I started my debut novel, Wraithwood, at sixteen. I finished the first draft at seventeen and brought that unpolished manuscript with me to college.
I was pursuing a degree in Professional Writing. I’d been promised I’d be published within my first semester. I knew other graduates had gotten their books published in college. This was going to be amazing.
Little did I know. Little did I know how many stones would be thrown at that delicate dream-bird.
Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
I remember the very day I decided to give up, a spring day my sophomore year of college. I’d experienced more pain, trauma, and heartbreak in two years than I had in most of the rest of my life. My body was falling apart with a neurological condition that hadn’t yet been diagnosed. My writing career was going nowhere; “published” just meant having book reviews posted online or in local papers. Everything was moving too slowly. Forget it. I would switch majors, pursue business or something practical.
For when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen in snow.
Had I misinterpreted God’s calling? I thought He called me to publishing. I’d tossed aside a potential medical career, tossed aside promising scholarships, to attend this little school and learn about publishing.
Hold fast to dreams.
But that very week, the week I gave up, three things happened.
First, I received my first assignment for a national magazine. Second, I was hired as the online editor for our college newspaper. And third, I landed a promising internship with a literary agency.
Don’t doubt My plans, the Lord whispered. Or, let’s be honest, He shouted. Stick to the path.
Ever since, when I doubted I would ever be published, doubted God’s calling, wondered if I was being a fool to pursue a career in the publishing industry, taking odd jobs, I remember that moment.
Hope is the thing with feathers that perches on the soul.
Sometime my hope-bird wants to fly away. Sometimes it sits in its cage, head down, and seems to forget how to sing. But I remind that hope-bird what the Lord said. Where He called us. And even if we don’t see how it will work out, we run the good race, we work as if working for the Lord, and we trust.
Today, Wraithwood releases with Mountain Brook Fire as my first solo title. With a quiet, book-loving heroine, a sense of whimsy and wonder, and hope standing up to a formidable force of darkness, I find unintentional parallels to my own journey.
I can’t wait for readers to experience this book I’ve waited so long to share.
Alyssa Roat grew up in Tucson, Arizona, but her heart is in Great Britain. She has worked in a wide variety of roles within the publishing industry as an agent, editor, writer, and marketer. She is the publicity manager at Mountain Brook Ink and Mountain Brook Fire, a former associate literary agent at Cyle Young Literary Elite, an editor with Sherpa Editing Services, and a freelance writer with 250+ bylines in local, national, and international publications.
Alyssa is the co-author with Hope Bolinger of the YA superhero chat fiction romance Dear Hero and the sequel, Dear Henchman. Her name is a pun, which means you can learn more about her at www.alyssawrote.com or on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook as @alyssawrote.
An estranged uncle, a mysterious mansion, and Arthurian legend—together they lead to a world of magic and bloodthirsty wizards who want teenage Brinnie dead.
Brynna “Brinnie” Lane has always lived a quiet life under the watchful eye of her hovering mother—until she’s sent off for the summer to live with an uncle she didn’t know she had. While her parents get to travel across the globe, she’ll be spending three months in the middle of nowhere: upstate New York. It looks like she might spend the entire summer friendless with her nose in a book.
However, she soon finds that Wraithwood Estate, her uncle’s creepy old mansion, holds as many secrets as the man himself. When Brinnie is warned not to explore any of it, her curiosity only grows. As unnatural events take place and Brinnie hears whispers of a hidden war, she must unravel the truth about her family’s mysterious past if she wants to survive.
Something terrible happened at Wraithwood thirty years ago, and Brinnie is determined to find out what—even if it means confronting the possibility that magic is real.
Anna