. We did it, just not as fast as we’d have liked.

But that’s why we're excited to say HEALING MAGIC will be released by The Wild Rose Press in time for Samhain (Halloween to most of you). The holiday is key part of the story. We can’t wait until readers can binge the entire three-book arc. Start with AWAKENING MAGIC and HAUNTING MAGIC, and we’ll have a release date on HEALING MAGIC very soon.

Right now, we're savoring this moment. How sweet it is!

It’s a cloudy winter day in Central Florida, which means it’s only 61 degrees today. Those of you in the north are laughing and thinking about wearing shorts. However, that’s pretty chill for this part of the country.

I’ve been reading every day. After all, we’re almost a year into the pandemic and, since I’m retired, I spend most of my time at home. However, I admit, books have been my salvation. I grew tired of television many months ago. Now I find I enjoy listening to audiobooks more than watching TV.

Neely Powell is especially excited about the release of our book, Awakening Magic, as an audiobook. It’s available now everywhere. We’ve got the fantastic April Doty as narrator, and she truly brings our story to life.

We recently sent the completed manuscript of Healing Magic to our publisher, The Wild Rose Press, and we’re currently plotting the next book in the series. We’ve come to know The Connelly Witches of New Mourne very well, and we hope to continue these stories for many years.

We love writing about strong women who take bold steps and rescue themselves. Granted, they may end up in a few messes, but you can’t achieve success if you don’t know failure.

We love presenting a world where supernatural beings live side by side with humans. As believers, we feel magic is all around us. That means there are magical people passing on the street or possibly in your neighborhood.

If you’re beginning to feel that normal is just another word in the dictionary, please remember that there’s always a fellow reader to talk with on Goodreads. There’s nothing we enjoy more than discussing books and authors. We always answer the questions posted on “Ask the Author” or send us a message to our Facebook page, Neely Powell, Author. You can also email us a Neely_Powell@yahoo.com.

Let’s talk soon!

Seasons of the Witch

Dear Readers,

It’s fall and we’re still plugging along in 2020. With books to comfort and entertain, we’ll all get through it.

Fall is a special season for witches, who recently celebrated Samhain, a harvest festival that focuses on loving the earth and the elements. And we’re celebrating the audiobook release of our paranormal romance, Awakening Magic, about a coven of witches battling evil forces in North Georgia. The audiobook is now available, along with the print and ebook editions.

Just to freshen your memory, Neely Powell is Leigh Neely and Jan Powell. Our long friendship began at a rock ‘n roll radio station where Leigh was a disc jockey. We loved romance novels and wanted to write together, but it wasn’t in the cards back then. Leigh became an award-winning journalist and editor. Jan wrote as Celeste Hamilton for Silhouette Books before segueing into public relations and corporate communications. And now, after 30 years, we’ve co-written three paranormal romance novels.

Awakening Magic is the first book in our Connelly Witches series (also marketed as The Witches of New Mourne), published by The Wild Rose Press. The next book, Haunting Magic, is available in print and ebook with an audiobook planned in 2021. We’re almost finished with book number three and are plotting more.

We’ve enjoyed fantasy and paranormal fiction for years from favorites like Charlaine Harris and Patricia Briggs. We loved the Drake Sisters series, Kay Hooper’s paranormal FBI agents, and many, many more. Leigh particularly loves listening to books and says it’s helped her get through the pandemic.

Why do we love and write these books? Because we know magic exists. You just have to be open to it and believe. A little magic goes a long way in times like these.

We want to get to know our readers, and we always have a place for you to ask questions or just talk with us about books, reading, or writing. Please check-in.

The one thing you can count on is change. Jan and I have been through lots of changes during the past four and a half years. We’re both widows now. We’ve both lost our parents, and we’ve both keep putting off writing until things get...whatever. That has to stop.

I once heard Faith Popcorn speak. She is a futurist and follows trends. Everything she discussed during that talk in the mid-90s has happened. The thing she said that stuck with me was, “Teach your children to accept that change is inevitable, and they will be happier.”

I like to believe I did that with my three children, but apparently I didn’t accept it in my heart. I keep saying, “When things get better...” I know I’ve got to stop that. We have to write no matter what’s going on.

Writing is what we want to do for ourselves and our readers. We’ve made a Halloween resolution to finish “Healing Magic” and have it ready before the New Year.

Now, we’re accountable to you—we will finish the trilogy that begins the series about the Connelly Witches before Jan. 1, 2020.

We've been away for a while, just checking in on books read occasionally. Well, that's going to change now. We'll be doing a regular blog on a variety of subjects, including reading, writing (don't worry no 'rithmetic), subjects pertinent to us, and you can let us know about anything you'd like to discuss.

Right now, we're working on finishing the third book in The Connelly Witches series. The first book is "Awakening Magic," which features the romance and fight again the evil spirit, The Woman in White, by Brenna Connelly Burns.

The Connelly coven relocated to North Georgia in the 1700s after the first big Irish famine. Since they came from Mourne, Ireland, they named the new land they discovered New Mourne. Since that time, the small town has served as a haven for witches, fae, and supernatural beings of all types.

When the first Sarah Connelly was placing her wards around the new sanctuary, she was confronted by The Woman in White, a ghastly evil ghost who took the ultimate sacrifice from the coven every generation--the life of a young witch.

It's time for the Woman to get her tribute again, but the five young witches of this generation say it's time for the curse to end.

The second book is "Haunting Magic," and it features Fiona Connelly Burns, Brenna's younger sister, Not only is she a witch, she's a medium and talks frequently with the many ghosts who live in New Mourn.

The book we're working on now is "Healing Magic" and features Eva Grace Connelly, a strong empath and witch who uses her gifts to help others.

In the future, we'll tell the stories of Lauren and Maggie, who round out the newest generation of witches. We want you to love New Mourne and its supernatural occupants as much as we do.

Stay tuned for more...