Supernatural Central Short and Quick Interview
Today we are welcoming author Emily McPherson to sit and chat with us for a minute. Welcome, Emily!1. Tell me a little bit about your main character of this book.
EM: The main character of Mother of the River is Ianthe, a 17-year-old girl from Ireland. She’s strong and courageous, fiery and passionate, but hasn’t lost her ability to goof off like she’s still 10. She might be a little lost in daydreams and hasn’t quite gotten her feet on the ground yet, but we meet her right as she’s entering that stage of her life where she’s coming into her own. She’s learning what shapes a person, and she has to decide what’s important to her. She’s discovering what’s right and wrong, and maybe finding out that things aren’t always as black and white as that. We get to see her as a daughter, a friend, a member of her community. We get to see her deal with loss and see her fight and love and grieve and, hopefully, pick herself up. Hopefully, she learns and grows. I really wanted her to be a character my readers can root for. And maybe she’s someone we can all relate to in some aspect or another.
2. Do you believe in the paranormal and if so, do you have an experience you can share?
EM: I absolutely believe in the paranormal. I grew up in the hills of Utah, right up against the rocky mountain range. Unfortunately, the history there is quite tragic with several Native American tribes having been slaughtered by Mormon settlers. As a result, those hills are haunted by Native American souls (though not exclusively), and I’ve certainly had my fair share of experiences. The most prominent, however, is definitely with whom my best friend, Cassidy, and I refer to as, “the girl and her doll,” or “the girl in the basement.”
When I was 15, I lived with Cassidy and her family, and our bedroom was in the sublevel of her grandfather's house. It started as odd bumps or thumps on the wall at night, lights flickering, feeling someone lift a strand of hair, etc. Cassidy and I, being vain teenagers, would often set an old digital camera on top of the computer monitor in the basement and take a million selfies. One night, we caught the girl and her doll in a photo. She was standing a little ways down a hallway behind us, maybe eight or nine years old, her hair in two braids, and what looked like a cloth doll with a similar hairstyle held in her arms. After that, we often acknowledged the girl directly when the lights flickered or the wall thudded. Occasionally, if she was restless, she would flick the lights on while Cassidy and I were trying to sleep, and we’d have to ask her to let us get some rest, which she usually did.
Years later, I was telling someone about the picture and realized I didn’t have a copy. I asked Cassidy if she still had it, but unfortunately, that camera was damaged and the picture was never retrieved. (Of course, the ‘someone’ I was telling the story to said, “How convenient,” which made me so mad! But, what can you do? There will always be nonbelievers.) But Cassidy and I decided to go back to the house as adults to see if we could visit the girl one last time before the house was sold. We brought some booze, took some pictures and a few videos, and we caught an orb in two of the videos. I made sure to upload a copy to the cloud immediately, and I still have it.
3. That's a fabulous story! Thanks so much for sharing it with us. Thank goodness for the cloud, hey? What titles are you working on now that you can tell us about?
I’m definitely the type of person who can only work on one project at a time. I like to fully immerse myself in a world. So, jumping from one thing to another is difficult for me. That being said, I can tell you a little bit about the book I’m currently working on. It’s actually the sequel to Mother of the River. Ianthe will be returning, exploring even more of Ireland, meeting new friends, and discovering new–or rediscovering very, very old–Irish myths.
Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/yyytpAIc89Q
Excerpt
“Ianthe, you could have said goodbye to your friend, you know. I didn’t mean to pull you away so quickly.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Ianthe said, waving her hand in dismissal. “You didn’t.”
“But I did interrupt something, didn’t I?” Dubheasa smirked, almost amused with Ianthe’s discomfort.
“Well… sort of,” Ianthe said, “but believe me. I might owe you a favor for that one.”
Ianthe dropped her hands into her pockets and suppressed her embarrassment for another time. They arrived at the tea shop, opting for the outdoor seating on such a beautiful spring day, and claimed a small table with chipping white paint at the edge of the patio. The proprietor, Idina, weaved in and out of tables taking orders, quick as a hurricane wind.
“What’ll you have, darlings? Oh, Ianthe.” Idina’s tone brightened as she recognized Ianthe at the table. “Evening, love. How are you?” she asked with a dip of her head. A deep brown coil fell in front of her eye, and she flipped the curl back into place.
