The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Rosewood Academy: The Awakening by Ashley Gayheart

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

Rosewood Academy: The Awakening by Ashley Gayheart https://www.amazon.com/Rosewood-Academy-Awakening-Ashley-Gayheart/dp/197179242X Ashleygayheart.com About a girl who finds out she is part magical being. She meets new people at a new school in the magical world. She meets a long lost family member and learns her background from the family member. She falls in love and passes her classes for two years in one year.

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It's Monday, folks.com, for it says Chris Foss. Facebook.com, fordststs, Chris Foss. Oh, those crazy place in the net. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today, an amazing young lady on the show, we're going to talk about her new book series that

just barely launched, May 26, 2006, great, great numbers there. It is entitled, Rosewood Academy, The Awakening by Ashley Gayhart. We're going to get into her book and this forthcoming series of future books that are going to be coming out from her and you're going to be entertained. And if not, we expect you to buy and read the books over and over until you are. Ashley writes with a strong love for fantasy, friendship, and the kind of magical world that young readers can step into with curiosity. In Rosewood Academy, The Awakening, she introduces Iris Jason, a 16-year-old girl whose ordinary birthday leads to a surprising truth about her hidden magical heritage. Through Iris's journey, Ashley builds a world filled with elemental lessons, loyal protectors, dragons, fairies, wolves,

family secrets, and the excitement of finding where one truly belongs. Her storytelling, carries a youthful imaginative energy, making the academy feel alive with new friendships, school traditions, and lessons that slowly shape Iris into someone braver, wiser, and more connected to the magical side she never knew existed before her life at Rosewood fully begins at last. Welcome the show. Ashley, how are you? I'm doing all right. All right. You're having the same feel on the Monday I am. So you're like, eh, me, Mondays, we'll call it. So Ashley, give us your dot com. So where can people find on the interwebs.

You can find me at AshleyGayhart.com. You can also follow me on Facebook, Ashley Gayhart, and then also Instagram, Ashley Gayhart. So give us a 30,000 overview of what's inside your new book? It's about my, my, how do I put it? What I wish my life was. Oh, you go. It's about a girl named Iris.

She turned six. And the night that she turned 16, she found out she was both human and part creature from the magical world. And she ends up a couple weeks later going to Rosewood Academy in the magical world. She befriends some half human, half creatures, and she's in love. And she ends up having three protectors, a fairy named Sapphire, a black wolf named Luna, and a two-headed dragon named Amaru. and she ends up growing in the magical world, keeping up her grades and navigating in the magical world

that she just found out about. Oh, wow. That's pretty darn interesting. And so you've got these folks doing all this stuff in this great novel, and it sounds like you've got a lot of fantasy figures. Would you present this as a fantasy type book or what genre would you put this in?

would say it's a fantasy book. And maybe I notice here they've put it in some teen and young adult wizards and witches fantasy and teen young adult sword and sorcery fantasy a little bit too. They're on Amazon. So do you think it's angled towards more younger people or who do you find this book really I would say anybody who actually likes fantasy, magic or any stories that have to deal with finding their self? We're all trying to find ourselves in this world.

It seems like it's a lifelong journey, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm 58 and I'm like, who the hell is this guy? Yeah. Every time I look in the mirror, I'm like, why is there an old transient living with me? And then I'm like, oh, oh, that's me. I should, I'm not homeless, but I look homeless.

I was joke with the gals when I go in to get my hair cut and they're like, you really needed a haircut. And I'm like, yeah, when I reach this point, people start handing me money and saying, buy some food because I look so homeless and it's bad with my hair. I just, I just figure it's probably time for a haircut. They're like, what happened to your cardboard sign? I'm like, I'm not homeless, man. I just look homeless.

So the Rosewood Academy, it sounds like it's got a lot of great themes that people are looking for in their lives. We're all looking for to be protected. We all want to be cared for. We want to know that maybe someone has our back if we need that. There's a beautiful, I don't know if that's a husky dog or just maybe a wolf on the front with blue eyes. I'm a big. It's a wolf. It's actually one of the other projector from one of her friends.

So. I'm a big husky fan. So I love wolves and I love husky. So I love the other cover. Yeah. So that's why I was like I got to interpret wolves into this story somehow. Yeah. Why do you think wolves are people like them?

