Paranormal Fantasy Author Mariah Stillbrook - Making Twigsters (magical wands) + giveaway

I started making magic wands by mistake (she says with a chuckle). I was playing with my dogs in my old yard and found a stick that felt heavy with energy. I’d just recently come out of the broom closet and was excited that this branch was asking me to make it into a magical tool. I didn’t hesitate—I ventured into my husband’s workshop and made myself a wand with a bit of stain, some poly, and an acorn I’d found on a walk. 

Over the years I started making a few more for friends and family; it’s a very therapeutic practice. Hunting for them brings you closer to nature, and crafting them literally puts your hands into their energy. When we moved into the forest, I found myself surrounded by what I now call Twigsters. So many little oak branches that still had tons of energy left inside to share with practitioners.

A few years later, I got picked up by my publisher for In the Pines. One thing I really love about Creative James Media is the workshops they offer now and again. During a marketing workshop, I listened as other authors discussed selling other things than books at their tables during events . . . I’d never thought about it, but what a perfect pairing. A book about witches and handmade wands (and to be fair, most everything I write has wands worked into the prose). So I went to work. I began adding copper wire, gold paint, and crystals—all the crystals! The best thing about crafting magic wands is there is no right or wrong way; you can add whatever you like or hardly anything at all—all the while charging the tool with your own magic as you handle it. I now have my own little line of Twigsters. If you’re interested in a Stillbrook Twigster then you’ll just have to find me in person, for they are sold exclusively at bookish events. However, I encourage magical practitioners who have a crafty spirit to create their own. There’s just something about your own intention that makes it even more magical (she says with a wink of her eye).

In The Pines
by Mariah Stillbrook
November 14, 2023
Genre: Paranormal Fantasy
Publisher: Creative James Media
ISBN: 978-1-956183-50-4
Number of pages: 374
Word Count: 110,334
Cover Artist: Triumph Covers
These witches have one month to end the spiritual threat to their bloodline. And not kill each other.
 

Two witches, two secrets, and a curse that could tear a family apart.

Olivia and Ellie have lived their lives knowing a dark entity is stalking their family, determined to kill them all. After the death of Olivia's son, she abandons her magic and her family, leaving Ellie in a nightmare of heartbreak, her marriage crumbling and her sister gone.

Determined to save their mother Arianna from a spell that left her comatose, the two sisters must come together to unravel the riddle of the curse that has haunted their family for generations.

But as they delve into the past, the truth they uncover is more twisted and treacherous than they ever could have imagined. Will they be able to break the curse, or will it consume them all?

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Excerpt:
The sound of the waves crashing down below, the impending fog rolling in, the wind sending curses past my cheeks, streaked with salt water—all of it seemed to have been put into slow motion as I stood there, full of rage and powerless against this demon as she held my daughter’s life in her tainted, dead hands. Eight words were all I was afforded in the two seconds that followed. “You were the one who let me in.”

And then it all happened at once. There was a "uttering of feathers, the sensation of a stick being forced into my hand, and the sound of my own screams as my daughter’s body fell; but then I just as quickly lunged forward, standing on air and pointing my bit of willow down at her body just before it was about to make contact with the jagged rocks below.

Maddie, now in possession of her own body, stared up at me with wide eyes and a gaping mouth as I floated over her like the witch I once was. And before she could utter a single word, before I could make out the laughter that seemed to be drifting back into the fog, I used my wand to lift her back up to the cliff and set her down before landing back on solid earth myself.

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Mariah Stillbrook, originally from Iowa, lives in Colorado with her white German shepherd, husband, and little girl. She graduated from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She spends most of her days writing, reading, and enjoying the occasional hike. In her late twenties she realized that her writing was missing something, magic. She now focuses her writing on horror and urban fantasy in both adult and young adult genres.

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