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Today, I am delighted to welcome E.L. Ravenheart to Yarde Book Promotions for a special author interview exploring her Gothic and supernatural fiction.
From the mist-covered landscapes of Somerset to the secrets hidden within ancient houses, E.L. Ravenheart creates unsettling stories in which history, folklore and the supernatural are closely entwined. Her books include The Shadow Keeper: Gothic Haunting Tales from Somerset and the interconnected works of the Continuance Cycle, where long-forgotten promises, ancestral curses and the consequences of decisions made centuries earlier continue to shape the lives of those who come after.
Today, E.L. joins me to talk about the storytelling traditions that have influenced her writing, her fascination with Britain's historical landscapes, and the ideas behind the supernatural world she is creating. We will also discover more about the books that make up the Continuance Cycle and what readers can expect as the series develops.
Welcome to Yarde Book Promotions, El. For readers meeting you for the first time, could you tell us a little about yourself and what first drew you towards writing Gothic and supernatural fiction?
Thank you for having me! I am E.L. Ravenheart, an author writing from the coastal town of Weston-super-Mare, where the sea mist and shifting light lend themselves naturally to the Gothic imagination.
My path towards Gothic and supernatural fiction began long before I ever thought of myself as a writer. I grew up surrounded by stories — real ones, imagined ones, and the ones whispered between generations. My mother used to tell me Anishinaabe folklore, especially stories of bear walkers. Those stories were dark, mysterious, and full of moral weight, and they lodged themselves somewhere deep within me. They taught me that the supernatural is not just spectacle; it is a language of fear, protection, transformation, and the things we inherit from those who came before us. I started writing my own stories very young — at six or seven, though the exact age is lost to memory now. I wrote so much that one Christmas my grandparents bought me a typewriter. It was the most magical thing I had ever owned. I typed all day and into the evening, quietly so I would not be heard, often until the ribbon ran dry. The clacking of the keys was my first real sense of freedom, even though my mother occasionally used the typewriter as a tool for punishment. Still, the act of writing itself felt like a doorway I could step through whenever I needed to breathe. That early mix of folklore, emotional complexity, and the physical ritual of writing shaped everything I do now. Gothic fiction gives me a way to explore grief, guilt, inheritance, and the unseen threads that tie us to the past. I am drawn to stories where the landscape seems to hold its breath, listening — where old houses, mist-laden paths, and quiet countryside hold memories and secrets. The supernatural, for me, is never just a ghost or shadow; it is a mirror for what is happening internally, a way of illuminating the parts of ourselves we do not always want to face.
Your work brings together psychological Gothic fiction, folklore, history and the supernatural. How would you describe an E.L. Ravenheart story, and what do you hope readers feel when they step into one of your worlds?
I often describe my work as atmospheric, slow-burn psychological Gothic, anchored firmly in place, history, and the unseen. An E.L. Ravenheart story is not about a quick fright or a passing ghost; it is about the weight of memory, ancestral pacts, and the unsettling truth that the past is never truly gone. My worlds are shaped by landscapes — by the way mist clings to fields, how old houses breathe, and how history leaves fingerprints on everything we touch. When readers step into one of my books, I want them to feel fully immersed. I want them to sense the chill rolling off the Bristol Channel, smell damp earth after rain, and feel that faint prickle at the back of the neck that suggests something is watching from just beyond the edge of their vision. The supernatural is not a spectacle but a reflection. In The Shadow Keeper, that resonance comes from my own Ojibwe heritage. I want readers to walk with me into the stories I grew up hearing — the Anishinaabe teachings about balance between the earth, the animals, and humankind, and about beings who maintain that balance despite humanity’s constant attempts to overpower it. Those stories shaped my understanding of the supernatural as something purposeful, protective, and deeply intertwined with the land. In The Powers of St Katherine’s House, The Circle of Witham Grange, and The Watchers of St Hallows Gate, I explore another thread that runs through my work: women’s power. Not the kind bestowed by society, but the kind inherited, reclaimed, or quietly guarded. These stories let me delve into the real history of the places I have come to love — history that is so richly documented here in the U.K. in a way I had not experienced growing up in the U.S.A. The written past here seems tangible, almost touchable, and I want readers to feel that same excitement as they move through narratives where real historical events and forgotten women’s stories intertwine with the supernatural. Ultimately, an E.L. Ravenheart story is a journey into heritage, history, the shadows we carry, and the places where the veil feels thin. I want readers to feel held, unsettled, and deeply connected all at once.
