I love the color purple. Also, pink and silver. Occasionally, black and white (like Princess Winnie's fur!)
Purple is my favorite, though. Every time I wear it, someone compliments me. I swear, they are my people! I should start a club for purple lovers. My favorite mug is purple and I have a box of purple pens.
Experts claim that a person’s favorite color says a lot about their personality. Whether you fancy blue tones or red shades, the colors you prefer offer fascinating insight into your character.
‘Character’, hmm…I’m pretty sure most of my characters love purple, too!
So what does that say about us? I looked it up and found this: Those who love purple are intriguing, lovely, and down to earth. I like it!
This month, my cozy author bestie, Molly Fitz, is spotlighting me in her REAM community AND she's holding a super magical giveaway!
Check out her Cozy Kitty Club and be sure to enter the giveaway!
That's why I created and love my Cozy Corner Reader Community where my very special readers get exclusive short stories from me, along with early access to all of my books. I love to share recipes, pictures of my pets and plants, puzzles, and coloring pages with my VIP readers!
This is my grandkitty, Princess Winnie. She's fond of catnip, bingo, and sleeping in a basket on the dryer. Her majesty would love for you to come play with us! https://reamstories.com/nyxhalliwell
This year, I'm releasing a new Candy Shop Witch Series and planning to get out two of those books, maybe three. I'll also publish Phantoms Are Forever in the Confessions of a Closet Medium series.
My Cup of Catnip tier enjoys fr.e.e updates, early access to new stories, and special, exclusive short stories just for you. I also send you puzzles, recipes, and more for only $5/month (you're buying me a cup of tea!).
The Furry Tales tier is only $7/month and includes my complete library, as well as everything in Cup of Catnip. It's the best deal and buys me that cup of tea along with a new toy or treat for Princess Winnie once a month.
Come join us! We'd love to have you!
Nyx and Winnie
P.S. Did you know that you can FOLLOW me for F.R.E.E? Just hit the purple FOLLOW button and you'll get all my writing updates. https://reamstories.com/nyxhalliwell
It's almost Christmas, and no matter what holiday(s) you celebrate, I hope you're surrounded with the magic of this season!
I'm so excited to announce that I have a new, magical REAM subscription.
Do you love my stories? Would you like to get them sooner than at retailers?
If you love sweet, paranormal cozy mysteries with a hint of romance, hop over to https://reamstories.com/nyxhalliwell and hit the Follow button!
Upgrade to one of the paid tiers and you get early access to all new releases, as well as exclusive stories, recipes, puzzles. It's only $5 a month for my Cup of Catnip level and $7 for my Furry Tales level.
I hope you'll check them out. I'm adding full-length books to the Furry Tales level this month and continuing into 2024. For only $7/month, you'll have access to all my ebooks and audiobooks, along with exclusive short stories that aren't available at retailers, and the bonus fun stuff.
Soon, I will also have an important announcement about several collaborations I'm doing next year with other authors and a candle maker!
Meantime, I'll be sending out personal emails next month to my paying REAM subscribers, asking for feedback on what YOU want more of. I want you to feel the love and know that my cozy corner is for you. You have input in what you want to read in 2024, so please let me know.
What a delicious season. The cool weather and falling leaves make me want to curl up with a cup of tea and a good story. Also, candy! How about you?
Thank you to everyone who helped launch the release of Wedding Bells & Psychic Spells. Your support and reviews made my whole month! I can’t wait to get started on the next Ava caper, but in the meantime, I’m working hard on the new 2024 Candy Shop Witch series. I plan to have three books to release next year for you, and I hope to share snippets of them with you soon.
Ghosts and marriage…what a combo, right? How would you feel if a few ghosts showed up on your wedding day to shoot your intended?
I love writing the Confessions of a Closet Medium series, and Wedding Bells & Psychic Spells was no exception. Ava (the reluctant ghost-whisperer) and her friends have the craziest experiences, and I feel like I'm watching a movie play out when they take me along on each adventure.
For this story, I had to research Prohibition and gangsters, how to set up a moonshine still, and figure out a way for a dead witch to terrorize one of the secondary characters. The book releases at retailers on October 3rd. You can preorder it in my store and get it three weeks early (plus SAVE $1), or sign up for any of my tiers to get early access next month free.
