Discover. . .: Drawing from #Inspiration to Create the Small Town for “The Warlock of Westland” by Jack Brightside

MUSE MONDAY

This tale of where the inspiration came from for my guest, Jack Brightside, is so interesting. Please welcome him to Muse Monday and enjoy his post.

I drew from my own experiences growing up in a small affluent town in southern Connecticut to create the fictional town of “Westland” for “The Warlock of Westland.” The place I grew up was a weird combination of affluent and rural. There were almost no businesses. Residents let the trees overgrow the road signs so that strangers couldn’t find their houses. During winter the trees lose their leaves and you can see your neighbor’s houses for the first time. The isolation was part of the appeal. I remember my friends and I once looked up the requirements for a place to be considered a “town” and discovered we didn’t meet the criteria. The place we lived was too small and would technically be classified as a “village.”

What makes southern Connecticut unique is the element of affluence. It was a strange place to go to high school. For starters, nobody seemed to notice how rich they were. I remember this one time a girl wore Manolo shoes to school. I didn’t know about brand names and she explained to me the benefits of high-end footwear. This girl made a compelling case for only buying designer, and I later tried to make the same case to my mom. She had to inform me that those shoes weren’t just expensive they were like, probably a thousand dollars. People would get new cars regularly like it was nothing. I’d go over to people’s houses and they’d give me a tour that would last a half-hour because that’s how long it took to walk from one end of the house to the other. I remember the first time I met a maid I was super awkward about it because I didn’t know if I should say ‘hello’ or not. I included some of these awkward moments in the books. There’s a scene where a teenager from the local high school goes to New York fashion week and one of their social media posts goes viral. That was a thing that happened to someone I knew. She wore a vintage Led Zeppelin t-shirt but hashtagged “Pink Floyd” because she didn’t actually read what her own shirt said. Kids teased her about it. This is what I mean, people didn’t get bullied for normal reasons it was like, “you put the wrong hashtag on your fashion week post.”

My parents bankrupted themselves trying to fit in. Afterward, they attempted to assimilate into the community in other ways. There’s this south Korean movie called “Parasite” where an entire poor family gets jobs working for this rich family. The dad is their chauffeur, the mom is their cook, and so on. My family did that. My mom always got in first, usually as a dog walker. She got my Dad and sister hired as like, the assistant dog walkers.

A few years ago I went home for a visit and at the time my mom was caretaking the house of a girl I went to high school with. My mom made dinner for her and her family and I got to come. She was cooking like they were her own family. You cannot imagine how awkward this was. She worked for them for over a year and it got pretty insane. The girl’s family eventually moved into a smaller house and my mom was planning on moving into one of the guest bedrooms permanently with my father. Turned out the new house was small enough they didn’t need my family’s extensive services. It’s a bummer because I know my parents miss the perks of that job.

When I created “Westland” it was easy for me to add the unlikable elements. It was much harder to make any of the residents sympathetic. I could probably write uncaring rich people all day, but that couldn’t be the whole book. The sympathetic elements ended up coming from empathic character traits, like making the characters care about each other. Adding humor to the story also helped. The “Westland” that I created helped me reconcile how insane that part of my life was.

Book Blurb

Sam is an immortal warlock whose life revolves around a failing hardware store in rural Southern Connecticut. His self-imposed isolation is interrupted when the Warlock Council assigns him to help an evil warlock living in his village. The desperate warlock happens to be Sam’s ex-boyfriend from two thousand years ago, Cailte the Cruel.

Cailte hasn’t used that name since the iron age. Now he’s Kevin MacCormack, a recently unemployed stockbroker. Kevin spends his days bewitching the villagers and making potholes for fun. The last thing he needs is a good warlock like Sam cramping his style.

The warlocks must work together to track a dangerous ghost that Kevin accidentally released in Westland. Meanwhile, Sam has fallen in love with Kevin all over again. He’s ready to do anything to make it work, including tolerating Kevin’s self-serving magic. Kevin isn’t as sure that it’s meant to be. Sam’s small-town charm starts to grow on Kevin just as they realize the ghost's devastating power.

This is a HEA, enemies to lovers contemporary paranormal small town male/ male romance.

This is the first book in the Warlock of Westland Series

1. The Warlock of Westland 1

2. The Warlock of Westland 2

3. The Warlock of Westland 3

Excerpt

“As an evil warlock, I get offended when good warlocks take credit for doing basically nothing,” said Kevin. “Can you name even one thing you’ve done for this village recently?”

“What do you want, a scorecard?” asked Sam. “Good magic is discreet.”

“Discreet!” Kevin crossed his arms. “You don’t do anything!”

“Get out of my hardware store.”

“Alright! I’ll calm down!” said Kevin. “Look, I’ve lost something. I asked the Warlock Council for help and they sent me here.”

“What did you lose?” asked Sam.

“A ghost,” said Kevin.

“You lost a ghost?” asked Sam. “Who gave you a ghost?”

Kevin recited the speech he prepared in his BMW, “I bought one by accident at a charity fundraiser. I was trying to support my community.”

“What community?” asked Sam. “The median income in Westland is $300,000, they don’t need ‘support.’ What are you not telling me, Kevin?”

“It was an auction for the Witch’s Council of New England,” said Kevin. “You could make the argument that money is a better way to support the villagers than ‘discreet magic.’”

“I’ve heard this argument before,” said Sam. “Something about how building yourself a castle will make your village a better place to live. This is great, Kevin. Tell me more.”

“Are you going to make fun of me, or can I finish telling you what happened?”

Sam leaned his arms on the counter, “There’s more? What did you do, Kevin?”

This is a three book series:

Warlock of Westland 1 Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09LS9KYV9

Warlock of Westland 2 Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09LVRN84N

Warlock of Westland 3 Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09LVSJKV5

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