The Circle of Witham Grange takes readers to the beginning of the Continuance and the hereditary curse binding the Dravelle and Hopton families. Where did the original idea for this interconnected literary cycle come from, and did you always envisage it becoming something that would span generations?
The spark for The Circle of Witham Grange came from a question that has haunted me for most of my life: what happens when a choice made in desperation does not end with the person who made it?
I have always been fascinated by the idea that a single moment — one bargain, one act of fear — can ripple outward through generations, binding people who never had a say in the original decision. A hereditary curse is, in many ways, a metaphor for the emotional and historical burdens families carry forward, often without understanding their origins. For me, this was not an abstract concept. I grew up in a family full of secrets, half-truths, and stories that were whispered rather than spoken. There were patterns — dark ones — that repeated themselves across generations. In my own family, the belief in a “curse” was very real: the first-born male was said to die early in life. It was a shadow that hung over us, and my mother voiced it aloud regularly. When someone I loved died when I was twenty-three and he was twenty-five, that belief nearly swallowed me whole. That experience shaped the emotional core of the Continuance. I wanted to explore what it means to inherit something you never asked for: fear, guilt, obligation, or a pact made long before you were born. The Dravelle and Hopton families became vessels for that exploration. Their curse is not just supernatural; it is generational trauma, history, and the weight of choices made under pressure. From the very beginning, I knew this story could not be contained in one book. To truly understand a curse, you have to watch it evolve — how it twists through eras, how it reshapes itself around new social pressures, and how each generation tries, and often fails, to break free. The Continuance was always meant to span lifetimes because curses, whether supernatural or emotional, rarely stay still. They adapt. They survive. They demand reckoning. So the interconnected cycle grew naturally from that seed: a desire to explore how families carry their past, how history refuses to stay buried, and how the choices of the dead shape the lives of the living.
Soil, Blood and Voice are fascinating presences in The Circle of Witham Grange, while the land itself seems almost capable of remembering what has happened upon it. What inspired these three spirits, and how important is the idea of the land having its own memory within the wider Continuance Cycle?
The concept of Genius Loci — the spirit of a place — has always been at the heart of my writing. I have never been able to see land as passive. To me, it breathes, it remembers, and it responds. Soil, Blood and Voice emerge from that belief, each representing a different facet of how memory and obligation root themselves in a landscape.
Soil is the physical memory of the land. It holds the footprint, every buried secret, every drop spilled in anger or devotion. Growing up with Anishinaabe stories, I was taught that the earth is alive and aware — that it absorbs what happens upon it and carries those stories forward. That understanding shaped Soil as a presence that is ancient, patient and unyielding.
Blood represents lineage, inheritance, and the living thread that ties people to a place. In the Continuance Cycle, bloodlines carry debts, curses and covenants, whether they want them or not. This comes from my own experience of family patterns and generational shadows — those unspoken truths that pass from one generation to the next, shaping us even when we try to break free.
Voice is the binding force: the spoken vow, the declaration, the truth that seals a pact. Without Voice, there is no continuity. It is the echo of every promise made, every curse uttered, every plea whispered into the dark. Voice gives shape to intention, and intention is what the land responds to. Together, Soil, Blood and Voice form the Triad of memory within the Continuance Cycle. They are not just spirits; they are the mechanics of how history persists. The land remembers because it has witnessed everything. The families remember because they carry the consequences. The pact is remembered because it was spoken into existence. I have learned through Christianity and occult traditions alike that the tongue can be a weapon of survival: the same mouth that whispers a secret blessing to protect a starving child can be twisted by a desperate woman to curse her oppressors. That duality of spoken power inspired me to create Voice. The idea of land having its own memory is absolutely central to the wider Continuance Cycle. These stories are built on the belief that history is not static — it is alive, reactive, and often unwilling to stay buried. The landscapes in my books are active participants, shaping events as much as any human character. They hold trauma, protect secrets, and sometimes demand repayment. In many ways, the land is the true keeper of the Continuance. It is the one constant across generations, the silent witness to every choice, every betrayal, and every attempt at redemption. Without the land’s memory, the curse would have no anchor. With it, the cycle becomes inevitable, powerful, and deeply human.