Happy October 1st! Wheeee! It's my favorite time of year – apples, cider, bonfires, and Halloween. I want to celebrate by giving you an excerpt from Snow, Sister Witches of Story Cove, releasing Tuesday.
This story takes place at Halloween, so it's perfect to read this month!
A bad apple is about to ruin Halloween, and my fairytale ending depends on the luck of a homeless black kitten.
Runa alerts three seconds before the stranger knocks, coming to her feet, her white ruff snapping to attention and her lip curling in a low growl. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck mimic hers, rising as though electricity is charging them.
“Down, girl,” I tell the wolf-hybrid.
I suspect it’s Esmerelda from the reaction, but Korbin perched in my open window this morning and let loose a hair raising “caw” before lifting into the lavender shade of dawn.
The raven is an omen-hunter, a messenger. Since that rude awakening, I've been waiting for the sign his appearance denotes. Upon opening the door, my morning tea still in hand, I understand his warning. Thankfully, it’s not Esmerelda.
Relief wars with curiosity as I regard the dark-haired stranger on my front stoop. With eyes the color of oak moss, he nods and offers a slightly stunned—if not awed—look. “Er…morning.”
I get that a lot, thanks to my thick, black hair, violet eyes, and pale complexion. Esme used to enroll me in local beauty pageants when I was a girl, and I hated every moment of them. The ribbons I won went up in flames the day my father died and my stepmother became my enemy in more ways than one.
My cousin, Belle, has been working her magick to set me up with men on Fairytale Love, a dating site she claims has made over a million successful matches. I assume this is one of the latest to see my profile. Bold of him to show up in person. “Sorry, not interested.”
“Apologies, then.” His voice is laced with a brogue. Scottish? “Heard you might be in need of an ornamaner. Handyman. Must’ve heard wrong, eh?”
Yep, a Scot, and a handsome one at that. “Wait,” I say as he turns. “Are you applying for the farmhand position?”
The Story Cove Pumpkin Festival is this weekend—hayrack rides, corn mazes, a rubber ducky derby, face painting, pony rides, all kinds of handmade crafts, and, of course, food. The festival is known far and wide for the all-town event, and a big draw is my orchard, A Bushel and a Peck. My regular farmhand and jack-of-all-trades, George, is out with a bad back and I’m up to my ears in jobs that need doing.
The Scot gives a curt nod. “Been on the road a while, but was passin’ through and stopped at the diner. Saw your flyer, asked around. Folks said you’re good people.”
“Did they now? This time of year, I’m quite popular. Other times, some believe I’m working spells and holding rituals. They’re correct, but I don’t tell them that.”
Could be he thinks I jest, but his intelligent eyes tell me otherwise. “Could use a place to stay and I'm good with animals.” His gaze goes to Runa.
The dog wags her tail. She, too, is taken in by an handsome face.
Her partner—Ferrin, the wolf who haunts my woods—wouldn't care for it, I bet.
“The Pumpkin Festival is in two days, and plenty of tourists are already here. The event keeps the farm in the black for the next year, so it’s all-hands on deck. The work is hard, days long.”
“Name’s Broden. Clan Campbell.” He offers a hand. “I’m no stranger to hard work.”
His tanned skin and callused hands speak to that. A black kitten peeks around his booted ankle.
Motioning for him to come closer, I lean down as if to whisper in his ear. His breath catches and my nose captures the scent of forest pine and soap. I pause for half a second, meeting his eyes, dissolving in them. He holds my gaze, doesn’t glance at the slender scar under my left eye that mars my acclaimed beauty. I smile, and as he returns it, I yank out a few strands of his hair.
He yelps, jerks back. “What’s that about, now?”
The kitten hisses.
I make no pretense about being a witch around town, but if he’s only passing through, he may not know it. “Need to check if your intentions are true.”
Inside, I drop the strands into my cauldron, watching the smoke as it rises. The misty vapor turns green like his eyes.
True intentions, it appears.
But there are three flecks of silver threaded in the green. I watch as they spin and dance, representing three secrets our handsome Scotsman is hiding.
Ready to read the rest? Preorder now and be the first to get it on your ereader when it releases Tuesday!
