Author Interview and Giveaway! Never Alone - Linn B Halton

I find real-life psychic experiences scary in a different way to fictional ghost stories. Usually it is more subtle, but no one should under-estimate the level of emotion an experience evokes. It’s not something you ever forget. Never Alone is based around some personal experiences spanning a long period of time. Fiction allows me to explore the reactions of the characters and take it a step further – what if? However, I have to say some of Holly’s reactions are very close to my own in this particular case…

“It’s a gift to be shown something that allows you to make a difference and alter the outcome of someone else’s life. However, the weight of the responsibility that goes along with that is huge and what about the ethics?  The thing I have to ask myself is how did my actions change the future?” Holly Elizabeth Atherton

Holly is the envy of all her friends, she has lived with the gorgeous Will for five years and supported him every step of the way. His IT business is about to go global and they are on the verge of having all their dreams come true! A life split between homes in the UK and Los Angeles beckons, offering them a glamorous and exciting lifestyle they will both fit into quite perfectly. So when Will pops the question, why won’t Holly say ‘yes’?

A series of terrifying encounters unleashes an inherited psychic connection within Holly. Her ‘perfect’ life is turned upside down as she struggles with the reality of her ‘gift’. Help comes from a chance meeting with medium Peter Shaw and she discovers that she is also being given healing and protection by the spirits of two people. One of them is her best friend’s brother, Nick, who died suddenly in tragic circumstances. Holly finds herself confiding in him in an attempt to sort out her own life.

She begins to sense that the path she’s on isn’t the one she’s destined for, but is it too late to change things? The thought of hurting the people she loves the most causes her to bury her emotions, until fate takes a hand…

Absolutely, I do believe the Big Guy is up there watching and we have a destiny to fulfil. I also believe that when things don’t work out well that too is for a reason. Life isn’t about everything being perfect; we’re here to learn lessons and sometimes bad things happen. I’m also a strong believer in intuitive feelings, being guided by the thoughts that come to you out of the blue. When you say you are often ‘given’ a solution, you are totally right! Everything happens for a reason.

I think it was always a part of my fate that I would write, as my interest started at a young age. Poetry was my first love and as a child I wrote stories and pasted them into scrap books. Getting married at eighteen, having a family and then a full-time career meant life was too busy, so it was a case of jotting down all of my ideas and waiting for retirement. However, I do believe that the circumstances that led me to give up my career much earlier than expected, was my destiny. My Mum was a little unwell and my intuition was screaming at me, although I had no proof it was serious. My family thought it was a rather drastic reaction to give up a well-paid job I loved to spend time with her. However, she died unexpectedly only three months later. I know it was her greatest wish to see me find my ‘time to write’. So I didn’t go back to work but have been writing ever since; that was in 2009. I seriously doubt I would have had the courage to give up work under any other circumstances and I felt it was her ‘gift’ to me.

Never make assumptions! The last sentence in The Quintessential Gemini, which was published in June 2012, ends with a question mark. It was, to my mind, a rhetorical question and finished off the story quite nicely. However, a live interaction on Twitter with two readers stopped me in my tracks, when they both offered different opinions about what happened NEXT. It was a fun exchange but it made me go away and think. Then I realised the story wasn’t finished, although to my mind it had been. I’m now working on the sequel because I HATE loose ends. So thanks to Twitter and two readers, a sequel is on the way!

Not all of my books have a twist in them (I’ve written a chick lit and a true story), but often I use the chapter titles to give little clues. When I began writing I didn’t research how to write or what were the conventions – I just sat down and began typing. I don’t always know where the story is going, sometimes it takes me where it wants to go and I find that exciting. The same with the chapter titles, they spring into my head before I’ve even written the chapter – and I often wonder about the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ (laugh). I think I might be psychic!

This makes me smile, and it’s also rather lovely. The fact that you regard it as natural is a wonderful thing. Now you’ll laugh, as I’ve written a book about it! Being A Sceptic Is Oh So Easy was a true story I never intended to write.

At the time I’d just finished my first psychic romance novel and I was still struggling to come to terms with losing my Mum. I knew she was with me on a daily basis and went to an evening of clairvoyance hoping she would come through. She didn’t, but the next morning my head was full of a re-play of everything ‘unusual’ that had happened right back to childhood. It was a bit scary actually and I felt the only way I could clear my head of this over-load was to write it down. Then I put it away, but fate had other plans and I ended up publishing it.

It’s simply an account of all of the things I’ve experienced and my thoughts on things like coincidences, luck, gut instincts and déjà vu. The deaths of my Mum and Dad also had very different, but extremely coincidental occurrences that I felt were also a part of my ‘spiritual’ journey. Having lived in at least two homes that were over 200 years old and had ‘inhabitants’, and sharing several psychic experiences with my husband, I really did reach a point where I had to say ‘I believe in life after death’. It has taken away the fear too and it’s comforting having loved ones around helping me. However, I still don’t feel entirely comfortable about making that declaration. I know how long I clung to the comfort of being a sceptic, and that people who haven’t had experiences will usually think it’s an over-active imagination. My husband was an even bigger sceptic than I was, then he had the first of quite a few subsequent experiences. He’s still over-whelmed by it, but seeing is believing.

I suppose when I went I was seeking proof that my experiences weren't just a vivid imagination! I’ve had a few messages come through and several made me laugh, but all were relevant to certain members of my family. I’ve also had some amazing one to one sessions with medium and psychic, Richard Holmes. I knew my Mum would never come through with a message in an open forum. When she did come through it was in two private sittings. Actually, she spent part of the time lecturing me – there are no secrets once they are on the other side! She thought I was working too hard and worrying too much about other members of the family. My father too came through a couple of years after his death and that was an amazing session. The validation was unbelievable – all of these incidents are in Being A Sceptic Is Oh So Easy because they are a part of what made me finally admit I’m no longer a sceptic.

It sounds lovely! We downsized after our second son left home and moved into a converted cow shed and hayloft. My study doubles up as a guest bedroom, but it’s a wonderful place to write. We have a small courtyard garden, within a farmyard setting of three other barns. At night the garden lights make it look magical and by day it’s green in winter and colourful in summer. It’s worth having to drive through narrow country lanes for the peace and quiet, although the farmyard noises mean we’re early risers!

Thank you so much for inviting me along Donna and for some fantastic questions! Always lovely to meet someone who understands, as I know it’s a taboo topic for many people. I fully understand that and regard it as a natural reaction to the unknown, although it is a pity. I also believe that our eyes are opened only when, and if, we’re ready to ‘see’. For some that might never happen, but then that too is a part of their fate.