The Watchers of St Hallows Gate takes us into England during the Civil War and reveals more about the supernatural inheritance created by the original pact. What attracted you to 1643 as a setting, and how did you go about blending genuine historical upheaval with the supernatural elements of the story?
1643 is a year carved with fractures. England was in the grip of the Civil War, and the country felt as though it had split along invisible seams — families divided, loyalties tested, and the very structure of society trembling under strain. The world had turned upside down, creating the perfect environment for Gothic fiction. When human institutions falter, older forces — ancient, patient, and often forgotten — have room to rise through the cracks. I was drawn to 1643 because fear and uncertainty were woven into daily life. People lived under constant political, spiritual, and physical threat. That atmosphere of paranoia makes the supernatural feel not only plausible but inevitable. If ever there was a time when a pact forged generations earlier might reassert itself, it would be during a period when the world was already collapsing. My inspiration also came from the physical places themselves. Many of the historical homes I have visited were built during this time or before, and they carry a palpable weight: thick walls, uneven floors, and a sense that they witnessed far more than they will ever reveal. Walking through them, you can almost feel the residue of conflict, fear, and devotion embedded in the stone. The natural world of 1643 was equally compelling. The astrological events of the time were extraordinary — powerful lunar and solar eclipses, intense moon cycles, and celestial alignments that would have felt deeply significant to people living through such turmoil. Add to that ley lines, shifting water tables, the guardianship of ancient yew trees, and a landscape already charged with dread, and the supernatural inheritance can emerge organically. It slips in quietly because it rises from the same soil, the same fears, and the same fractures.
In The Watchers of St Hallows Gate, the supernatural is not an intrusion; it is a continuance. The pact forged before 1643 becomes another thread in the tapestry of upheaval, revealing itself at a moment when the veil between the worlds is already thin. The land remembers, the families remember, and in a year like 1643, memory becomes power.
You moved to the UK in 2012 and now write from Weston-super-Mare. Somerset's landscapes, history and folklore have clearly made their way into your fiction. What is it about this part of England that captures your imagination, and has living there changed the stories you find yourself wanting to tell?
Somerset is a landscape that feels ancient in a way I had never experienced before moving to the U.K. in 2012. It is a place of contrasts and deep time: the mysterious Mendips Hills rising like old sentinels, the vast openness of the levels stretching out under enormous skies, the ruins that sits quietly in fields, and the moody, shifting tides of the Bristol Channel that seem to breathe with their own rhythm. There is a layered quality to life here — Celtic Folklore, Roman Roads, Medieval monastic remnants, maritime legends, and the quiet persistence of rural tradition all coexisting in the same stretch of land.
Coming from the U.S.A., where history is comparatively young, Somerset felt like stepping into a living archive. The land here holds stories in a way that is almost tactile. You can walk a footpath and feel centuries beneath your feet. That sense of continuity, of memory embedded in place, changed the way I write. It grounded my prose more firmly in physical geography and made me far more attentive to how weather, light, and coastline shape not only mood but folklore and psychological isolation. Weston-super-Mare itself has become an unexpected muse. The tides here are dramatic, retreating so far they reveal vast stretches of sand and mud, then rushing back with force. That rhythm influences my sense of pacing and atmosphere. The mist rolling off the Channel, the sudden shifts in light, the quiet melancholy of off-season seaside life — all of it feeds into my Gothic sensibilities. Living in Somerset has also deepened my fascination with how land and history intertwine. The stories I find myself wanting to tell are more rooted in place, more connected to the idea that landscapes remember. The folklore here — about yew trees, water tables, ancient boundaries, and the guardianship of certain sites — has woven itself into my imagination. It has made my supernatural elements feel more organic, more inevitable, as though they rise naturally from the soil rather than being imposed upon it. In many ways, Somerset did not just influence my writing; it expanded it. It gave me a richer sense of heritage, a deeper appreciation for the weight of history, and a landscape that feels alive enough to hold its own secrets. Those secrets, of course, are exactly what I love writing about.
The Shadow Keeper brings together ten interconnected tales and draws upon both Indigenous Chippewa mythology and British Gothic folklore. Your biography speaks about your roots in the Indigenous Chippewa Nation and the influence of ancestral storytelling traditions on your work. How have those storytelling traditions shaped you as a writer, and what led you to bring them together with the folklore and landscapes of Britain?
