An Interview with Author Barbara Barnett

Author Barbara Barnett has a brand-new book available today entitled, Alchemy and Glass, and we here at NTG were lucky to sit down with Barbara to discuss his new book and the craft of creative writing.

Nerds That Geek: What can you tell us about your new book?

Barbara Barnett: Alchemy of Glass is the sequel to my Bram Stoker Award-nominated novel The Apothecary’s Curse. It’s a story that weaves back and forth between 1826 London and our present day (with some rather surreal forays into what might—or might not—be the future, but I can’t get more specific). 
 
The series itself has (hopefully) something for every fiction fan sci-fi, horror, historical, romance, and fantasy, interweaves the genres and narratives with an alchemist’s brew worthy of the story’s hero.
 
But here’s the pitch for Alchemy of Glass: 

In the catacombs of an ancient ruined monastery, hidden away in the Eildon Hills of Scotland, a land of myth and mystery — the place where immortal apothecary Gaelan Erceldoune found sanctuary as a lad — Gaelan discovers a journal, apparently written by his old friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, chronicling an adventure into the Otherworld, a land of fairy castles and filigree trees hung with Spanish moss.

Falling from the journal’s pages, a small piece of glass, which Gaelan recognizes as a fragment long missing from a stained glass panel he’d created a century earlier. When the opalescent glass seems to come alive in his hand, Gaelan is suddenly thrust into strange world far from the fantastical dreamscape Conan Doyle describes.

Alchemy of Glass weaves a tale magical as spun glass and terrifying as a shattered mirror, drawing upon cutting edge science and the most ancient of Celtic mythology, intertwining the magic of fairy lore and the harsh reality of difficult choices, returning us to the world of Gaelan Erceldoune as his past, present and future collide.

NTG: What are you most excited for your readers to experience? 

Barbara: I’m excited for my readers to see how I’ve incorporated Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s well-known penchant for the fairy folk into Alchemy of Glass. I’m also excited for readers to experience the first meetings between Gaelan and Simon Bell—and how they both clash and respect each other. Also, can’t wait to have my readers feel the love story I tell in the novel (two of them actually).

NTG: What is it you love the most about creative writing?

Barbara: I love losing myself in the sometimes-troubled minds of my characters. Diving into their worlds and being transported, even for a short time. It does get exhausting, especially spending so much time in Gaelan Erceldoune’s head—now he’s a troubled soul if ever there was one. I usually have to take a break and play an hour of Candy Crush after writing a really intense scene with him.

NTG: What is a unique story that you haven't tackled yet that you'd love to write?

Barbara: I would love to do space opera, but one that hasn’t been done before. I’ve not found the angle yet, but it would a character-driven, literary novel set in the near future. Tall order, huh? Ideas welcome :)

NTG: What's next for you after this release?
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Barbara: I have a wonderful 2021 Middle-earth themed boxed calendar coming out July 21 from Sellers Publishing (RSVP). It’s a day-at-a-time trivia calendar, and it’s the first of three LOTR calendars I’ll be doing for Sellers. It was a lot of fun revisiting the trilogy and creating the first one. I also have three works in progress, including a third Apothecary novel.

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Author Barbara Barnett