Ohana Reads: Trick or Treat Tour

Hello and welcome to the Trick or Treat Tour, hosted by Moonlit Reads! I'm so excited to be able to show you my exclusive interview with author, Mary Watson! But first, let me introduce you to her upcoming release, The Wren Hunt!

The Wren Hunt by Mary Watson

Release Date: November 6th, 2018

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children's

Series: Standalone

Description from GoodReads:

Every Christmas, Wren is chased through the woods near her isolated village by her family's enemies—the Judges—and there’s nothing that she can do to stop it. Once her people, the Augurs, controlled a powerful magic. But now that power lies with the Judges, who are set on destroying her kind for good.

In a desperate bid to save her family, Wren takes a dangerous undercover assignment—as an intern to an influential Judge named Cassa Harkness. Cassa has spent her life researching a transformative spell, which could bring the war between the factions to its absolute end. Caught in a web of deceit, Wren must decide whether or not to gamble on the spell and seal the Augurs’ fate.

Hi Mary, welcome to Ohana Reads! Thank you so much for being apart of the tour, I'm glad to be able to host you! My first question is about your upcoming release, The Wren Hunt.

The Wren Hunt is a bit different than what you've previously written, What was different about writing The Wren Hunt, than your previous books?

With my previous books, I was more interested in how words can capture moods and moments, I was fascinated by that amazing ability of books to capture complicated life experience. But with The Wren Hunt, my focus shifted to story, I wanted to weave interesting threads in a moody, atmospheric story. Also, it’s the first book I’ve set in Ireland, where I’ve lived now for ten years. It’s very much inspired by the folklore and landscape here.

What do you want your readers to take away from The Wren Hunt after reading it? What do readers have to look forward to in The Wren Hunt?

The book is a little bit like a puzzle and I hope the reader gets that delicious satisfaction that comes from piecing things together. There are secret druidic rituals, a creepy doll, forbidden romance, an undercover spy mission. The magic is the magic of ordinary things, where the world is normal, but more.

Who was your favourite character to write in The Wren Hunt? And, why?

I loved writing Wren, of course. I think a lot of people can relate to a character who is thrust into a situation outside of her control, who has to find her inner strength while dealing with her own limitations. But I also quite enjoyed writing Maeve. I loved writing an Irish mammy character that defies the limitations of the stereotype.

Thank you so much for stopping by, I look forward to reading The Wren Hunt, and I hope that my readers feel the same!

Mary Watson grew up in Cape Town where she worked as an art museum custodian, library assistant, actress in children's musicals, front-of-house duty manager, and university lecturer. Her doctorate was in film studies and she's always been obsessed with stories. She attempted my first book (with illustrations) when she was five. At sixteen, she had a vivid dream about a girl and her father who walked a magic garden, hiding an awful secret. This grew into a collection of connected short stories, Moss (Kwela, 2004) which she wrote under the mentorship of André Brink at the University of Cape Town. She was awarded the Caine Prize in 2006. Her second book, The Cutting Room (Penguin South Africa, 2013), is about ghosts, sort of, and crime. In 2008, She moved to Galway, Ireland. After The Cutting Room, She knew she wanted to write a fantasy book. When her youngest child was born, she found reading YA books kept her awake during the long nights. She was lost in stories of brave girls. Of magic worlds and dystopias, zombies and vampires, queens and assassins while (almost) everyone around her slept. It was here that the first seeds of The Wren Hunt were planted.