Author Interview with Rachael Wright

Eliza: On your website you talk about your love for the Highlands of Scotland. What first drew you to this setting and what do you love most about it?

Rachael: My grandparents instilled a love of history in me from a very early age. My grandfather was a Navy WWII veteran and my grandmother was a Rosie the Riveter. Coupled with a strong passion for books this is often a heady combination! My grandmother’s own grandmother died long before she was born and had been Scottish. I remember very clearly my grandmother lamenting the fact that she didn’t know where her grandmother’s family had come from—this was before the days of Ancestry.com. I became intrigued then I took a AP European History class in high school and decided that’s what I’d pursue in university. Pre-history and Medieval Scottish history are probably my favorite time periods. What is so tantalizing about history, and especially when you travel in Scotland, is that the land has seen occupation for thousands of years, you are literally standing on layer upon layer of history. The Strathnaver Museum in Bettyhill, which is mentioned in The Twins of Strathnaver, has a Pictish stone in the kirkyard, and it’s likely that the site has continuously used as a religious site for nearly 1000 years. 

Eliza: The story weaves supernatural elements into a historical setting. How did you approach balancing real-world history and the supernatural?

Rachael: Balancing the supernatural with real-world history is extraordinarily easy for a place like Scotland that is so steeped in its own folklore and supernatural elements. My good friend, Paul Macdonald who is a world renowned armourist, and I had a long talk about how dark water seems to figure into Scottish folklore and myth and that it’s often connected to the supernatural. One only has to travel the highlands for an hour or two to come across many many “lochan dubhs” which is Gaelic for small black loch. Because of the peat in the Flow Country the water does turn black. But for much of Scottish history the myth and the legend live side-by-side, even existing in tandem with the puritanical streak the Scots have had. I like to think that I’m honoring the country and its history by including both.

Eliza: What was your process for drafting the book? Did you plot it all out in advance or just see where the story was going to take you?

Rachael: As I explained to my oldest child, this book had to ferment for quite a while. I came up with the idea in 2018 and didn’t start drafting until 2020 and took a research trip to Scotland to heavily work on it. I knew that I wanted to highlight the 25-26 March 1746 Skirmish at Tongue which takes place near Loch Hacoin in which £13,600 of gold came ashore near Tongue by Jacobites and then captured by the Royalist Mackays. I also really wanted to connect the idea of epigenics, which is the inter-generational transmission of trauma, and I wanted to include ghosts and ghosts in vein of The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde. I drafted it very loosely and then the ghosts kind of took over the whole thing. That was a little traumatizing (jk). 

Eliza: What was your journey to publication like? Did you work with a literary agent first or submit directly to the publisher?

Rachael: My journey to publication was insanely hard. I started querying summer 2023 and even though I got several full manuscript requests I went through over 200 rejections. It was so hard to keep going. But one of my dearest friends said that she just knew this was going to be the book that made it, that started the next portion of my career. So I just blindly chose every day to believe her and to keep going. One week I got two offers to publish, when it rains it pours, and I decided to go with Green Avenue Books which offered me a quicker route to publication. My publisher Maria Green fell in love with the book and I am so happy to be publishing this book with her. 

Eliza: As a debut author, what advice would you give to hopeful writers who are looking for their first book deal?

Rachael: Speaking to what I wrote above; just keep going. Nothing happens right away in the book world. I self-published seven books before this and honestly it’s taken about a decade of solid work for my writing to get to the level it is at now—I’m not saying I’m Jane Austen or Thomas Hardy, but it does take years of hard work to learn all the things you need to learn about writing books. I also write professionally for my day job, I’m a journalist. Keep going. I’m a historian so I have a bit of a problem calling them the “query trenches” but querying is hard for all the rejection you face but you wrote a book!!! It’s amazing. Most people don’t do that. I’m so proud of you for just writing the thing.

Eliza: Did you consult with a lawyer about your book deal contract?

Rachael: I did—with two—one of whom is related to me and another who is a writer friend as well. I did negotiate some better terms with royalties because I’d paid for editing and already had a cover but you can also google what to look for in a book contract and what’s considered “normal” in a book deal. 

Eliza: What part of writing this novel did you enjoy the most?

Rachael: I enjoyed all the people I met during the course of my research, it felt like being at university again. Those people I met are now close friends. I try to go back to the village of Tongue once a year and I stay in the same little cottage and see friends there. I also joined the 1745 Association in the course of writing this book and I am thrilled to be part of such a vibrant historically minded community. Also the ghosts! They are some of the best characters I have ever written. A small part of me wants them to be my best friends!

Eliza: Is there a scene or moment in the book that you are most proud of or that first comes to mind when you think about the book?

Rachael: I can’t give it away but the last three chapters of the book are just gut-wrenching. They pull together ‘reality’ and the supernatural so well that my characters almost inhabit a completely different plane of existence. So if you get to the end and you love it email me and tell me what your favorite part was!

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