Mythical Creatures with
JULIANA HAYGERT
Choosing one favorite mythical creature is hard! I like so many of them! I’ve written about a few—gods, demons, witches, ghosts … and I have unpublished manuscripts about vampires, werewolves, fae, and more. I actually invented a few on some of these manuscripts. That’s the fun part about writing, right? Being able to create new things, new worlds …
But if I do have to choose one, I would say witches. The cool thing about witches is that you can do anything you want with them. They can be good witches, evil witches, elemental witches, more like psychic powers witches, or they can have one specific gift and no other kind of magic. They can be linked to Salem and/or witch trials, they can be born or made, they can have grimoires and depend on potions and enchanted objects. Or not. There are no rules and we can have fun with them.
For the Creatures boxed set, I actually invented a “mythical” creature. They are called Tziganes and they are like gypsies but with real, powerful magic. They are just like witches in that sense—the powers and how they use them and the fact that some part of them is human—but laced with gypsies’ traditions and setting. It was fun to write about my dear, mysterious Tziganes and I hope my readers like it too.
Juliana Haygert is the Author of Gypsy Heart.
You can find out more about Juliana
here!
If twenty year old Mirella could just pretend she wasn’t a gypsy for one second, maybe her life wouldn’t suck. But turning off her enhanced sixth sense isn’t something she can do.
When she’s attacked by mysterious masked men, questions and fear rise. And the answers probably lie with Mirella’s mother, the same woman who she hasn’t spoken with in over a year. Their reencounter is unpleasant, as is learning the truth that Mirella is more than just a gypsy.
She’s a Tzigane, a line of very powerful gypsies, and because she doesn’t live in a secured enclave, she’s an easy target for the Alchemists—a group obsessed with Tzigane’s magic.
Her mother and two enemy enclaves fight to teach her how to control her magic, when all Mirella wants is to go to college and go out with the guy she’s crushing on—while ignoring the trail of bodies amassing around her.
But living free brings danger to her friends’ lives, and Mirella will have to choose between continuing to pretend to be normal or letting her inner power take over to engage in a century old battle where the price might be her own life.
