Part #2 of our chat with author Nicole Helm. LUV: You write as Nicole Helm and Lorraine Hall. Why? You have also partnered with Megan Crane (LUV: see our interview with Megan in the Articles section) under the name Hazel Beck. Can you tell us about this experience, how your partnership came about and why you decided to write this new editorial. Nicole: Tackling different editorial in my writing career has led me to using a few different names. While most of my body of work is written under Nicole Helm, when I ventured into Harlequin Presents—high fantasy, international category romance—it was much different than the small town and western books I was writing, so a different name to differentiate the content made sense. As for Hazel Beck, when my good friend Megan Crane (who also writes as Caitlin Crews, see her LUV interview) and I spent a spooky Halloween day in St. Charles, Missouri together with another one of our writer friends, Megan and I started making up stories about witches in Midwestern river towns. Both of us wanted to write our idea, so we joined forces. Neither of us had ever planned to co-write, but we both fell in love with the idea. And luckily so did our agents and then our publisher! Since we would be writing together, we chose a new name that represents who we are when we meld our voices together. Megan and I had been friends for years and had worked closely together before in our tightly connected Jasper Creek anthologies (with our friends Maisey Yates and Jackie Ashenden). We’ve also been great fans of each other’s work and have read everything each other has written for quite some time. We had a good foundation for knowing we could work together, and our similar approach to story and character would allow us to meld our voices together into one. And luckily it’s worked out! The Witchlore series will be four books: SMALL TOWN, BIG MAGIC came out last year, BIG LITTLE SPELLS followed this August, and in August of 2024, TRULY, MADLY, MAGICALLY will release. The Witchlore series will round out with book 4 in 2025.

Posted by LUV Team at 2023-10-24 19:00:14 UTC