FEATURED AUTHOR: MARY E. CALVERT

ABOUT THE BOOK: THE HEALER OF GUILDENWOOD


Margaret Ann Shepherd just wants to be a normal high school senior and not be seen as the least bit weird. But nothing extraordinary ever happens to anyone who is not a little odd . . .

When Margaret Ann wakes one morning acting as though she’s just stepped out of the Middle Ages, everyone starts to doubt her sanity. But what really happened on the night in question? Placed in therapy to get to the bottom of her eccentricities, memories emerge of another body, another world, another life lived over the course of one night. 

In The Soultrekker Chronicles Book I, The Healer of Guildenwood, Margaret Ann struggles to make a new life with a new name, Arwyn, in a world where elves, mortals, and dwarves live beneath a shadow of tyranny, groaning for redemption. Arwyn must carefully navigate her abilities in combat and the art of healing, which she learns from a mysterious old hermit who seems to know more about her than he willingly admits. And when she accidentally attracts the attention of a brutal dictator, Draigon, her new world becomes even more dangerous. Is she truly an elf, revered by some, feared and hated by the powers that be, or do her passionate tendencies hint at a mortal nature?

Elf or mortal, her soul was borrowed for a purpose she can scarcely imagine. Arwyn will either fall into despair over her lost life . . . or discover that which she was born to be.

Book Details:


Title: The Healer of Guildenwood 

Author: Mary E. Calvert


Genre: Fantasy, YA


Series: The Soultrekker Chronicles, book 1  


Publisher: Westbow Press (October 2016)


Print length: 288 pages

ABOUT THE BOOK: THE SECRET OF THE HOLD

In book two of The Soultrekker Chronicles, Margaret Ann Shepherd, still under hypnosis with therapist Dr. Susan Renfroe, continues recounting memories of the night she lived an entire other life as the elven maiden, Arwyn, in the beautiful but troubled land of Bensor.

A perilous journey smuggling fugitive dwarves leads Arwyn to the enchanting realm of the elves, where a lukewarm reception by the elven lord, Valdir Velconium, a man plagued with secrets from his past, makes her wonder if she will ever find the place she truly belongs. Yet an unexpected meeting with an intriguing stranger challenges her resolve to aid the Alliance in its upcoming rebellion against the dictator, Draigon, forcing her to choose between two men who seek to win her heart. It is a choice between love and duty that could ultimately destroy Arwyn when Draigon springs a trap of his own.

Or, it could force Arwyn to do the unthinkable.

Book Details:


Title: The Secret of the Hold 

Author: Mary E. Calvert


Genre: Fantasy, YA


Series: The Soultrekker Chronicles, book 2


Publisher: Veritana Press, (January, 2019)


Print length: 390 pages

   



LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH MARY E. CALVERT

A few of your favorite things: Christmas lights, waterfalls, photo albums.
Things you need to throw out: My box collection. A good box is hard to throw out.


Things you need in order to write: A shower (in which to collect my thoughts).
Things that hamper your writing: Three teenage boys, a husband, two dogs, and a slight case of ADD
.

Things you love about writing: Figuring out another piece to the puzzle, whether it’s a word, a paragraph or an entire scene, and seeing it come together to create a beautiful picture that enhances the overall story and moves it forward.
Things you hate about writing: Coming up with unusual names of fantasy places and characters.


Easiest thing about being a writer: The commute
.
Hardest thing about being a writer: Book marketing.

Things you love about where you live: Being unable to go two miles in any direction without running into a body of water.
Things that make you want to move: Wanting to live in a house that is actually on a body of water.


Things you never want to run out of: Chocolate, toilet paper.
Things you wish you’d never bought: All of those Donny and Marie Osmond albums from back in the 70s.


Words that describe you: Weird, Quirky, Friendly, Optimistic.
Words that describe you but you wish they didn’t: Quiet, Technically-challenged.

Favorite foods: Crab legs, steak, fried chicken, sautéed mushrooms, chocolate.
Things that make you want to throw up: Baked beans.

Favorite music or song: Anything Josh Groban, Old Sting and the Police, Contemporary Christian.
Music that make your ears bleed: Rap.

Favorite beverage: Coffee with flavored creamer.

Something that gives you a pickle face: Lemonade.

Favorite smell: Anything that reminds me of Christmas.

Something that makes you hold your nose: My son’s socks.

Something you’re really good at: Scrapbooking, Interior design/decorating
.
Something you’re really bad at: Technology
.

Something you wish you could do: Play the violin.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: Play the violin because, trust me, it’s not something you would ever want to hear me do.

Something you like to do: Travel, snow ski, water ski, scrapbook.

Something you wish you’d never done: The last dive on a trip to the British Virgin Islands in 2001, when I ended up with the bends and had to be airlifted to Puerto Rico for treatment in a hyperbaric chamber. Not a great way to end a vacation.



Last best thing you ate: Filet mignon

Last thing you regret eating: That same filet mignon, which sat in my stomach the following night like a brick .

Things you’d walk a mile for: A photo op.
Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: A room full of cobras, pit vipers, scorpions and black widow spiders (duh!).