People, you know, they make good for fantasies like this. I think it's because they resemble protection. Yeah. They're loving, but and they're loyal and they give you unconditional love, but they can be mean. Kind of like when I try to take a treat away from my husky. It's not going to end well for me. This is your first book, correct? Yes.

Congratulations. And have you written stuff before? And maybe you were writing drafts of this? or what was the proponent or moment where you went? You know what, Dern it? I'm going to sit down. We're going to make a book out of this. The very first time I tried writing.

I was 16. I started this technically a bunch of times, but I never went through with it and I kept losing the drafts that I started. So officially I finally started it, I think last year. around January or February and I kept stopping because I didn't have faith in myself

that I could write it and my husband was like, no, you can do this. You can do it. And my kids were there and I was like, you know what? I'm going to keep writing for my family. My family are so important to me

and even though I've had a rough life, if this has been the most that I enjoy out of life. Yeah. That's great too. And you have kids. Geez, every parent usually reads their kids from what I understand. And I don't know about every single parent,

but I guess the smart ones do, maybe. And the ones who care. I'll put some shame into it. But now you can read them maybe stories from your own book if they're old enough. I don't know. Is there an age limit of maybe some adult content or anything we got to watch? Not in the first book. The second one, it is very vague in it.

But there might be some more vagueness in a couple other books. The upcoming ones? Yeah. Could be some steamyness, maybe. So how did you, you've done what a lot of writers do that come on our show. You did the on and off thing and you kept trying and draft in it. And evidently this idea just wouldn't leave you alone. It was your destiny or something you really wanted to do deep down.

How did you finally overcome the start and stopping? Was there a certain techniques you used to write that helped you really finish off this time? I mostly did it when I had time in between my kids going to a family member doing it while they're asleep at night, did it just at random times. when they allowed me to write. I'm a stay-at-home mom, so it's whenever I could when they would leave me alone and play together and stuff. Yeah. You know, it also works that I did for when I wrote my book.

I just put my kids up for adoption, got them out of the house, and I had so much time to write. No, I'm just kidding. Don't do that, folks. That's not good. But no, this is really cool. You can read your kids, bedtime stories, maybe snippets from your book. and mom wrote that book. That's got to be darn cool.

And I read a business book. No one's, none of my kids, if I ever have any work, ever going to read that darn thing. It's going to be like, whatever, business,

yawn, give us something that's fun and playful. And kids have such a wonderful imagination. So anything that feeds that imagination is really good. So do you have plans, it sounds from, to make this a future series ongoing? Is there any cap to it?

Some authors we have on the show like, I'm only doing three books of this and that's it. I don't know why three is the thing, but I don't know. I want to do at least six books, at least until she graduates from the school and gets ready to go to college. I haven't decided if I wanted to add it that college. I feel like that's going to be too long. I mean, it just depends on how the sixth book ends. Oh, there's lots of turns and twists and.

plot things that can happen between now and then so we'll see how it goes and then people fall in love of these characters and they'll follow them around we've got people they've written 15 20 probably 20 more books in a series sometimes they have multiple series they're running do you see yourself ever doing that maybe doing some side projects where some side branches that go off in different ways I thought about that especially since in the series there's multiple ways that I could do off branches. Yeah. There's so much opportunity with stories like this where you can branch them off and you can do all sorts of things. It's just unlimited. That's the great thing about a fantasy world. You can make up whatever you want. You're like, that's not real. There's not really

drag in general. That's the fun of it, right? Right. Yeah. With the books, what were some of your influences? What were some books or maybe some authors that you really enjoyed that maybe inspired you to write fantasy? I didn't have a specific author that I enjoy. So you hate off. You hate off. I like anybody who had

the fantasy world imagination, basically. All right. Or have some schooling in it. Yeah. Do any movies? Did you get into the, what were those, the Twilight movies and they're really popular with the gals? I

started getting into the twilight, but then it wasn't as interesting as I was hoping it would be. A lot of shirtless dudes in it, too. Yeah. Evidently, where-oes have nipples. I don't know what that means, but it's just, I'm like, can we get shirts in here? Vampires can't and where-wigs can't afford shirts? What's going on, man?

