Author Interview – Jessica Jayne Webb

You know I love hearing from other authors, here’s an interview I did with fantasy author Jessica Jayne Webb.

Tell us about yourself.

Well I am a mum first and foremost to two beautiful incredibly busy, high functioning boys, something that Will. I. Am. once said that has stuck in my mind for my boys is that, my boys do not have a form of disability but are the next stage in the evolutionary chain. I truly believe this! Sorry, I am a proud mum, and when I get asked to talk about myself I vicariously live through them.

Now me I guess, well trying to get onto me. Atm I have blue hair which some days I absolutely love and other days I want to change the colour, and then fret because I can’t figure out which and end up dying it blue again.

I’m 6″1 a major yo-yo dieter but love paleo and sometimes vegan meals, why vegan you say! Because those guys are just amazing at making veggies taste mouth wateringly, orgasmically, delish. My nephew calls it being a flexitarian.

I love nature, walking, foraging, fishing especially although having these two ravishing boys I don’t get out much. Did you know it took my younger sister and oodles of youtube videos to finally figure out makeup in my 30’s ha! I have had some shockers.

My fav song atm is Liberation by Buzz and my morning Jam is Boss Bitch, oh I love the energy I get off that. I have a wonderful patient partner who puts up with so much bless him, he is the one who opened my world to foraging and fishing, and learning to accept myself. Yes, he is a very special man.

And tell us about your book.

My book, gosh where do I start! Well primarily it’s about Agatha (GC: great choice of name!) and her journey into becoming the new owner of the Wilderfort Castle and estate, it is based in the victorian era and has a dimension door, love interests, a bit of deception brewing, oh did I say daemons, soo many of them, and they are both good and bad, some magic so a witch and warlock, restorations, some adventure I can keep going, but I don’t want to ruin it. But I can tell you there has been some interest in it becoming a movie, fingers crossed eh. So it’s a fantasy with a bit of every subgenre I think. between you and me I am still learning the subgenres of Fantasy, did you know there are over 50 of them!

I love that and fingers crossed for the movie deal. How did you get the idea for the story?

This actually started as an assignment way back when I was at University, it was for an English literature assignment to write a blurb, I loved Emily Bronte and Jane Austen so I just created it from there. My lecturer really liked it and asked me to write more. I wrote some and then life changed directions so it was stored away for a few years, but now it’s about to be unleashed to the world. I chose daemons as the magical creatures for the book, as I felt not everyone can control their backgrounds or who they were brought up to be, I was a lost person when I was younger so this resonated with me a lot.

And where do you get your inspiration? Which authors do you love?

Well, Emily Bronte and Jane Austen as I previously said, ummm Cynthia Voigt, Sarah Zettel is a recent one but the age old Terry Prachett and the discworld novels was a huge part of my life, and my Dads and older brother. Dad still has the collection. A lot of my writing also comes from movies, I am a big fan of resident evil (no I didn’t play the game) Zombies, vampires, monsters love it! Texas Chainsaw massacre however, not my bag.

And where can we find out more about you?

Well I have a facebook page dedicated to The Secrets, and an Instagram page these two are particularly cool as they also have imagery that I have designed of the characters and what they look like, the book is for sale through Pegasus website, Barnes and Noble, Waterstone, Amazon, Book Depository, and we are currently sorting goodreads, there will also be physical shops that will hold the books although I don’t have the confirmed list of that yet so keep an eye out!

I googled myself the other day, you know as you do, my old business was still up with the NZ registry so that was interesting, but three of the online shops above showed my book listing, it’s a pretty surreal feeling when you can see your name in a google search, AND YOUR PHOTO! that was weird, I clicked on the images and there was an old one too of me when I was in my early 30’s half a shaved head, pretty interesting seeing that old mug of a shot whilst I was selling my artwork at the markets.

Anyway just look for the blue hair, you will find me.