If you're looking for my Once Upon A Witch series on Amazon, you may have noticed that you can't find those books anymore and the paperbacks show as unavailable.
What's up with that?
The series is no longer published through Whiskered Mysteries. The publishing house has changed hands and authors were given the opportunity to take a buyout offer.
I took it.
What does that mean for the books, and most importantly for YOU, kittens?
Never fear! The series is getting an update and rebranding. Godfrey is working hard on new covers, a new series name, as well as new titles, and the Sister Witches of Story Cove will be re-released this fall at ALL retailers. Yay!
In the meantime, I’m writing Tea Leaves & Troubled Spirts, Confessions of a Closet Medium, Book 6. Tentative release date for that is September. Double yay!
And hubby and I are STILL looking to move this summer, so I have lots of cauldrons bubbling over the fire right now. Please wish us well as we go through the process of moving us and our babies several states away.
I'm super excited about all of it, and I hope you are too. As soon as I have the new covers for the Sister Witches of Story Cove, you’ll be the first to see them! Follow my blog or sign up for my newsletter so you don’t miss out!
Nyx and I are thrilled to have been in the BLACK CAT CROSSING box set with Poison Apple Potion, Once Upon A Witch, Book 3, and thanks to many of you, Nyx became a…
USA Today bestselling author!
Woohoo!
It truly was a team effort and we're so glad to know the other talented and hard-working authors in the set.
Thank you to everyone who supported Nyx and I hope you enjoy all the fun, kitty-centered stories!
Godfrey 💜🐾💜
P.S. If you didn't grab your copy yet, you can still get it for Halloween!
A witchy Cinderella, Prince Charming, magick & MURDER!
I've been waiting for this moment FOREVER! Well, maybe not forever, but for a good six months or more. I signed with Sweet Promise Press to write a NEW SERIES of fairytale retellings and I can FINALLY shout about it!! The first book in the Once Upon A Witch Series,If the Cursed Shoe Fits, releases today!
This cozy mystery is all about a witchy Cinderella who's trying to keep the family business alive and figure out if a pair of shoes, rumored to be cursed, are responsible for several mysterious deaths. There's echoes of the original Cinderella story in this retelling, but my Cinder is a total tomboy, and she has a lot of responsibility on her plate. Enter handsome Finn Starling and her world gets turned upside down before you can say “hocus pocus!” Read an excerpthere!
During the recent pandemic, it's been *weird* to talk about happy celebrations, but one thing many of you have shared with me is that you enjoy taking a break from news and social media and sharing BOOKS. Like many of you, I find solace in reading (and sometimes re-reading) a great story that acts like Calgon and “takes me away” to another place and time. I've been pulling out old favorites and reading them before bed. When things are rough, I find old “friends” are sometimes the best at relieving my stress. Do you have a favorite book you turn to when nothing else appeals?
I truly hope you'll find some comfort and maybe a few laughs when you read If the Cursed Shoe Fits – maybe it will even be one you turn to again when the world seems so out of control.
Fairytales can be an elixir to our worried minds. They help us deal with feeling overwhelmed and fearful. Each book in my Once Upon A Witch Series ALWAYS includes a happy ending. The good guys win, the bad guys get their comeuppance, and love conquers all.
When I was writing this note, I looked for synonyms for “celebration.” This one is my favorite: jollification. Say it out loud! Isn't that a cool word? I love it. It rolls off your tongue and sounds like a great, active noun. So let's celebrate all the little things, even books, that make our world brighter right now, and enjoy some jollification!
Stay safe and keep reading! Nyx 💜🐾💜
P.S. Feel free to share this with friends! Godfrey and I will love you forever if you do
Lazy mist wraps around me, clouding my vision. I swear it’s thick enough to taste and sticks to my skin like cotton candy. My body feels light as a feather.
“Ava?”
I turn in a circle, the voice so familiar it hurts. “Aunt Willa?”
Heavy silence meets my ears. My mind must be playing tricks on me again. Aunt Willa is dead, I remind myself.
“Aaavaa…” The voice again, whispering as if it’s flying right past me. It’s definitely my aunt’s.
Just a dream.
The dream takes shape, though, and the mist parts. Her face appears. “The trunk in your bedroom—there’s a false bottom…”
She swims in and out of the soupy air, as if something is trying to pull her away. I step forward, lifting a hand to reach for her. “Come back!”
