Guest Post & Giveaway ~ LOVE SPELLS AND OTHER DISASTERS by Angie Barrett

Love Spells and Other Disasters
by: Angie Barrett
Genre: YA Fantasy Contemporary Romance
Release Date: February 1, 2021
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Amazon | Paperback | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo | Google Books | Goodreads

I didn’t know when I wrote the first love spell that it would actually make things happen. Like, actually make people fall in love with each other…

How could I have known something like that? I mean, magic isn’t real, right?

But here’s the thing—the spell does work and so does the next one and the next one...and suddenly I’m getting a whole lot of attention from everyone at my high school. Me, Blend-into-the-Walls, Please-Let-Me-Introvert-in-Peace Rowan Marshall. And not only that, but I’ve also caught the attention of Luca Russo, a godlike, football-playing hottie who claims he likes me just the way I am. Ummm...

But as I’m about to learn, playing around with things you don’t understand means when things go wrong—like really, very awfully wrong—you don’t know how to fix them.

My road to publication was paved with…well…a whole lot of bumps, divots, sinkholes and roadblocks. I don’t think anyone I know, who has been following my writing journey, would ever say I didn’t put the work in (and continue to put the work in) to achieve my goals. I’ve been writing professionally for thirteen years. I know this exactly because I started working on my first novel (that got me my first agent) the year my daughter was born.

Since then, I’ve published eighteen books (adult fiction under a pen name) and have written many more than that. I’ve endured a publisher closing. I’ve gotten so many rejections that I could literally wallpaper my whole house with them, and I’ve never, ever, given up (despite wanting to many times). All of the trials I’ve endured in my adult book publishing journey has prepared me for my latest endeavour: writing YA fiction.

I can’t tell you exactly what got me writing YA. I spent seventeen years teaching high school and vowed many times that I would never write YA – Why? Because I didn’t think I had the voice for it. I didn’t think I could pull it off. Then one day I got this idea for a YA thriller and things just kind of took off from there. I wrote three YA novels and got lots of feedback that helped me hone my skill and learn the YA world of writing. Lucky for me, my editor at Entangled, Heather Howland, saw something she liked in my YA voice and encouraged me to explore other genres to see what might be a good fit.

That’s where the idea for Love Spells and Other Disasters came from. I knew I wanted to write magic realism. I love when there’s a touch of magic in a story and I aspire to be the kind of writer who can captivate my audience with the magic of my storytelling.

Around a year and a half ago, I was sitting on my couch, talking to my daughter, and it hit me…that big What IF I’d been waiting for.

What if a young girl writes a love spell for a school project and suddenly it works?

My daughter thought it sounded like a good premise so I ran with it.

There you have it! I didn’t start off with the goal of becoming a YA author but it seems that the last seventeen years has kind of prepared me for it. I’ve learned how to be a better writer in that time and I also have been gifted with years and years of learning from my many wonderful students.

Purchase Love Spells and Other Disasters from:

Amazon | Paperback | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo | Google Books | Goodreads

Author Angie Barrett lives in a small town in Ontario, Canada in an old century home that is also known as the “cat house” because, well, Angie likes cats. A lot. She also likes shopping for books, or for anything really, and spending time RVing in the summer with her family. She has worked for sixteen years as a high school English teacher and Librarian and is currently a Curriculum Consultant for new teachers. Angie has always dreamed of being a published author and strives to create worlds where there are strong, relatable characters who maybe are not always perfect but who understand the meaning of friendship and loyalty and who will use their collective strengths to overcome adversity.

Places to find Angie Barrett:

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Instagram | Amazon Author Page

You can follow the Love Spells and Other Disasters Blog Tour here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Follow