How I Brought Magic to Harlan County

My debut novel, Magic & Murder in the Holler, releases later this month. It's an urban fantasy set deep in Appalachia following a witch, Adeline Coburn, as she investigates a series of supernatural murders that have begun to plague her hometown. It's the first novel in The Arcane Codex.

Today, I thought I'd share a deep dive into the world-building that went into writing the book, specifically when it comes to the main setting Evarts, and the magic practiced there.

First and foremost, the novel takes place in Evarts, Kentucky, which is a real city located in Harlan County. Harlan County is located in eastern Kentucky, and is part of the Eastern Kentucky Coalfield. As the name suggests, coal mining was the predominant industry there in the early part of the twentieth century. Coal mining plays a role in major events of Magic & Murder in the Holler, and it was important to me to set the story in a real place because some of the plot points echo the lived experiences of people, even if the overall story had a fantastical twist. In the process of writing of the novel, I traveled to Evarts and explored Harlan County as a way to find inspiration and to add a sense of authenticity to the picture I was painting. I wanted to do the area justice when I wrote about it.

Zooming out a little bit, Harlan County is located in the Appalachian Mountains. There's a massive amount of myth, folklore and legend originating in Appalachia, and for good reason. The Appalachians are the oldest mountains in the world, at over 450 million years old. They were standing before the dinosaurs roamed the earth, the rings of Saturn had formed, and before bones exist in the fossil record. Humans have been living in Appalachia for roughly 16,000 years. Despite its history, there's still a great deal of mystery and allure to the mountains and parts of them have never been explored.

Setting a story in a location that possessed so much history appealed to me a lot when it came to crafting the fantasy aspects of the story. When I started drafting the novel, I did a lot of research on folk magic and folk medicine that's practiced in Appalachia and has been passed down for generations. A lot of the wisdom and rituals arose as a result of the area being very isolated, especially before modern technology came to be. Small communities in the mountains had to rely on themselves to survive without a nearby city or village for help, which insulated them and created some superstitions that exist to this day. The information about folk magic served as my starting point for coming up with how Adeline's magic worked, its limitations and some of its eccentricities. In a way, I wanted Evarts/Harlan County to feel like its own character, not just a backdrop, and a key to that was creating a branch of magic that could only develop and thrive naturally there.

Adeline practices ancestral magic, meaning she calls upon the souls of her ancestors when she performs witchcraft, and a place with centuries and millennia of history opened a lot of interesting doors for me as a writer for this book and into future books. Adeline's magic is strong because her family's connection to the land itself is strong after generations of traditions being passed down with little outside influence. There are a few different kinds of magic in the world of The Arcane Codex, yet Adeline practices a very unique form of witchcraft, because Appalachia itself has a unique history. Stories of how communities grew and survived while being isolated (and at times left behind) shaped the way culture developed with each generation, and would impact how magical knowledge would develop and grow.

By balancing the history of Evarts (and eastern Kentucky as a whole), elements of folk magic I learned, and my own imagination, I created a magic system that feels a little folksy, a little spooky and one I hope readers find refreshing.

I can't wait for everyone to get their hands on Magic & Murder in the Holler in a couple of weeks!

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Magic & Murder in the Holler is available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and most other retailers.