Linn B. Halton Visits From England to Discuss her Debut Novel: “Touched by the Light”

MA: Help me welcome my guest today, Linn B. Halton. Linn lives with her husband Lawrence and Tiggs  (a black and white cat with attitude) in Nailsworth. Linn describes Nailsworth as a lovely part of the UK referred to as ‘The Cotswolds’.  It’s well known for gentle hillsides (Wolds) and sleepy English villages.  She has two sons and three grandchildren, whom she adores. So what did you do before becoming an author?

LH: For twenty years I was involved in financial accounting, specialising in forecasting and budgeting.  A change in lifestyle in 2004 saw both my husband and I giving up our careers to spend a couple of years renovating and extending two old cottages and a hunting lodge.  We both loved being hands-on and taking on a large share of the work ourselves.  We both took part-time jobs and I worked for a local Estate Agent (Realtor) showing people around properties.  However, my hobby of designing interiors turned into a new career, when I was asked to furnish a newly built Show Home for a local property developer.  At the end of 2008 I became very worried about my mother’s health and gave up work to spend time with her.  Sadly she passed away in March 2009, which was when I decided to write full-time.

MA: What brought you to novel-length fiction?

LH: I began writing poetry at the age of eleven and then found myself watching ‘The Man From Uncle’, I would write my own little ‘episodes’.  As an adult I found juggling family life, a career and our hobby of buying homes that needed renovation work, meant that writing had to be put to one side. I continued to write poetry for fun and kept a small journal, where I recorded ideas ready for when I reached that time in my life, when I could sit down and write ‘a novel’.  As a birthday present to myself five years ago, I gave up watching TV each evening and wrote my first manuscript – just to see if I could write something from start to finish.  It made me realize that when the time came I was ready, but I had no idea when exactly that would be.  I began writing immediately after my mother’s death, as a way of giving my mind something positive to focus on, during those difficult early months.  It was at that point that I decided that fate had intervened and given me the opportunity I had been seeking for so long.  I realised that many of the ‘ideas’ in my journal would give rise to novel-length stories, so I began bringing them to life!

MA: I’m sorry about your mother, and while each of us finds inspiration in different ways, I think you turned your sadness into something positive, empowering. Tell us about your novel.

LH: My debut novel ‘Touched By The Light’ was released in February 2011, and this was the first novel I wrote shortly after my mother’s death.  At the time I felt a strong psychic link to spirits around me.  The opening sequence, where a young woman named Mya is ill in hospital and ‘follows the light’, was based on a near-death experience that had happened to my father many years before.  At the time I was at his side, holding his hand and he had described to me in detail what was happening to him, as he battled to stay alive following a serious cancer operation.  I believe it was his incredibly strong willpower that pulled him through that night, but what was amazing was that afterwards he no longer feared death.  He still had a lot of living to do, but he’d felt the ‘welcome’ waiting for him on the other side.  Whilst he was ‘out of his body’ he had also spoken to his mother, who was waiting on the other side of, what he described as, a bridge that disappeared into a bright light.  I went on to write another three manuscripts in 2009/2010 and found that I had my genre – I wanted to write about psychic or astrological connections, and true-life love and relationships.  So I would describe my genre as contemporary women’s fiction with a psychic or astrological theme.   However, I will shortly be releasing on Kindle an account of some of my psychic experiences entitled ‘Being A Sceptic Is Oh So Easy’.  Some of the things I have personally witnessed, and that have convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is life after death, may strike a chord with those who have lost loved ones, or had similar experiences.  For me it’s very much about ‘seeing is believing’ and it is now a part of my daily life, so it is only natural that it should feature quite prominently in my novels.

MA:  What made you choose to write ‘Touched By The Light’ through the eyes of five of the main characters?

LH: This is a story that has a lot of twists and turns, but also explores the way the ‘baggage’ we all carry around with us, can make our relationships more complicated than they need to be.  It’s often as much about what we leave unsaid, as what we decide to share.  Working on two different ‘planes’, and remembering that Mya is rather isolated when she moves on and has little control over when she is pulled into other people’s lives, was fascinating to write.  To then be able to expand upon her limited perception of what was happening, and see it from several other different viewpoints, helped me steer the reader through the plot in a meaningful way.  It’s a feel-good story about psychic connections between people on different levels of existence, and the two worlds become curiously entwined.  Mya suddenly finds herself involved in the lives of Laurel and Dan, a young couple she didn’t know in this life and who seem to be on the verge of breaking up.  She can only assume she is supposed to help them, but her efforts are often misguided, cause amusement or result in things getting broken.  It’s all about life and love, the things that hold us back; the mistakes we make and the things we don’t say, but should.  But when fate is involved anything can happen, although there are no guarantees that even soul mates can find their way through.  The journey they take is filled with all the emotions life has to offer and an insight into Mya’s new reality beyond ‘the light’.

MA: My Child Finder Trilogy features a psychic protagonist, but I must confess I cannot claim to have had any real-life experiences with the paranormal. Were any of the psychic experiences in your story based on real life incidents?

LH: Yes, my personal experiences do inform the way I describe psychic connections.  I’ve had so many experiences over the years and fortunately most of them have been good ones.  Some have been connected to properties, but many others are simply loved ones who have passed on and are around me, supporting me and giving me guidance.  On the rare occasion I have been in the presence of a ‘bad’ vibe, I’ve turned around and run away as fast as my legs would allow me to!  In ‘Being A Psychic Is Oh So Easy’ I explain why it took me so long to acknowledge something that had been proven to me time and time again.  I’m afraid the short answer is, that being a sceptic means you don’t have anything to explain or prove; however there came a point in my life where my husband and I both started to see ‘things’ at the same time.  That’s not something you can easily explain away, you run out of excuses and that was the truly scary part – acceptance!

MA: What other projects do you have planned for the future?

I have three manuscripts that are stand alone stories, one involving astrology and the other two psychic connections, but handled in very different ways.  I hope to have these published in 2011/2012 and further information can be found on my website http://linnbhalton.co.uk.

At some point I would like to write a sequel to ‘Touched By The Light’, as it would be fun to take the main characters into the next phase of their lives.  The wonderful thing about having help ‘from the other side’, is that I never know what is going to pop into my head next.  Every time I have a new psychic ‘experience’ I find myself weaving it into a storyline and the past year has been increasingly active.  My personal interest in the subject of life after death and the research I have carried out for some of the stories, seems to be opening me up to an even wider spectrum of experiences.  I have to say that I think the projects pick me, and not the other way around!

MA: Linn, thanks for stopping by today for a visit. I’d love for my readers to visit your website to learn more about you and your books.