Guest Post: Michelle Leighton author of new novel Madly & Wolfhardt

"MADLY" CREATED

First of all, I'd like to thank Megan for hosting me today as part of the launch of my new book, Madly & Wolfhardt. I'm sure all of you already know this, but Megan's pretty awesome!

Now, about Madly. I'm not sure how many of you have ever written a novel or short story before or how many of you have had an idea come to you out of the clear blue, but this is how Madly happened to me.

Madly first came to me as the sister of a girl named Truly. I had no idea who they were, what they looked like or where they lived. I only knew their names. As is my custom when the seed of an idea appears, I worked and wallowed, turned it and examined it until a discernible shape began to appear. I assumed that the sisters would have equal parts in a story someday, but for reasons unknown, Madly quickly became the focus of my imagination.

Over several days, Madly began to become almost real to me. She is a fun-loving girl, one who takes pride in thwarting authority and giggles a lot with her sidekick, in this case a girl called Jersey. At first neither of them were mermaids. Rather, they were just two teenage girls living it up, squeezing every drop of enjoyment out of life. But where? Where were they living it up? That's when the idea for Slumber popped up.

Slumber is a town of fairy tale creatures, only they don't know they're fairy tale creatures. To the naked eye, these creatures look like regular humans living regular lives, and for hundreds of years they have. But that all changes when evil escapes the confines of prison to come and awaken the true nature of Slumber's inhabitants.

My next question was: Where is this prison? It was here that I decided that the evil had been kept locked away beneath the sea, in a place where neither human nor descendant could be harmed. But if that was the case, I'd need someone to guard the prison. That's when the last piece of Madly's rough outline became to be. Madly needed to be a mermaid. A mermaid princess to be precise, one with immense power that she doesn't even know she has and a destiny that's far greater that anyone in Mer culture has ever known. Madly's soon to meet her true self, however, when a huge responsibility befalls her, turning the impetous girl, who once liked nothing more than to frivolously skip through the playground of life into the queen she was meant to be.

Life has a way of whittling away at the rough edges, as Madly soon finds out. But in the end, Madly's able to stand tall and proud in the face of adversity as the leader of her kind and the protector of the world. Madly shows us that even a fun-loving princess can step up to take control of the worst possible circumstances. She can save lives, wangle evil and, most importantly, find love along the way!

Thanks to Michelle for this awesome guest post! Madly & Wolfhardt is available now via Amazon.com & Barnes & Noble