Growing up within Ojibwe heritage means growing up inside a living tradition. Our stories are not just tales; they are teachings, warnings, memories, and acts of preservation. They are meant to be carried, repeated, and honoured. In Indigenous storytelling, nature, spirit, and humanity are inseparable — every creature, every tree, every shift in the wind has meaning. Stories are alive, and they change with the teller, the season, and the listener. That understanding shaped me long before I ever put words to a page. My mother told me Anishinaabe stories with reverence — bear walkers, balance keepers, and beings who protect the land from imbalance or disrespect. Those stories taught me that the supernatural is not entertainment; it is responsibility. It is relationship. It is the unseen world reminding us that we are part of something much older and much larger than ourselves. That worldview became the foundation for my writing: the idea that the land remembers, spirits have purpose, and ancestral memory is a force that shapes the present. When I came to England, I found a different cultural tapestry, but one that resonated with my own. Somerset’s folklore — its guardian yew trees, boundary stones, ancient mounds, ley lines, and water tables — felt familiar in spirit. The English landscape carries its own stories of watchers, protectors, and warnings. The Gothic tradition here is steeped in reverence for place, for old houses that breathe, for land that holds secrets, and for spirits tied to history. Bringing Ojibwe storytelling together with English Gothic folklore felt natural because both traditions honour the land. Both recognise that boundaries matter. Both understand that the past is not silent. Both carry the belief that spirits, whether ancestral, elemental, or protective, exist to maintain balance.
The Shadow Keeper became the bridge between worlds. The ten interconnected tales allowed me to explore universal themes through two cultural lenses: how humans interact with the unseen, how land shapes identity, how stories preserve what cannot be written down, and how different traditions reckon with the spirits of the past. Writing it felt like weaving two threads of my life together — my Indigenous roots and the English landscapes that adopted me. In the end, these traditions shaped me by teaching me the same truth: stories are not just told; they are lived. They are inherited. They are carried forward to protect what matters.
Thresholds and liminal spaces appear repeatedly throughout your work — standing stones, doorways, dark pools and places where the boundary between worlds becomes uncertain. What fascinates you about these in-between places, and why do you think you keep returning to them in your fiction?
Liminal spaces have always fascinated me because they are places where transformation becomes possible. A threshold is never just a doorway — it is a moment of suspension, a point where you are neither who you were nor who you will become. In Chippewa stories and English folklore alike, these in-between places are where the veil thins, where choices carry weight, and where the unseen world feels closest. Growing up with Indigenous teachings, I learned early that boundaries are sacred. The edge of a forest, the mouth of a cave, the surface of a still pool — these are places where spirit and land meet, where you pause and acknowledge that you are stepping into something older than yourself. Those stories taught me that liminal spaces are not simply settings; they are living entities that demand respect. They are where lessons are learned, where warnings are given, and where balance is tested. When I came to Britain, I found a different but deeply resonant version of that same reverence. Standing stones, ancient circles, boundary markers, and the twilight hours between day and night all carry a sense of charged stillness. Somerset in particular is full of these places — old paths, forgotten ruins, dark pools hidden in woodland, and coastal thresholds where land gives way to sea. They feel alive in a way that echoes my own heritage. I return to these spaces in my fiction because Gothic storytelling thrives in ambiguity. Liminal places unsettle us precisely because they strip away the illusion of safety. The normal rules do not apply there. Characters cannot hide behind routine or denial; they must confront what lies beneath their fears, their histories, and their inherited burdens. A threshold demands a decision: cross over or turn back. And for me, these spaces are also deeply emotional. They mirror the moments in life when we stand on the edge of change — grief, revelation, inheritance, loss, or awakening. They are metaphors for the internal thresholds we all face. In those suspended moments, the past and future press close together, and the supernatural becomes a natural extension of that pressure. I think I keep returning to liminal spaces because they are where truth lives. They are where the land speaks, where spirits watch, and where characters finally understand what is being asked of them. In the in-between, everything becomes possible — and everything becomes dangerous.
Although your stories contain spirits, curses, sacrifice and some wonderfully dark Gothic elements, underneath them are very human questions about memory, grief, inheritance, responsibility and the consequences of choices. When you begin a new story, do the supernatural elements usually come first, or does everything begin with the characters and the human story you want to explore?