“Hello, Mrs. Kent,” Ianthe said with a cordial nod. “Just grand, and you?”
“Fine, perfectly fine. And I’ve told you to call me Idina, haven’t I?”
“Right. Sorry, Idina.”
As Ianthe got older, more and more people in town asked her to call them by their first name, as though she was one of the adults—a concept much too odd for Ianthe to accept. Now she was expected to call Ms. O’Malley from down the road Eleanor. Mr. Wilson, who brought the morning paper, asked her to call him Norman. (Who knew he’d named his cat after himself?)
And now Mrs. and Mrs. Kent were Idina and Hazel.
“You’ve just had a birthday, haven’t you?” Idina said.
“Yes— well, it’s been a couple of weeks.”
“Seventeen now, are we?” she asked, adjusting her apron.
“That’s right,” Ianthe said, and she straightened up in her chair as a proud smile dimpled her cheeks.
“I’ll have Hazel bring you some dry herbs and teas to take home then. Now, what’ll you two have?”
“I think tea and scones,” Dubheasa said, raising her brow at Ianthe, and Ianthe nodded.
“Two cups, two scones,” Idina confirmed. “Extra butter, Ianthe?”
“Yes, please,” Ianthe said with a smile.
A loud shatter sounded from inside the shop, and Idina jumped out of her skin.
“Oh, Hazel, good grief. Slippery fingers, slippery fingers,” she continued to mutter as she hurried inside.
“I hope she remembers our order,” Dubheasa said, chuckling at the commotion.
“She will,” Ianthe assured her. “They can be a bit chaotic, but Idina and Hazel are the best around. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Hazel is magic with her teas.”
“What makes you so sure she isn’t?”
Ianthe giggled at the insinuation, but Dubheasa’s eyes only narrowed.
“You’re not serious,” Ianthe said. “Tea can’t be magic.”
“Perhaps not, but people can be.”
“Pft. I was only having a laugh, Dubheasa. I know Hazel doesn’t make magic tea because magic isn’t real.”
“Here you are, darlings,” Idina said, setting the tea and scones on the table. “Enjoy!” And she rushed off again.
Ianthe slid a cup and a scone to her side of the small table and slathered butter onto the bread while Dubheasa eyed her carefully.
“Well then,” Dubheasa said, thankfully moving on to a new topic, “when did we last see each other, dear? Do you remember?”
“Um,” Ianthe paused to take a bite of her scone. “Two summers ago, I think.”
“And has much changed since then?” Dubheasa asked, stirring cream into her tea.
“Besides growing a bit taller, nothing at all.”
“Well, I’m glad to see you’re still here.”
“Why wouldn’t I be here?”
Dubheasa sipped her tea and waited for Ianthe to come to some sort of conclusion, but Ianthe stared back, lost as ever.
“Well, the Scréch Sídhe, of course,” Dubheasa finally said.
Ianthe couldn’t help but subtly roll her eyes, feeling a sliver of annoyance in her gut.
“Oh, right. Of course,” she said flatly. “How could I forget.”
“You still don’t believe in the Sídhe, do you?” Dubheasa asked, though she already knew the answer.
“No, I must admit. I don’t.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, why is that?”
“You told me the Scréch Sídhe would come for me after my mother disappeared, but it’s been eleven years. Do you really believe a magical faerie would need this much time to find a person?”
Dubheasa continued to sip her tea with squinted eyes before offering another question.
“Then how do you think your mother turned to stone?”
“Oh, this again?” Ianthe said, reminding herself a bit of her dad. “My mother didn’t turn to stone.”
“I’ve seen her, Ianthe. I know she stands in the river.”
“I’ve told you,” Ianthe said, dropping her hands to the table rattling the teacups. “My father had that statue made in remembrance of her. It’s not actually her.”
“And yet, he never visits her to remember her.”
“N—no, you’ve got it wrong, Dubheasa. My mother disappeared.”
“And disappearing into thin air is a more acceptable explanation for you?” Dubheasa asked, studying Ianthe’s face.
“Certainly more acceptable than ‘cursed by a faerie’,” she said in a failed whisper, gripping the edge of the table and leaning in.
