Submit Witchery—specific questions to be answered on this page one of two ways: via the contest or the contact tab. If your question is answered here, you will receive a signed, first edition Herculine novel of your choice.

Maegan asks: Is this the last time we'll hear from Herculine?

I have no plans to write another book featuring Herculine, nor do I expect to "re-visit" any of the other characters in the trilogy—but then again, you never know.

Right now I'm working on a fourth novel with all new characters, all new settings, though the book will be similar in style to the Herculine trilogy. The next book will be a stand-alone, and not the start of another series.

Michel of Maine wonders if there was a locale that inspired the creation of the Stone Room in THE WITCHERY.

The Stone Room in Queverdo Bru's house in Havana did have a real-life model, believe it or not: the Capuchin cemetery in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Rome.

Stepping off the street near the busy Piazza Barberini, you enter a warren of small rooms beneath the church. There the bones of several thousand Capuchin monks have been arranged on the walls and ceilings in an amazingly macabre display. It is quite a sight, and many would find it very disturbing. I only found it somewhat disturbing. Later, I carried the crypts into my fiction—as did Nathaniel Hawthorne by the way, in his Roman novel, The Marble Faun—and adorned Bru's Stone Room similarly.

For images of the Capuchin cemetery, check out: http://www.xo4.com/Capuchin/capuchin.html

Andrea in Italy asks if the spells in the book(s) are real or made up.

Nearly all the spells in the trilogy—and all the other magic, or witchcraft—is taken from actual historic, or folkloric, sources. I rarely resorted to making up something in its entirety, though sometimes I combined two or more spells, or swapped out one ingredient for another (so beware, spell casters, if you try any of the spells at home!) Truth is, there's a wealth of witch lore out there, and most of it needs no improvement. If anything, I was sometimes tempted to tone down my discoveries, as the truth sometimes seemed too strange for fiction.

Melissa is complimentary of THE WITCHERY cover and wonders who designed it.

All the trilogy's hardcover jackets—visible in each book's GALLERY section on the site—have been designed by the same artist, Julie Metz. Often the foreign editions adopt or adapt her design, though sometimes the foreign covers are quite different—for example, the Russian cover of THE BOOK OF SHADOWS, which I like very much.