I suppose if you go from a human, you turn into a vampire at night, it tears your shirt like the Incredible Hulk. So you just always had a shirt. So that's probably what it is and pretty sure they didn't have jobs. Sucking Blood is a full-time job, evidently. Ask my first seven marriages. No, I'm just kidding. Marriage shows, folks.

It was 10 prior shows, so I have to keep changing it to keep everyone in their toes. And what do you hope people come away with when they read your books? I hope that they can see their self in the books. I believe that the day. differences in people, they can realize that it's amazing to be different. It's not fun to be the same completely as other people. Yeah. Yeah.

It's okay to be different. And kids need that story, too, because they get so harassed at school and everything. Oh, you look funny. You look different, right? That's why Rose Watercast. is so unique and amazing to read. It has those differences that make people so unique and feel like it's their superpower. Yeah.

Rising Tide lifts all boats, like to say on the show. And yeah, that makes it so that they can, everyone should be included in stuff. There's no one person who's got a corner on all the smart stuff in the world. I've learned that. I've been on Twitter. throwing rocks at Twitter. But, you know, there's no, I learned a long time ago as a CEO. I didn't have all the great ideas.

You need other people's input. And sometimes the best ideas come from the most oddest places and different resources. And you go, oh, wow, God, well, I'm sure. Well, we discovered that because that would have been really bad if we had to take care of that. So there's all sorts of fun that can take place that way. What do you love about writing? You talked about, I think, either I do. talked in the bio or you mentioned at the beginning that this is kind of stuff that you really enjoyed.

Maybe you found as maybe some of the things in the book or some of the things you'd be fun for you in life. What do you like about writing and writing about these fantasy themes and thinking about wouldn't it be great if I had this in my life? Is that kind of how you approach it? I approach it as trying to escape my life. Not that my life is bad or anything, but it would be nice to have some cool things happen. Having magic would be pretty cool to be able to have protectors with me. So if anything happens, I know that I could be safe. Yeah. Those are, those are always good. I think we all want something like that. We want to know that we're safe in the world and yada, yada, yada. And we all have escapism, right? Because we all do that. Movies, TV,

video games, music. We all do that. escape. We all need a break and maybe a way to discharge, discharge or discharge from some of the stress that we do and some of the work that we do. Sometimes we need to time out for the old brain. Sometimes it's a good reset. It's a good decompression. That was the word I was looking for right there. People can do that. And it should be good. This is a big genre. Maybe you'll get really popular like, oh, is that Harry, Harry Potter? Do you like those series of books? Is it a good series? Yeah. Yeah. So Harry Potter and different. different things. There's all sorts of different genres. Who did I

used to like when I was into fantasy? Terry Brown, I think it was, the sort of Shinar. Shinarah. And I love reading those books when I was a kid. And then J.R. Toki, and of course created wonderful characters and stuff. And so everyone loves fantasy. I can't remember all the other fantasy books that I used to read when I was in that genre. And then I moved to science fiction and Alan Dean Foster and all those great guys. And then I went to business books, which are boring as hell. compared. There's no one with swords, really, near as I can tell in any of the boardrooms, or no one wearing a loin cloth either, because HR said we can't anymore. So I tried.

What can I say? Maybe I should dress up like the sort of shinar and show up in the thing. Now, I see on the cover, there's kind of, I don't want to, I don't want to make an inference that is your thing, but looks kind of dizzy tinkerbellish. There's a little gal there in the cover. Who's that and what's that about? The fairy that I imagine are like really tiny. Okay. That they can sit on your shoulder about probably six inches tall. Hmm.

So. Do I get an evil fairy and a good fairy one on each shoulders? I can have that whole good, bad. Do this. Don't do that, Chris. It's bad. Do it. Anyway, that's what I want on it.

Generally, fairies are supposed to be good-spirited. Oh. So what I need to do is I need to find a fairy has gone pad. Now, is there some, you have the protagonist, this young lady, we talk about in the book. Is there an antagonist? Is there some evil doers in the book that good over has to overcome? Sort of. They're not really talked about a whole lot in the first book.

