Hello and welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview, where today I’m delighted to welcome Carrie Harris back to the site to talk about her latest novel from Aconyte Books, Witches Unleashed. Part of the Marvel: Untold range, this tale features the Ghost Rider and a trio of witches taking on Lucifer himself, and has probably the most metal artwork I’ve ever seen on the cover of a book! It sounds like a total blast, so read on to find out more about this cool new novel, then check out a few sample chapters at the end of the article to get a taste of the book itself.
Without further ado, let’s get straight on with the interview to find out more.
Track of Words: To start things off, could you give us an overview of what Witches Unleashed is about?
Carrie Harris: Absolutely! Johnny Blaze, the Ghost Rider, has escaped from hell and Lucifer hitched a ride along with him. But the trip shatters Lucifer in 666 shards, each one of which possesses a person and sends them on a murderous rampage. Johnny has to hunt them all down. There’s just one problem. The latest shard he’s been tracking is in the body of a powerful mystic, so he needs a little magical help. He seeks out his cousin, Jennifer Kale, and her coven to help him take Lucifer down. But each of them is fighting their own personal demons as well as…you know, Lucifer himself.
Just look at that cover! Artwork by Fabio Listrani.
ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters and what do we need to know about them?
CH: Well, Johnny Blaze turns into a burning skeleton imbued with the spirit of vengeance, which is a pretty cool party trick if you ask me. At this point in his story, he’s really messed up from his time in hell, and he’s still carrying around a whole lot of guilt over the deaths of his wife and kids. He tries to do the right thing, but all that trauma has him pretty messed up.
Jennifer Kale is a part of a powerful bloodline entrusted with the Book of Zhered-Na, a powerful magical book that also happens to imprison a demon. That demon consumed her brother, and she’s still coming to terms with that. It’s made her a little overprotective, both of the book and of the people she cares about.
Satana Hellstrom is the daughter of Satan (there are a lot of devils running around Marvel). She struggles with her succubus nature, and after an eternity of servitude to her father, she values her freedom more than anything. Threats to the status quo are not welcomed. Also, you’d see her picture in the dictionary under ‘daddy issues’.
Topaz is Stephen Strange’s former apprentice, and she’s still trying to figure out who she is when she’s not working for someone else. The powerful empath has some identity issues, most of which revolve around the fact that she was taken from her family at a young age, and she has no idea where she came from. As a result, she’s really devoted to this new found family.
ToW: Where and when is this story set?
CH: The story takes place in the fictional town of Salem, Florida, where the trio of witches has opened up a mystical shop and settled down. In terms of the comic timeline, it’s after the Witches miniseries and during the Vicious Cycle storyline in the Ghost Rider comics.
ToW: We talked in our last interview about how much of an X-Men fan you are, but this time you’ve looked at a different selection of Marvel characters. What prompted you to pitch a Ghost Rider story?
CH: I’m really lucky in that I’ve gotten the opportunity to write some characters who really mean something to me. I’ve been a Ghost Rider fan for a long time, and I picked up the comic because the bike reminded me of my favorite uncle. He was a Harley rider who used to do parades and ride in formation and things like that. So I’ve always loved the character, and I was really excited to have an excuse to go back and read some of the issues that I’d missed!
ToW: Of all the Marvel characters that you could have teamed up with Ghost Rider, why choose the Witches?
CH: Well, the relationship between Jennifer and Johnny made it easy to bring them together. But also, I wanted more from that miniseries. To this day, I can’t remember where I heard about it, but I do remember the pitch – Charlie’s Angels, but with Marvel mystics – and that is a thing I want to cram into my brain very badly. It’s one of those stories that made me want to know what happened next, and so this was an opportunity to scratch an itch that I personally had.
ToW: The Marvel: Untold series is a slightly different style compared to Xavier’s Institute – did that affect any of the choices you made when planning and writing this book?
CH: To a certain extent, the characters of Xavier’s Institute are blank slates. They’re not children, but they’re completely new to the mutant world and are experiencing a lot of things for the first time. But everyone in Witches Unleashed has been around the block a few times and has the scars to prove it. I had a lot of fun building the plot around things that would challenge them emotionally as well as physically.
ToW: This is your second comic book adaptation, after Liberty & Justice For All – how did you find the process this time around, having already done it once before?
CH: This book was definitely easier to write. I figure if they invited me back, I must not have done too poor of a job the first time. But the hardest part of Liberty & Justice was the fact that I was scheduled to start drafting it the week we went into lockdown, and I have three teenagers. Between all of the stress and the noise and the worry, I just could NOT start writing. Once I finally got past that, the book came easy, but it was honestly a little terrifying.
ToW: If someone reads this and wants to know more about Ghost Rider and the Witches, do you have any recommendations for where to start with their wider Marvel stories?
CH: Well, of course I’m partial to the Witches miniseries and the Vicious Cycle story, since I picked them to inspire this book. But Johnny Blaze is really an interesting character, and his origin story from the old 1960s comics might be a bit dated, but it’s still fascinating. As for the witches, they come from the old 1970s horror comics, but they’ve gone through a lot of changes since then.
ToW: What do you hope readers will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?
CH: I think the real strength of the Marvel novels is that they allow us to live in the characters’ heads for a while on a level that the comics, films, and TV shows can’t quite reach. So I really hope that readers will fall in love with them the way I did. I want to see more of this group, individually and together, and this book is my case for why they deserve more attention!
ToW: Can you tell us anything about what you’re working on with Aconyte for future release, or anything else you’ve got in the pipeline?
CH: Yes! I’ve got a novella in the upcoming School of X anthology, which is out on December 7th! It was an opportunity to revisit the characters from Liberty & Justice for All and throw a couple of my personal favorites into the mix – Dani Moonstar and Polaris. And next spring, I’m very excited for the release of Shadow Avengers, in which Doctor Strange has put together a new Avengers team to prepare for Dormammu’s invasion. That one feels very much like an Avengers movie overflowing with superheroes, fight scenes, and witty banter. Or at least I hope it does.
ToW: Lastly, if you needed to team up with a super-powered ally and could choose one of the characters from this book, who would you pick and why?
CH: They would all be terrific allies, but I have to go with Johnny Blaze because I want a ride on the Hellcycle with the fire of a thousand suns.
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Carrie Harris is a geek of all trades and proud of it. She’s an experienced author of tie-in fiction, former tabletop game executive and published game designer who lives in Utah.
You can find Carrie on Twitter and on her website.
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Thanks so much to Carrie for taking the time to chat to me for this interview, and for giving us the lowdown on Witches: Unleashed. If this has piqued your interest, then check out the PDF reader below to read the first couple of chapters!
See also: my review of Witches Unleashed
Many thanks to Aconyte Books and Marvel for providing these sample chapters. For more Marvel-related reviews and author interviews, check out the main Aconyte Books page on Track of Words.
Witches Unleashed is available as both a global ebook and US paperback right now, with the UK paperback due out on the 3rd February 2022.
Check out the links below to order your copy* of Witches Unleashed:
*If you buy anything using one of these links, I will receive a small affiliate commission – see here for more details.
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