She does, her upper body coming into a hazy focus. “All you need is inside, Ava.”
My hand goes through her. “Need for what?” My voice seems to echo against the mist in the air, bouncing back to me.
“My armoire…secret compartment…” Her voice drifts, her face begins to fade again. “Push the top left cor…”
My logical brain kicks in. “Aunt Willa, you know you’re…”
I can’t say it.
“Dead,” she supplies. “Yes, I know, dear. Don’t you cry for me, now, sweet girl. You’re not dead, and you have to…”
She fades again.
“Have to what?” I’m losing her. Grief floods me. “Oh please, Aunt Willa! Come back!”
“In the attic,” her voice drifts past me, incorporeal. “The book…”
I lose her again, but a few feet away I see the outline of her. Her head turns to her left to look at something. I squint in that direction as well but see nothing but the cotton candy fog.
“I have to go.” She looks over her shoulder at me. “It’s up to you, Ava. I love youuuu.”
She fades away.
“No!” I yell.
And then I hear her voice once more, “Now wake up!”
A heavy weight depresses my chest, hard and fast, shoving the air from my lungs. Once, twice—
It stops, and then out of nowhere, I feel the warmth of lips against mine. My mouth is open, breath rushing in. I taste mint and…
“Dead, is she?” a raspy voice asks.
“Not anymore,” another answers, and I recognize them.
I gasp, eyes flying open.
I’m still on the ground, wet and cold. The most beautiful cornflower blue eyes are looking down on me.
“Ava?”
The man’s face comes into sharp contrast. Tousled hair the color of toasted pecans, classic nose, tanned skin. He’s clean-shaven and the smell of his faint aftershave fills my nostrils as I inhale a huge gasp again. For half a second, I see the boy he used to be floating under the man he is now. “Logan?”
Relief is like a washcloth wiping the worry from his brow. He sits back, blows out a breath between his lips, and rakes his hand over his face. “You just took ten years off my life.”
I wonder if I’m still in the dream or whatever it was. Logan Cross. What is he doing here?
The sky above his head is golden now with therising sun, pale strips of peach streaking across the sky between clouds. His face blurs, and I see two of him. My ears ring with a coarse blare that makes me flinch. “What happened?” I ask.
“You tell me.” He keeps a firm hand on my shoulder to stop my struggle to rise. I feel something warm and slippery drop onto my hand, and see a basset hound on my right. His sad eyes stare at me as another string of drool slides out of his mouth. “Mox and I were just coming back from our run. I saw you fall off the porch. By the time I got here, you weren’t breathing, and I thought you were dead.”
“Dead?” The memory of the fall sends fresh pain from my head down to the base of my spine.
The blare in my ears grows louder, but it’s not from the head injury. It’s a siren.
I draw a deep breath, reassuring myself I’m very much alive, and a new pain hits. I’m going to have a sore rib cage from the CPR he was administering.
The feel of his hands on my chest, his lips on my mouth, surfaces, causing my head to throb and my heart to kick. As a teen, I dreamed of Logan Cross’s attention. I would have died, figuratively, to have his lips on mine.
“Told you,” one of the voices I heard earlier says.
I tilt my chin to look toward the porch. The cat gargoyles at the top of the bannister stare back, the rising sun reflecting in their eyes and making them glow. One’s lips move ever so slightly. “She’s alive.”
The basset hound turns his head, as if he hears them as well, before he looks back to me.
I struggle to come up onto my elbows, ignoring all the various waves of pain, as an ambulance, siren blaring, careens to a stop at the curb.
“EMTs are here,” Logan says, as if it’s not obvious. “Stay put.”
Logan Cross is a lawyer these days. The only one in Thornhollow. A good one from what I’ve heard. His parents run the famous Cross Winery north of town, and his brother has a brewery two towns over. For whatever reason, Logan decided to go a different direction with his life, and his office is directly across the street from The Wedding Chapel.
People in Thornhollow either come from old money, like Logan, or they survive at the other end of the spectrum, like Reverend Stout. He rushes up to us with a plastic medic’s box and plunks down beside me.