Things you always put in your books: Symbolism
.
Things you never put in your books: Anything considered “R” rated.

Things to say to an author: “I LOVED your book!,” “I just wrote you a review on Amazon,” “When is your next book coming out?”

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: “I’ll be sure to write you a review on Amazon” (and then never do).

Favorite places you’ve been: Italy, Santorini, Greece, The Lake District of England, Disney World
.
Places you never want to go to again: Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Favorite books: Anything set in reality but with an element of fantasy, like the Outlander Series.

Books you would ban: Harlequin romances.

People you’d like to invite to dinner: Chip and Joanna Gaines
.
People you’d cancel dinner on: Most politicians.

Favorite things to do: Scrapbooking, decorating, traveling with my family
.
Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing: Scrubbing the bathroom, ironing.

Things that make you happy: Traveling with my family.

Things that drive you crazy: Wasting an hour or two getting sucked into social media or the news.

Proudest moment: Getting my first book published and people telling me they loved it!
Most embarrassing moment: Singing along to “Happy Birthday” and then realizing it was to ME it was being sung!


Biggest lie you’ve ever told: I was raised by apes in Africa.

A lie you wish you’d told: I’m sorry, but I’m busy this weekend. I have to go visit my uncle in prison.

Best thing you’ve ever done: Married my husband
.
Biggest mistake: Going on that date with that person I should’ve lied to.

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: Putting life on hold to go live in Europe for a year
.
Something you chickened out from doing: Marrying the guy to whom I should’ve lied to get out of the date with.

The last thing you did for the first time: Went on a book tour.

Something you’ll never do again: Eat “Kaestur Hakarl,” also known as “rotten shark” in Iceland 
.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Mary E. Calvert grew up in Virginia, the daughter of a Baptist minister.  Even as a youngster, she had a propensity for telling stories and quickly became recognized in school for her writing abilities. Reading The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings in middle school changed the focus of her story telling, and she found herself making up the tale of a young woman from this world who suddenly pops into a fantasy world of magic, mystery, elves, dwarves and wizards. When in high school, she realized this story had taken on a life of its own and started to put it onto paper, spending hours over three summers locked away in her room on her typewriter. By the time it was completed, Mary was ready to move on to other challenges, so she put her fantasy novel away in her closet where it collected dust for years.

Realizing it would be difficult to make a living as an author, Mary went on to study psychology at Furman University and then on to get a master’s degree in counseling at the University of Georgia. For thirteen years, she worked as a psychotherapist in a psychiatric hospital for adolescents in Atlanta, Georgia. Over those years, she learned quite a bit about the human psyche, something that would later have an important influence over the development of the characters in her books. It was in 1997 when the idea struck to re-write the story she had written as a teen, only with more twists and turns and from a more adult perspective. The decision was enough to breathe new life in Mary, who determined to finally realize her dream of becoming a published author, and she set to work on re-writing her fantasy novel.

Soon afterward, Mary met her husband, dated, got married, had their first son, moved half-way across the country to Colorado, and then gave birth to their twins, all while grabbing tidbits of time here and there to write a page or two of her novel. In 2006, her masterpiece complete, she employed the services of an editor who informed her that no one would publish her book being the length it was and that it would be better as, say, a trilogy. But after receiving a succession of rejection letters from agents and publishers, Mary decided to take a break from writing to re-evaluate her story. Though discouraged, she was determined not to give up on her dream or the story she fully believed in. It was then that she decided to re-write all three books, telling the story in first-person point of view and deepening the message of the trilogy by weaving a spiritual element throughout.

In 2012, Mary and her husband, Rob, decided to take a break and move their family to Italy for a year of traveling, homeschooling, and immersing themselves in Italian culture. It was during this time, while living in a 300-year-old converted horse barn, that Mary went about the task of re-writing her books to reflect these changes. And she found that with the echo of her footsteps on cobblestone streets still ringing in her ears and the exhilaration of standing in a white-washed village clinging to a cliff above the Mediterranean still so fresh in her mind, it sent her writing to new heights. She returned to the states, ready to be published for real. The question now was “How?”

After another upheaval, which led her family to move from Colorado to the Midwest, Mary made the decision to self-publish her trilogy. Like most new authors who struggle with going it alone, Mary went with a “hybrid” publisher for her first book, The Healer of Guildenwood, Book One of the Soultrekker Chronicles, published in October, 2016. Having learned more about what to do and what not to do with the first book, and having been introduced to more seasoned authors who were able to walk her through the publishing process, Mary published the second book in her fantasy trilogy, , through KDP, Amazon’s self-publishing arm. She has just returned from her very first book tour and gets excited when she sees the growing number of positive, enthusiastic reviews for her books on Amazon. Mary looks forward to the release of the final book in the trilogy but also has a sequel to The Soultrekker Chronicles in mind, a story that follows the adventures of one of the trilogy’s characters upon coming to this world from the fantasy realm.


Connect with Mary:
Website  |  Blog  |  Facebook  |  Goodreads

Buy the book:
Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble