We chat with bestselling author Molly Harper about the hilarious, delightful witchy romcom Witches Get Stuff Done!
Hi, Molly! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! I’m a third-generation romance reader turned author, originally from Kentucky. I’m married to my high school sweetheart, whose career moved us to Michigan about five years ago. We have two teenagers who are everything my mom says I deserve – don’t know how to take that. I’ve written more than forty contemporary and paranormal romance titles, including the Nice Girls vampire series, the Naked Werewolf series, the Southern Eclectic series, the Mystic Bayou Audible Original series.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
Before I could write, I would sit in my room and tell stories with my Barbies and My Little Ponies, but because I was a SUPER WEIRD kid, who also loved ghost stories and the Loch Ness monster, my Barbies were never going to a dance or chasing the My Little Ponies around a meadow. My mom would stand outside my room and listen the Barbies lament Bigfoot destroying the Dream House. The Barbies had to Scooby-Doo-style solve the mystery of who was behind the cryptid mask. But at the end of my stories, the monster was always real. The ghost was always real. My mom was always worried.
As I got older, I noticed my mom and my grandma were also big readers, but their books had men with no shirts on the covers. My books didn’t have that. Both of them kept big stashes of their “lady novels” in the linen closet or the sewing basket, and they didn’t really notice when 12-year-old me started sneaking those books. When my first romance novel was published almost twenty years later, I told Mom she had no one to blame but herself. It was the true Gen X kid response of, “I learned it by watching you!”
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: It was probably that Sesame Street THE MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK with Grover. My mom and both grandmas were big believers in early reading, so I had the full Little Golden Library. I remember reading that a LOT. Honestly, it probably has a lot to do with some of my monster fascination.
- The one that made you want to become an author: I read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and it changed my world. Jane Austen wrote that book in 1813 and so much of what she wrote about people and their egos, how they interact, how romantic partners are chosen, the importance of choosing carefully is still true today. It’s why her work still resonates with people the way it does. I don’t think people will be getting quotes from HOW TO FLIRT WITH A NAKED WEREWOLF tattooed on their bodies generations from now, but I hope that my books make people think about their friendships, their relationships, how they could enjoy them more, how their lives could be more fulfilling. And I hope to make them laugh along the way.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: My friend Chelsea Mueller wrote a young adult horror novel called PROM HOUSE, and it’s a classic “trapped in remote location with a killer” premise that she just keeps turning on its head and making worse for our heroine in astonishingly inventive ways. I was about two chapters in and I really disliked this one character. I messaged Chelsea, telling her that I wanted to punch that character in the neck. And then in the next chapter, something really bad happens to that character’s neck. So now, when I’m reading my friends’ books, I’m way more careful about what I say to them about the stories mid-read. I can’t handle that sort of power/responsibility.
Your latest novel, Witches Get Stuff Done, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
“Witchy Island Romance. Haunted Toasters.”
What can readers expect?
WITCHES GET STUFF DONE is about a woman who moves to a small island town in Michigan after hearing from late her mother’s family for the first time ever. In short order, she finds out she’s a witch and her mother was trying to protect her from taking responsibility for a house full haunted antiques. So now she’s living in a cold, isolated place, surrounded by ghosts and the closest she’s got to a boyfriend is the local librarian, who can’t seem to stop inadvertently insulting her. It’s a meet-catastrophe, with an intensely academic hero, magical found family, quirky ghost humor, and a lot of fun.
Where did the inspiration for Witches Get Stuff Done come from?
Remember when I mentioned moving from Kentucky to Michigan? For most of our lives, my husband and I lived in the same small town where our families lived. And then his job changed and we moved to a place where we didn’t know anyone. And while it’s sort of disorienting, there’s also a weird sort of freedom in it. I can go to the grocery store in a bathrobe and snorkel fins and no one would have a clue who I was, and probably wouldn’t care. Add to that the cultural changes, the cold, cold weather, the new foods and all of the things you have to get used to, living in a new place; I definitely jotted down some feelings, knowing they could be a book.
Also, we bought a ninety-year-old house, with actual secret doors and weird “difficult to explain in the middle of the night” sounds. I found a tiny heretofore-unknown cabinet in the back of a closet a few months ago. I refused to open it until my husband got home from work, because I am not about to get sucked into a hidden dimension full of demon squid without a witness. (It was empty, but we still have NO IDEA what it was for.) So yeah, this book was sort of inevitable.
And no, I haven’t seen in a ghost in my house… yet.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Coming up with haunted antiques was really fun, imagining the household objects a person would attach themselves to after death and why it would mean so much to them.
And I really loved writing for the British ghost butler, Plover. All three of the witches in the story need family so badly, and so does Plover. If the only way they find it is by hanging out in a haunted house, so be it. Plover is so proper and protective, so I got to mix a lot of Downton Abbey stiff-upper-lipness with Robert De Niro’s “I’m watching you” protective Dad from Meet the Parents.
What’s next for you?
I am prepping for the release of the second book in the Starfall Point series, BIG WITCH ENERGY on Audible in October. I’m finishing edits on the third Starfall book. And I just announced the sale of my first murder mystery, JESSAMINE BRICKER HAS NO PLAN as part of a two-book deal with Berkley. It’s a fun Molly Harper book, but with one hundred percent more murder. More information about that soon!
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
I just finished FIND HIM WHERE YOU LEFT HIM DEAD by my friend Kristen Simmons. Picture a young adult Jumanji game based on terrifying Japanese mythology. I had to take reading breaks because I was having trouble sleeping – which the rest of my friends warned me about, and then laughed at me for.
There’s also ROUGH AROUND THE HEDGES by the amazing Lish McBride. It’s hilariously snarky friends-to-lovers mixed with dysfunctional magical family dynamics. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry. You’ll want your own murder ferret.
For more information about my books, go to www.mollyharper.com or keep up with me on social media at @mollyharperauth on Twitter and Instagram and at @mollyharperauth.bsky.social on Bluesky.
