Constance Sayers Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Constance Sayers
Author Constance Sayers got her BA in writing from the University of Pittsburgh and MA in English from George Mason University. She is a media executive at Atlantic Media, and is the co-founder of the Thoughtful Dog literary magazine.

Her short stories have appeared in such places as The Coil and in Souvenir and Amazing Graces.

Constance has been named twice to Folio’s list of Top 100 Media People in America and was included in their list of the “Top Women in Media”. She was a finalist for Alternating Current’s Luminaire Award for Best Prose in 2016, and her short fiction’s been nominated for the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.

Typically, she gets inspired to write from having an idea she wants to explore. It’s usually something historic that will catch her eye. Then, she does an outline, but isn’t tied to it. What she finds is that she begins writing (and, at the same time, researching). There will be surprises that pop up, which she allows to happen and write those in. She doesn’t attempt to reign herself in at all during any of this. It might be interesting historical links or some characters that pop up out of nowhere and appear to write themselves.

She researches her novels like a method actor. She starts by doing an exhaustive read on everything related to the period that she’s writing about, including any current non-fiction books. She also reads fiction books that are actually written during the time frame in order to get a sense of the language and culture.

Constance also does her best to go to any of the locations that she writes about because she is able to pick up tiny details that you otherwise wouldn’t without actually being there. This is a process that easily takes six months. She finds that, as a writer, it is a process that can get overwhelming. The more research you do, the more it’s like detective work and each detail is a ‘find’. She stops researching after a certain point and focuses on the writing.

For “A Witch in Time”, she got the idea after her sister brought home a print from some painting that she believed looked just like Constance. The likeness was actually quite unsettling. This painting hung upon her sister’s wall for years. At one point, Constance remembers thinking about what if it actually was her? She likes the idea of ‘what if’ kinds of narratives and this book came into shape rather fast after that.

If she has writer’s block, she tries to figure out why. She has a demanding job, which she loves, but it could be mental fatigue if something requires a lot of her energy. It could also be that there’s a problem with her story that she hasn’t solved and is only avoiding writing. To combat this, she walks or gets on her elliptical machine, anything that gets her moving. Constance is able to solve her story problems better if she is moving, not sitting before her computer screen. She found an article written by Philipp Meyer that showed up in the NY Times Book Review that details how he reads depending on what he’s currently writing. It is an article she has saved and wil refer back to.

Constance’s debut novel, called “A Witch in Time”, was released in the year 2020. Her work is from the fantasy and historical genres.

“A Witch in Time” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 2020. A young woman in Belle Epoque France is cursed to live a doomed love affair again and again both as a troubled muse and a frustrated artist.

In 1895, Juliet LaCompte (age sixteen) has a doomed yet passionate romance with a married Parisian painter named Auguste Marchant. When her mom, a witch, screws up her curse on Marchant, she accidentally binds Juliet to this artist through time, and damns her to re-live her affair and tragically die at a young age, over and over. As the star-crossed lovers reincarnate throughout history.

Luke Varner, a worldly demon that is tasked with maintaining this poorly crafted curse, has been in love with his charge helplessly, in every one of her reincarnations, since nineteenth century France. He is in love with Nora, who is a silver screen scarlet during Hollywood in the 1930s. Luke’s in love with Sandra, who was a struggling musician in Los Angeles during the 1970s. He is also in love with Helen, who is a magazine exec in present day DC who’s got the power to “suggest” that others do her bidding.

It is in this life that Helen begins recalling the curse and her previous tragic lives. However this time, she may just have the power to break the cycle.

This is an otherworldly and mesmerizing novel, yet is also very grounded in the here and the now. Readers fell in love with the odd lives revealed to Helen in her dreams. The novel goes by very quickly, as it is a hard to put down book that captivates you with the story of recurring tragedy and recurring love.

“The Ladies of the Secret Circus” is the second stand alone novel and was released in the year 2021. This is a magical tale that spans from Jazz Age Paris to present day America of sacrifice, family secrets, and lost love, all set against the backdrop of one mysterious circus.

Paris in 1925. To enter into the Secret Circus is to enter a world filled with wonder: a world with carousels that take you back in time, where women tame the magnificent beasts, and the trapeze artists float across the sky. Each of these daring feats comes with a price. Bound to her family’s magical and odd circus, it is about the only world that Cecile Cabot knows. That is, until she meets the charismatic young painter and goes off on a passionate love affair that might cost her everything.

Virginia in 2005. Lara Barnes is on top of the world, but then her fiance vanishes on their wedding day. Her search to find answers leads unexpectedly to her great-grandma’s journals. It sweeps her into the tale of a dark circus and a generational curse that’s been claiming a payment from all the women in her family for generations now.