For me, everything begins with the human element. A spectre, a curse, a watcher at the threshold — none of these matters unless it carries emotional weight for the living. The supernatural is only ever as powerful as the grief, guilt, memory, or responsibility it reflects. So when I begin a new story, I always start with a core human question: a family secret that refuses to stay buried, an inherited burden someone is unprepared to carry, or a grief that has calcified into something darker.
Growing up with Chippewa storytelling taught me that the supernatural is never separate from the human world. Spirits appear because something is out of balance. Curses linger because someone broke a boundary. The unseen responds to the emotional landscape of the living. That understanding shaped the way I write: the supernatural is not decoration; it is consequence.
So, I begin with the character’s internal terrain—their fears, their inherited wounds, their unspoken truths. I sit with their emotional conflict until I understand what haunts them. Only then do the supernatural elements emerge, almost on their own, as atmospheric or physical manifestations of those internal struggles. A curse becomes the echo of a family’s unresolved guilt. A spirit becomes the embodiment of memory. A watcher becomes the presence that forces a character to confront what they’ve avoided.
The eerie elements heighten the tension, but the heart of the story must always be human. Gothic fiction thrives when the supernatural is a mirror—reflecting what characters cannot admit, cannot escape, or cannot forgive. The darkness only matters because of what it reveals.
In the end, I return again and again to the same truth: the supernatural is the shadow cast by human choices. And the shadow is only compelling if the choice itself carries weight.
You are building towards The Powers of St Katherine’s House, with the interconnected stories gradually revealing more of this supernatural world. Without giving away anything you would rather keep hidden, what can readers look forward to as the cycle continues — and where would you recommend a reader completely new to E.L. Ravenheart begins?
As we move toward The Powers of St Katherine’s House, readers can expect the tapestry to tighten and darken. The threads laid throughout the earlier works—historical fractures, family covenants, ancestral debts, and the supernatural presences that have been whispering at the edges—begin to converge. The Continuance Cycle has always been about inheritance, but now we step closer to the heart of the Original Pact itself: what it demands, what it protects, and what it will no longer allow to remain hidden.
The upcoming work reveals more of the architecture behind the curse, the watchers, and the land’s memory. You’ll see how the past and present collide, how the landscape asserts its will, and how the families bound to the pact must finally reckon with the full magnitude of what was set in motion generations ago. The supernatural becomes less a haunting and more a force—purposeful, ancient, and unwilling to be ignored.
But the cycle also expands emotionally. The women at the centre of St Katherine’s House carry power that history tried to silence, and their stories intertwine with real events from the region’s past. As the narrative widens, readers will feel the weight of lineage, the pull of place, and the cost of stepping into a legacy that cannot be refused.
For readers new to my work, I always recommend beginning with The Shadow Keeper: Gothic Haunting Tales from Somerset. It offers ten interconnected stories that act as a perfect threshold into my world — an introduction to my atmosphere, my folklore, my fascination with land memory, and the psychological depth that underpins everything I write. It gives readers the chance to walk the edges first, to feel the mist, sense the watchers, and understand the emotional terrain before stepping into the generational scope of the Continuance Cycle.
From there, the larger story becomes richer, more resonant, and far more haunting.
E. L. Ravenheart is a gothic fiction author whose work blends psychological depth, atmospheric tension, and the quiet, uncanny edges of the supernatural.
With roots in the Indigenous Chippewa Nation (USA), Ravenheart draws on a cultural inheritance rich in story, symbolism, and reverence for the unseen. This heritage infuses the work with a mythic undercurrent — where the natural world speaks, memory carries power, and the boundary between the living and the spirit realm is never absolute.
Relocating to the United Kingdom in 2012, Ravenheart now writes from Weston-super-Mare, where the haunted coastlines, ancient landscapes, and layered histories of Somerset intertwine with Indigenous storytelling traditions.
The result is a distinctive gothic voice shaped by two worlds: the ancestral and the adopted, the wild and the weathered, the remembered and the half-forgotten.
Ravenheart is developing a growing literary cycle that begins with six interconnected novellas and culminates in the debut novel, The Powers of St Katherine’s House. Across this cycle, the fiction explores liminal spaces — between memory and myth, faith and fear, identity and the unknown — crafting narratives where atmosphere becomes a character and the past presses insistently against the present.
When not writing, Ravenheart can often be found delving into the deep history and folklore of Somerset, a practice that echoes through the emotional intelligence and character-driven focus of the work.
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Mary Anne xxx