I love to offer insight into my writing process. I am always intrigued by how a writer thinks when they are writing and how their stories come to fruition. The Celtic Hollow was quite fun to write, but I knew the most important aspect of it was to set-up the third book in the series. I always think it is amusing to throw in little easter eggs, slight hints about the upcoming books in the series, right from the start. This book was no different.

My editor called it The Celtic Veil 1.5…

And that is exactly what I intended it to be. Until the end of course.

I wanted to continue with Adara’s point of view as she settles into the otherworld and is still figuring things out. I also wanted to let the readers get to know her more and all the other beings I introduced in the first book, The Celtic Veil. I suppose I also wanted readers to root for her. Adara may be pretty on the outside, but down deep she is an extremely insecure person and I think this book shows her growth throughout.

My goal was to give her this newfound strength because she is going to need it in book three and four.

I toyed with the idea of adding a chapter from Lorcan’s point of view but I decided against it. At the end of the day, this is Adara’s story. I love Lorcan and I think what you see is what you get with him. He doesn’t play games. He is not nearly as mysterious as Adara once thought when they first met. He is who is and he says what he means. I think they both accept one another for who they are and although they might be different, they, in my opinion, compliment each other rather well.

Now, let’s talk about one of my favorite characters, and my editor shares this opinion…Cat.

I absolutely love writing Cat. She is so much fun and I hope readers got a better sense of who she is. I also enjoyed toying with her and Callum a bit before they finally got together. I am not going to lie. I did have a crazy idea to write companion books from Cat’s POV, starting from when she first arrived, but I knew that would be a ton of work to do both at the same time.

Who knows? Maybe someday.

One of the more interesting characters was the introduction of Roarke, the commander of the shadow hunters, and Lorcan’s mentor/ father figure. He may not be in this book for many scenes, but he will be important later on down the road. In fact, introducing a few other VERY important shadow hunters was also necessary and note worthy.

The most fun chapter I wrote was the booze cruise. I was playing music and laughing like a lunatic along with Adara, Cat, and Emory. I absolutely adored Emory in this situation and she truly is the star. I was worried that someone reading it might think I condone drinking and driving which is why I put a note at the end of the book.

But what was the most pivotal chapter? In my mind there were two. The visit to the mages council and when Juno finally shows up at the end. Funny enough, they are both intertwined.

Adara works it out after her confusing meeting at the council. She believes something happened right beforehand and she was right. The mages fully intended to keep her there for ‘observation’, but a visit from Juno, who left right before Lorcan and Adara arrived, stopped the mages after she told them of the prophecy regarding the fabled eight. Juno, well, you will meet her again, but her actions will be explained even deeper in the fourth and final book.

Perhaps take note of another being introduced at the mages council…they will play a big role in the next book.

There really only is one other being to discuss of importance and that is George. Can we all agree George is the true hero of the book? After Cat, he is the one character that truly brings a smile to my face whenever he pops up, and all I can promise is that he will never change.

Everything in The Celtic Hollow was to set up for book three, The Celtic Embers. The third book is what inspired me to write this series. I’m not sure how to explain it because I might give it away, but it was inspired by one of my favorite authors, J. R. R. Tolkein…although, he would probably not deem it as a compliment.

I hope you enjoyed reading The Celtic Hollow and I equally hope you enjoyed this deeper dive into the story. This world has been amazing to create and I can’t wait to show you even more of it in the book three and four!

~Shannon