Thank you so much for joining me today and for inviting Novel Kicks onto your blog tour. Grace is steeped in Irish mythology and Gothic horror—what inspired you to blend these elements in this story?

An unhealthy obsession with horror and history is probably to blame for this one. I’ve always enjoyed the notion that the old lore was inspired by very real fears, and that there are horrors still existing in Ireland that we’d be wise not to disturb. For centuries we were an island of storytellers, gift-wrapping these terrifying warnings as tales and rooting them to the land, not merely to spook the children, but to keep them safe.

Growing up in a small village in the west of Ireland, I knew which trees were fairy forts and best avoided. There was even a rock that’d apparently been a witch once upon a time, and on the darkest nights she could be seen travelling as a passenger in the backseat of your car. I believed the stories then, and I still respect them now. Grace was inspired by my love of the gothic and Ireland’s wonderful inheritance of horror, and I’m exceptionally proud to carry on that tradition in the twenty-first century.

The island in Grace is described as “isolated and wilfully forgotten.” How did you go about crafting such a haunting and atmospheric setting? Was it inspired by a real place?

I’ve wanted to set a novel on an island for years now, as I can’t imagine a setting more cruel and isolating than a lonely rock out in the ocean. To make it suitably inhospitable, I drew on my own experiences of Ireland’s unique and ofttimes bleak west coast. I also visited the Aran Islands and Inishbofin to get a real feel for the isolation first-hand and to test out the local pubs (for research purposes, of course). There’s a feeling to these communities that I really wanted to infuse into my writing, not only to craft the horror, but to also capture their stark beauty. And Croaghnakeela, where Grace takes place, is actually a real island. Nobody lives on it, thankfully, so I didn’t feel too bad when I invented its own horrible history. But who knows, maybe this novel will inspire a few adventurous horror fans to visit it someday. I’d be happy to tag along with them.

What draws you to horror as a genre, and what do you think makes a truly terrifying story?

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