Meet Joan
compassion gets to win in the end, at odds with the real world
I don’t at all remember how the character of Joan Greenwood came to me.
I wish I had a clearer origin story for her, the main character of not just my debut novel, but my debut trilogy. Alas, she was a product of her story. I had the concept for the book—urban witches, magic that lives in the corners of cities—before I had her.
I do remember deciding to write the story that produced Joan. It was the summer of 2019 and I was sitting in Owl’s Head Park in NYC and thought—well well well, let’s write a book about this place. The book I wrote in 2019 was actually not AN UNLIKELY COVEN (which releases this fall). It was essentially the sequel to AUC.
That’s a funny story! I wrote it, let’s call it AUC2, signed with my first set of agents in 2020, went on sub in 2021, FLOPPED!!! Parted ways with them in 2022, and put the book aside. I kind of attempted to resurrect it with agent #2 in 2023, but they weren’t too interested in it. I queried it once more in 2023 after parting ways with agent #2 because I was feeling spiteful, had an agent say it felt more like a sequel than a book one, and said “oh well I’d always thought about writing a prequel for this.”
And then I wrote AN UNLIKELY COVEN.
AUC2 was a book about power, revolution, and retribution. When I inevitably rewrite it this year to make it canon compliant as a true book two, it will be about those same themes, in a different package. But AN UNLIKELY COVEN is about family. It is about falling out with your family, and it is about making a new one.
Joan Greenwood is the outcast daughter of NYC’s ruling family of witches. That’s the official pitch line I use, and the outcast part is key. She can’t seem to do anything right. She’s not a very good witch. She’s impulsive and kind of self-righteous. She actually can’t cast spells at all, which is a huge point of conflict for her family, and she isn’t ashamed enough of that fact for their liking.
She is also deeply, unconditionally loved by her best friend CZ, and her greatest strength is that she loves him back. This platonic friendship is the core of AUC. When a strange new spell emerges, one that can transform an unmagical human into a powerful witch, CZ finds its victim, Mik. But the spell is making Mik very sick, and when CZ takes them back to his apartment he makes one call—to Joan, for help. The magic world is hunting Mik, Joan’s family included, which means the trio needs to evade them.
What proceeds is something of an adventure story, though on a local scale, as Joan and CZ—who aren’t really that smart—attempt to figure out who created this spell and cast it on Mik. They recruit Grace (a spellmaker), CZ’s brother Abel (a professor of mythology), and Wren and Astoria (two California witches who were sent to steal the spell from New York).
Several strangers enter a bar (this book). One found family exits.
I hope they feel like your friends, the ones you call after a breakup to vandalize your ex’s house, flawed and trying their best with Joan at their heart. Always so earnest. This is a book, a whole series, where compassion gets to win in the end, at odds with the real world. Joan is an escape, but I hope she’s also a model for what we might be when we are vulnerable and in love with the world.
All the best,
Kvita
AN UNLIKELY COVEN is on Goodreads and Storygraph! Make sure to add it there so you get a notification when it comes out! I get copyedits this week and the book is merrily chugging along.
