Guest Post+Giveaway: A Very Witchy Yuletide by D. Lieber

A Very Witchy Yuletide

A Contemporary pagan holiday romance by D. Lieber

First love is hard to forget, and even harder to ignore…

Evergreen Pendre wasn’t planning on going home for Yule. But when her Mom tells her the old coven is coming for a visit, she wants to see everyone. Well, almost everyone.

After four and a half years, Sawyer Collins finally has a chance to reconnect with his first love, Eeva Pendre. He might have been too shy to tell her how he felt before, but he’s changed. And he’s determined not to let her slip away this time.

As the coven prepares for Yule, they are reminded that not everyone has the holiday spirit in this contemporary Pagan holiday romance.

Excerpt

Sawyer looked up just as Eeva stopped short upon entering the living room. She was still in her pajamas: flannel plaid pants with an oversized hoodie and fuzzy socks. Her long, brown hair was dyed a dark green, and it was still messy from sleep.

His heart throbbed in his chest, and he held his breath as he met her deep ocean blue eyes. His memories hadn’t done her justice.

“Hey,” he said lamely. “It’s uh…been a while.” He cleared his throat, his own voice sounding hoarse and uneven in his ears.

She blinked as if she’d forgotten who he was then frowned. “Yeah, I suppose that happens in life… How is…everything? I mean, I hope you and your mom are doing all right.” Her tone was distant and polite. Formal.

His stomach clenched as his raised hopes deflated. “Yeah, everything’s fine. We’re both good. And you?”

“Same.”

As the strained silence grew between them, Sawyer grasped for something to say. Anything. “So…my mom says you’re graduating soon. What are you studying?” He knew very well she was studying history. It didn’t matter that he’d said more times than he could count that he didn’t care. The moment his mother mentioned her, he’d always internalized the information. And he’d taken more than a few glances at her social media profiles over the years, though he’d gotten better about that.

“Eeva!” his mother called, entering the room before they could struggle on in their conversation.

~Follow the rest of the tour

Guest Post

Q:
How does your visual impairment shape your writing?
A:

As with everything I do in my life, my visual impairment has had an effect on my writing. That isn’t to say I feel limited by my impairment. Besides not being able to drive, I have found a way to adapt to almost everything I need to do in my life.

One major impact it has had on my writing is having to learn how to write for a primarily sighted audience. When I first started writing novels, my style was pretty light on description. After all, I just don’t live my everyday life in the sighted world. I can’t see people’s facial expressions without getting uncomfortably close, for instance. So, I tell who they are and how they’re feeling by the tone of their voices, or by their lack of talking. Sometimes not saying something says more than speaking your mind. I didn’t necessarily view this as a hinderance. Though my editors encouraged me to add more description—which I did to an extent—I was glad my readers didn’t see the thin descriptions as a deterrent to enjoying the stories. Still, as I continued to write more, I got better and better at understanding what sighted readers were looking for.

Sometimes I still make the mistake of telling how a character is feeling rather than showing. I had to learn the visual cues sighted people use as indicators while I might just know how a person is feeling based off some nonvisual cue I can’t even describe. But my beta readers and editors are great at flagging those weaknesses for me.

Ironically enough, A Very Witchy Yuletide, was difficult for me to write for an entirely different reason. Finally, after years of people asking me to, I wrote a visually impaired character. The irony is that I’ve spent so much time learning to write for sighted people that I forgot how to write like a blind person! And since Evergreen’s personality is so much different than mine, I couldn’t just describe what I would do in any given situation.

One thing I thought was particularly important about writing Evergreen’s character was that her visual impairment not take center stage. Too many books and movies with characters who are blind, or have any disability really, make the impairment the purpose for the character. But people who are disabled are so much more than our disabilities. I’m tired of being called “brave” or having someone “bless my heart” just for living my life. And I really wanted to capture that with Evergreen’s character. She is just like everyone else. She searches for jobs, falls in love, makes mistakes, has friends, has confrontations, has pets, helps around the house, and so much more. She is a normal college student; she just can’t see very well.

Surprisingly, though I have never attempted to hide my visual impairment, writing so openly about this was emotionally challenging. There are a couple of situations I included in the book that have happened to me in my real life, and they were not pleasant to relive. But more challenging was explaining my particular impairment to readers. Not all visual impairments are the same. There are different causes and very different symptoms. So, while I did talk a little bit about my specific impairment’s symptoms, I mostly tried to highlight the general things people who are visually impaired have to deal with.

In some ways, I have always viewed my visual impairment as a blessing. After all, we live in a world very much occupied with appearances. I always felt that my lack of sight gave me the special ability to see to people’s hearts. What drives people? What do they care about? What motivates them to do the things they do? By not getting caught up in the visual world of our reality, I have been able to understand people in a way I may not have been able to do had I been born sighted. And I think that very much helps me write authentic characters and stories.

About D. Lieber

D. Lieber is an urban fantasy author with a wanderlust that would make a butterfly envious. When she isn’t planning her next physical adventure, she’s recklessly jumping from one fictional world to another. Her love of reading led her to earn a Bachelor’s in English from Wright State University.

Beyond her skeptic and slightly pessimistic mind, Lieber wants to believe. She has been many places—from Canada to England, France to Italy, Germany to Russia—believing that a better world comes from putting a face on “other.” She is a romantic idealist at heart, always fighting to keep her feet on the ground and her head in the clouds.

Lieber lives in Wisconsin with her husband (John) and cats (Yin and Nox).

Published Works:
Conjuring Zephyr June 2016
The Exiled Otherkin November 2017
Intended Bondmates June 2018
In Search of a Witch’s Soul (Council of Covens Noir, #1) March 2019
Dancing with Shades (Council of Covens Noir, #0) August 2019
Once in a Black Moon March 2020
A Very Witchy Yuletide October 2020

Find her online:
-website
-Goodreads
-Bookbub

Giveaway

D. Lieber will be awarding a hand carved tree of life tarot/jewelry/keepsake box (carved by DhewaDecor) to a randomly drawn winner (US ONLY) via rafflecopter during the tour.

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