Gray-haired and wrinkled, he’s wearing a white shirt and navy pants, a name tag penned over a pocket of the shirt that has a protector filled with pens and a tiny flashlight. Today he’s an EMT, working on physical bodies rather than souls. “Second time I’ve been here in the last twelve hours,” he murmurs in his deep Southern voice. His gaze rests on my face and softens. “Ava Fantome, my goodness, young lady. What in the world happened? So sorry about your aunty.”
Logan tells him what he knows—he saw me trip, fall down the steps, and hit my head. When he reached me, I wasn’t breathing.
I interject a few details, trying not to sound like a scatterbrain or klutz. Neither man seems to listen.
“Thank the Good Lord you were here,” Stout says to Logan. “We might have lost her, too.”
“I wasn’t dead,” I insist, but the voice in my head casts doubt. Was I? “I did have a weird dream though.”
“Did you see a bright light? Go down a tunnel?” the pastor asks.
“No. I saw my…”
Logan and Stout stare at me.
“Never mind.” I wave it off. “I’m fine. I fainted, that’s all.”
Reverend Stout’s partner rolls a gurney through the yard, bumping over the limestone pavers. Stout flashes his light in both of my eyes, declares I might have a concussion, and they insist on carting me to the hospital.
A flurry of activity continues around me. A police officer arrives—in Thornhollow anytime the ambulance is called out the police are, too. Preston Uphill, the owner of the B&B next door, runs over in a tartan-colored robe and slippers. I sense others gathering on the sidewalk outside the gate, their voices a background hum.
“Avalon?” Uphill calls. “Oh my goodness, are you okay?”
“Just tripped.” I push up to sitting and Logan grabs me as my vision blurs and I nearly tip over. “I’m fine.”
“Sure you are,” Logan murmurs. “You just died, Fantome.”
I send him a glare to silence him. That’s all I need—all Mama needs—is for word to get out I died and Logan Cross saved me.
“Is she okay?” a woman’s voice calls. I don’t look toward the fence, but recognize it all the same. Prissy Barnes, my nemesis.
“All I need is to check on Tabitha.” I ignore her and point toward the house for Logan’s benefit. “And take something for my pounding head.”
“I’ll take care of the cat,” Logan assures me. “She and Mox get along just fine, don’t you Mox?” He pats the dog’s head, and they move away to let Stout and his partner, a young kid named Wesley, wrestle me up onto the gurney. “You go to the clinic and let Doc check you out.”
Everyone is insisting on this, including the police officer—one who used to work under my father, before Mama insisted he quit the force and sent him off to pursue his dream of being a rock singer. If I weren’t still hearing the cats—including the door knocker—continuing to discuss my clumsiness and the fact Aunt Willa’s killer is near, I’d refuse.
Killer…?
I push Wesley out of the way and look at the gargoyle cats. Then at the gathering crowd. Most of the faces are familiar…I can’t believe any of them would hurt my aunt.
Since last night, I’ve felt, heard, and seen things that I haven’t since I was a girl. And the more I hear these voices in my head, the more fearful I become of the truth. Did Mama truly overhear Aunt Willa arguing with someone last night? Did that someone contribute to her death?
“Ava?” another woman’s voice calls. “Do you want me to call your mother?”
This one sounds familiar, but I can’t place her face when I meet her eyes. “No,” I call back. “I’m fine!”
A firm hand lands on my shoulder, and I glance at the owner, Reverend Stout, who stares me down with the righteousness only a preacher or Sunday school teacher can deliver adequately. “Ava, dear. You are going to the clinic.”
My eyes swim and the memory of Aunt Willa in the mist rushes over me.
If I’m seeing ghosts and hearing inanimate objects speak, maybe I do need my head examined.
“You’ll need a key, Logan. I’m sure Tabitha is safe and sound inside, but we need to check.”
He motions for me to lie down. “Got one. Don’t worry.”
How does he have a key to my aunt’s house? The pounding in my head is too much now, and the lightheadedness is returning with a vengeance. With Wesley and the Rev’s help, I ease down onto the gurney. “My cats…” I point in the direction of my car. “They’re inside.”
Logan pats my leg. “Ava, I’ve got it. I promise to take good care of them.”
All three gargoyles snort.
🧡💙🧡Buy direct and save! Releasing early on April 16:
