Evie O’Connor isn’t a typical three-year-old. She hears the cries of the dead and the dying. Her burgeoning ability brings the scars of a painful past into her parents’ lives.

No matter how hard she tries to forget, the effects of neglect and abuse linger in Keisha O’Connor’s mind. Nightmares, anxiety, and something more sinister have a grip on her she can’t break. When her daughter Evie makes a terrifying announcement, the walls surrounding her perfect life come tumbling down.

At the Windy Springs Renaissance Festival, the familiar isn’t what it seems. A bizarre twist of fate puts Evie in danger as the Rennies band together to save the child… and possibly take down one of their own.

Author Valarie Savage Kinney is a fiber artist and Renaissance Festival junkie with a wicked caffeine addiction. She resides in Michigan with her husband, four children, and two insane little dogs. She is the author of Heckled, Slither, Just Hold On, and the Secrets of Windy Springs series, as well as short stories in various anthologies. She can be followed on Twitter @kinneychaos.

Did something in the real world inspire your series?

The Secrets of Windy Springs series is set in a small Renaissance Festival in a forest in northern Illinois. For the last five years, I’ve been a vendor at a Ren Faire located in a beautiful forest in Mid-Michigan. My friends and I sell crocheted items and my books from a little wooden hut – much like the hut Layla and Keisha sell their fairy wings from. It’s an enchanting atmosphere.

What is your favorite scene in the book?

My favorite scene in The Knowing Child is the one where Keisha realizes she knows one of Rogan’s former girlfriends. The abject horror in her reaction left me laughing for days.

What was your writing process like as you wrote the third book? Was it different from the others?

Sometimes writing is like pulling teeth: it’s slow and agonizing and not much fun at all. Sometimes writing feels honestly magical, like it’s a movie playing in my head that I’m simply transcribing. That’s how this book felt. Every day, every night, I could “hear” the characters and knew exactly what I’d be writing the next day.

Writing The Knowing Child was different, in that it was faster than my other books. It also hit very close to home, as far as writing about Keisha’s anxiety attacks. It’s a thing I struggle with, and I found writing the truth of those feelings to be truly cathartic.

What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the series?     

Truthfully, I’ve not done a lot of promotion with this one. It’s been a difficult several months personally for me. Following my brother’s death, I’ve struggled quite a bit with anxiety. He died at the end of October last year. Since then, I’ve put out four books (one was a re-release). This go ‘round, I decided to do what I could and let it rest. Probably the best thing that’s happened since I released it has been reactions from readers. I love getting messages from readers and hearing their thoughts about my stories.

What do you have planned next?

I’m working on the 4^th installment in the Windy Springs books, which is actually a prequel called Knowing Rogan. I’m about 4k in right now. After that, I have the idea for a 5^th book called Knowing His Madness. Further, I have a sci-fi/horror novel called Ma Hankley’s Amazing Turnips three-quarters of the way finished and even edited. It sort of fell by the wayside after my brother’s diagnosis and I need to pick it back up. I hope to get that one out late this summer.

You can follow Valarie on her website https://valariesavagekinney.wixsite.com/valariesavagekinney or on Amazon https://amzn.to/2s8XOLB.  You can find a copy of The Knowning Child here:  https://amzn.to/2xjlB0t.