Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for A Witch Awakens: A Fire Circle Mystery by Ellis Elliott. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more!
A Witch Awakens: A Fire Circle Mystery
by Ellis Elliott
A Witch Awakens: A Fire Circle Mystery
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – In the Tennessee mountains
Publisher: Hawkshaw Press (May 19, 2025)
Number of Pages: 238
A Witch Awakens is about an accidental detective CeCe (Tennessee) Brown, who returns home to Tennessee after deciding the Big Apple just didn’t suit her. While working as the local ballet teacher she helps her friend Bess to put on the annual Fall Ball. Unfortunately, during a thunderstorm the night of the ball, one of the town’s most notable women is found dead. CeCe was very close to the victim, and begins to have little dizzy spells where she starts to get pictures of things around her town, and feelings compelling her to visit certain locations. Under the guidance of her grandmother and her Aunt Granny, CeCe begins to realize she shares a family proclivity for a bit of second sight. It’s a story where CeCe solves a mystery, but also begins to accept who she is, and where she’s from, and what makes her little town, and herself, special. She solves the mystery of herself.
Origin Story for A Witch Awakens: A Fire Circle Mystery by Ellis Elliott
The sparks of an idea for my first cozy mystery novel flew from the unlikely source of the Civil War memoir of my great-great-grandfather. The novel, appropriately titled The Thrilling Adventures of Daniel Ellis, was published in 1867. Ellis served as a “pilot” guiding Union soldiers, runaway slaves, deserting Confederates, and others through the Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee. Beneath the flowery language of a probable ghostwriter was the blood-curdling truth and violence of war, and the book became one of the few first-person accounts of the war from that region. It was even cited in the acknowledgements for the National Book Award winning novel, Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier.
But something kept nagging at me. I couldn’t help but wonder about the women and children left at home. I wondered what life must have been like for them, with their husbands and sons serving in the war while they were left to take care of everyone in the rural, isolated mountains they called home. I had been particularly intrigued by one of the few women mentioned more than once in the book, known as “Granny Grills”. She would provide food and sometimes shelter for Ellis and his men as they made their way through the mountains.
I heard references to “Granny Women” when visiting my mother’s side of the family in the mountains of East Tennessee in childhood. I never thought twice about it, assuming it just meant old people like my grandmother. While doing my research I learned there was much more to them than that.
I learned granny women in Southern Appalachia in that time period were staples of their communities. They were folk medicine practitioners, meaning they cured the sick, tended to the dying, and saw women through labor and delivery. I learned that a granny woman was often a midwife, but not all midwives were granny women. Granny women might add the recitation of a Bible verse or add a protective charm with her work.
Families in Southern Appalachia, especially in this time period, were often cut off from health care and even neighbors. The male physicians that did make visits would often charge more than they could afford. Granny women would barter for their services, and were generally seen as more trustworthy, therefore becoming a critical part of their community.
A granny woman might have offered a tincture from the Pipsissewa (rat’s bane) plant to treat digestive problems or a cold infusion from the bark of the Wild Cherry tree for coughs and sore throats. They might also bring salt to put in your shoes for good luck or recite a Bible verse three times over a wound.
Granny women were well-informed from the passed-down knowledge of the generations and diverse cultures that came before them, including Native American, Scots-Irish, African American, and English. They relied on their highly cultivated intuition and connection to the natural world. They mixed teachings from the Bible with a scoop of ritual, ceremony, and repetition.
Is it any wonder I found them fascinating, and wondered what a “modern granny woman” might look like? And that is exactly what I did in this book. In it, I have three women; a granddaughter, grandmother, and great-aunt, that are all a part of a lineage of granny women. Their abilities are not confined to herbal remedies in my book, though, and cross-over into the paranormal realm, even though they would argue that psychic ability is just intuition on steroids, and to be careful when making fun of folks whose brains are wired differently.
I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did in writing it. If you’re interested in where to go for more information on granny women, Appalachian folklore, or medicinal herbs, there is a “Modern Granny Woman Library” of references at the back of the book.
And I bet you know someone that would fit the bill of a modern granny woman! She is someone who trusts her intuition, acts with intention, serves her community, and just has good, old common sense. If you do, I’d love to hear about her. Please write to me at el***@****************ng.com.
About Ellis Elliot
ELLIS ELLIOTT is a facilitator of the online writing group Bewilderness Writing. She also teaches writing and ballet in an after-school arts education program. Ellis holds an MFA from Queens University. She is a contributing writer for the Southern Review of Books, and serves as an editor/workshop instructor for The Dewdrop contemplative journal.
She is the author of the 2023 poetry chapbook, Break in the Field (Old Scratch Press), which KIRKUS calls “A deeply felt collection of candid verse.” Her work can also be found in numerous publications, including Signal Mountain Review, Plainsongs Poetry Magazine/Award Poem, Euphony Journal, and the Women of Appalachia Project Anthology. Ellis has a blended family consisting of six grown sons. She resides in West Palm Beach, Florida, with her husband, Tim, and a feisty dog named Mabel.
Author Links
- Website: https://bewildernesswriting.squarespace.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bewildernesswriting
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elliselliott2020
- LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/ellis-gatewood-elliott-30ab4059
Purchase Links – AMAZON
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A Witch Awakens TOUR PARTICIPANTS
May 19 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT
May 20 – Deal Sharing Aunt – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
May 21 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
May 22 – Jody’s Bookish Haven – SPOTLIGHT
May 23 – Frugal Freelancer – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
May 24 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
May 25 – Baroness Book Trove – SPOTLIGHT
May 26 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
May 27 – Ascroft, eh? – CHARACTER GUEST POST
May 28 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – AUTHOR GUEST POST
May 28 – Books, Ramblings, and Tea – SPOTLIGHT
May 29 – Ruff Drafts – AUTHOR GUEST POST
May 30 – Boys’ Mom Reads! – REVIEW
May 31 – TOUR PAGE PROMOTION
June 1 – Cozy Up With Kathy – REVIEW, AUTHOR INTERVIEW
June 1 –Melina’s Book Blog – SPOTLIGHT
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Hi Christy! Thank you so much for the interview and being a part of the blog tour. I love all things British TV, too. The MC in my book watches “The Great British Baking Show” for it’s therapeutic value (and I might be known to do that, too!)
How fun! It’s definitely therapeutic…but it makes me hungry! Thanks for stopping!
This sounds like a book with an interesting premise.