More Facts About Natasha Mostert

1. Natasha Mostert's interest in mysticism started in early childhood when she was growing up in South Africa. Her aia (nanny) was a Zulu woman who introduced Natasha to African mysticism and legends and the world of the insangoma (witch doctors). She remembers exasperating her mother by insisting on following her nanny's example by stacking several bricks below each corner of the bed to keep out of reach of the
   tokkelosh - an evil gnome with an enormous head but very short legs! Years later she would write about this in her novel, The Midnight Side. The concept of witches and witchcraft would surface again in Season of the Witch.
   


2. While waiting in a dentist's office, she read an article in a magazine about Thomas Edison's attempts to invent a telephone that would connect people with relatives who are no longer alive. She was only thirteen years old at the time but the concept of communication from beyond the grave stirred her imagination and deepened her interest in the paranormal. Many years later she would use the idea of telephone calls from the dead as the central theme in her debut novel. She returned once more to the concept of ghosts - and in particular ghost photography -- in her third novel, Windwalker.
   


3. Even though she writes about subjects, which many people consider far-fetched and fey, she always embeds them firmly within a realistic, every day framework. Her ghosts do not drag chains and howl outside windows - they find it more amusing to manipulate the stock exchange. Her witches in Season of the Witch do not use boiling cauldrons as their tools, but computers and code. By carefully blending hard fact with paranormal conjecture, Natasha hopes to seduce her reader not into a 'willing suspension of disbelief' but into accepting unquestionably the veracity of the world she builds in her books. Her research for her novels is intensive and rigorous.
   


4. Serial killers, gruesome torture scenes and festering corpses get little play in Natasha's novels but critics have been unanimous in describing her work as 'disturbing', 'creepy' and 'unsettling'. She explains her decision to side-step stock thriller concepts as follows: 'I find the idea of someone manipulating your mind far more frightening than deranged killers and slashed bodies. Jung said nothing is more fascinating than observing "how the mind reacts to its own destruction." I agree and you can see this belief given form in Season of the Witch as my hero and villainess engage in a deadly mental duel.'
   


5. Writing is not the only passion in Natasha's life. She is an avid kickboxer and trains five times a week. At least once a week she ends up trading actual blows and kicks in a sparring session with her trainer who is a former European Light Heavyweight kickboxing champion.
   


6. Keeper of Light and Dust is Natasha's latest novel. It has garnered praise from Robert Twigger, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award Angry White Pyjamas who calls it "brilliantly compelling and original." Jon Land says: "original and daring...defies easy comparison...a hybrid of Eric Lustbader's groundbreaking The Ninja and Ann Rice's The Vampire Lestat. Such a vision may be ambitious but it serves Mostert well and she proves well up to the task, crafting a tale as sizzling as it is sultry."
   


7. Her four earlier novels have also received praise from critics around the world: 'Bedtime reading for the brave' The Times; 'Classy psychic thriller...original, unsettling... kicks the usual preconceptions into shape' The Literary Review; 'absorbing psychological detail...climactic surprise, a humdinger' Kirkus; 'hauntingly elegant' Booklist; a brilliant tale in the thriller genre with little dots of spirituality here and there' Cape Times; 'Highly accomplished' Toronto Globe and Mail. Season of the Witch won the Book to Talk About: World Book Day Award 2009.
   


8. Natasha lives in Chelsea, London - the setting for her two witches in Season of the Witch. She now writes full-time.