Today we are interviewing Kayleigh Kavanagh, author of the historical paranormal fantasy, One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches.
Kayleigh Kavanagh is a disabled writer from the North-West of England. Growing up in the area, she learnt a lot about the Pendle Witches and launched her debut novel around their life story. Her main writing genres are fantasy and romance, but she loves stories in all formats and genres. Kayleigh hopes to one day be able to share the many ideas dancing around in her head with the world.
Her latest book is the historical fantasy, One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches.
You can visit her on Facebook, Instagram, Goodreads and Tiktok.
I’ve always been obsessed with stories: how people relate to them, how they can change people’s hearts, how they can be used to entertain as well as educate and inform. Humans are naturally drawn to them, whatever format they take. Writing novels was a natural progression from curiosity.
Becoming an author was less of a conscious choice and the best way for me to tell the stories trapped within my mind.
Your latest book, One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches, can be described as two descendants who must come together to protect the ones they love from an ancient evil, all whilst balancing their lives and the cruelties of being a woman in a man’s world. How did you come up with this idea?
I wanted to write a sequel to the first book, “Whispers of the Pendle Witches,” but I didn’t want to just cover the trials, as I thought the ending of the first book was better and more empowering than what happened in reality.
I love the idea of reincarnation, and those with strong psychic gifts often claim to remember snapshots of previous lives. At first, I was going to have Demdike reincarnate in the modern day, but then I realised there was a span of time between this, where others could have reincarnated. The next idea was to have the books set exactly two hundred years apart, but this was pushed aside when I learnt more about 1800s England.
The end of the first book ends with Demdike, Chattox, and Alizon casting spells, and I wanted to follow this thread. It developed into a story where Demdike and Chattox’s spell had unintended consequences, trapping them as spirits bound to their bloodlines, while Alizon’s actions (which they were unaware of) added another layer of issues.
The rest developed naturally as I learnt more about the time period. There are people in the modern world trying to pull us back to these past times, where women had so few rights, and I know for a fact that even back then, there were strong women fighting against these unfair standards. I wanted it to show how women are strong, no matter the circumstances, and hopefully, it will help empower others to keep going even in these uncertain times.
Can you tell us more about the main character in your book?
Demdike was the main character in the first book; however, she’s dead in this one, so the spotlight had to be shared equally between the two living descendants, Yana and Claire.
Yana is 14, naive and about to begin her marriage interviews.
Claire is a midwife in her mid-30s. She has become jaded by the state of the world, but keeps fighting regardless.
They’re both reincarnations of characters in the first book, and as they discover this, it inevitably changes and shapes them in this new life.
They’re both strong and flawed in their own ways.
Who are the other main characters?
Demdike and Chattox. The two dead witches are bound to their bloodlines from a spell gone wrong. They’re trained cunning folk, the UK equivalent of shamanic healers, who stand between the evils in the ether and the physical world.
What is the very first line of your book?
She hadn’t known what to expect from death.
What is the main reason people should read your book?
The world is filled with pain and people trying to convince you that you’re less and insignificant. I hope my book shows people how, even in impossible situations, you have power. You aren’t weak, and you aren’t alone. History likes to repeat itself, or as Demdike says, “History does so love a pattern.” Things come around again; if you’re in the bad right now, remember, the good will return.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
One of love and acceptance. All this division, black-and-white thinking, and hate is historically what happens before people turn on one another and empires fall. If I could, I’d show people how much better as a species we can be when we show love and acceptance and how much (historically) we’ve advanced during these points in the past.
Naturally, this would particularly extend to women’s rights, LGBTQIA+ issues, and protecting the disabled and vulnerable members of our world.
“Protecting people and the planet” would probably be my tagline.
About the Book
Demdike and Chattox, famed witches of Pendle Forest, might be dead, but they’re not gone. Bound to their bloodline, they’ve spent the past two and a half centuries watching over their descendants, waiting for when they’ll be needed.
When 14 year old Yana comes into her psychic abilities and inherits the ‘eyes of the Chattox family’, she can see the long-dead witches, as well as an encroaching evil. But even with this foreknowledge, she’s trapped by marriage interviews and being unable to see her own future, and more importantly, whoever her future husband will be.
Demdike’s healing gifts are alive and working in Claire, a mid-30s midwife well renowned for her skills and holding her tongue. The Secrets of Pendle are safe with her and her midwives. However, when surgeons looking to make standardisation the norm encroach on her territory, she soon realises how, even a respected woman is vulnerable in a patriarchal system.
The two descendants must come together to protect the ones they love from an ancient evil, all whilst balancing their lives and the cruelties of being a woman in a man’s world. Set in late 1800s NW England, this book has all the elements of the area: strong, hardy people, atmospheric horror and days as unpredictable as the weather.
One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches is available at Amazon.
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