But they are definitely by the third. third book being talked about. It would be one of her boyfriend's grandparents because she falls in love twice. Oh boy. And the first book. Just sick that wolf on them.

Maybe you have to tinkerbell, go put a bad wish on her or something. Or just send the dragon over to toast their home. What was that one movie with Dragons and it just came back on HBO? There's a sequel to it that's out now, I think on HBO. But it had the dragon, that blonde

Garrell with the white hair. Oh, the name of Scades. Game of Thrones. They love dragons in that movie. That was pretty wild. Where do you find the inspiration for dragons and what they do? I like D&D. So I got inspiration from the characters and the dragons and stuff from there.

Yeah. A lot of people love that game. when I was growing up, it was just starting out when I was growing up in high school. And like all the, all the religious people were like, that's satanic. Yeah, I read about that. And I thought it was very interesting. Yeah, they called video games satanic too. They called arcade games, Sartanic 2.

So, because Mrs. Pac-Man, we all know if she's the devil. I don't know what that means. It's just a video game, folks. Sometimes things aren't just what they are. But that's okay. I'm pretty sure some of the people who call things the devil might be behaving like the devil. So I'm a little confused. So Rosewood Academy, where did you come up with a name for it?

Why did you choose the name Rosewood? I always liked the name Rose. And I wanted something that wasn't just Rose. So I ended up with the word wood afterward. And it seemed pretty for me. so I just made it the official name for it. Rosewood Academy, and people can go there. Is it like a safe place for folks that are in the characters in the book?

Yeah. Kind of like, what was that one thing, the X, the X-Men Academy? They can go to that mansion there and I'll hang out and stuff like that. Not to draw comparisons, I'm just asking, but it's like that maybe. Yeah. People can just paint a picture in their head if they want. What do you think makes, that's your story apart from other fans? fantasy books that are out there other than the fact that maybe people wearing shirts and they're not vampires.

The heart of it. Most fantasy books have the chosen one or Big Bad that they have. And mine has to deal with relationships with the family, with significant others, friendships, and her bond with her projectors. Yeah. What are some of the other projectors? We've talked about the wolf. the dragon, the fairy. So the other characters, they either have two or three protectors, and the main protectors that are talked about are the fairies, the wolves, and the dragons. So they're the main ones on the characters and stuff. Was there any time you had trouble putting something together?

What were some techniques that you may be used? Some people they write in an hour a day. I know some people write in the early morning before their kids get up. I put my kids up for adoption, like I said before. But would you just try and write as much as you could and then eventually you got time to edit the book? I wrote when I could. And then there were times that I wrote for a week or two straight without stopping besides eating and taking care of my kids in between and going to bed. I did have some struggles with some actions going on that I didn't know.

know what I should do. So I struggled a little bit, but as I've done the book, started writing more of the books, the actions have come a little bit easier. So it's not feeling so dull. Sometimes character development can be challenging because you've got to slowly build out the character, present them, et cetera, et cetera. And it can be a challenge. And of course, sometimes people run into what's that thing called where they get writers block. Sometimes you get stumped. But you work through it. And that's the key to being an author and a key to not.

You work through these scenarios and push through and push through. And sometimes you reach a point where you're just like, I'm sick of all this stuff. But usually that's about the time you got it all done. And you just got to keep pushing through. Are you going to be touring around a bookstore is doing into that? Or what are you doing to get the word out? out there on the book. So far, the company I've been going through, they've been helping me advertise it on their social media and on other websites. And then with you is supposed to help as well.

So. Get out an audience and get people hearing about it. You got to spread the word. You can write the greatest book in the world and no one hears about it. No, I know. Same thing with apps and products and everything else. So it's good you're getting the word out. And then people can read the first book. They can get ready to do your second book. Do you have a newsletter on your website that lets people know what the future is coming out? Yes.

Cool. So they can check it your blog. You're keeping up on that. They've got the newsletter. They can follow you on Facebook. Looks like X and Instagram. Anything more we need to know, maybe that I haven't asked you about the books, the series, and what you're up to? I've been

just working on the series. That's all I've been mostly doing. one for this first book has been published. If you're planning out six books, you've got a lot of work ahead of you ahead of you, but now that you've got the first one in your belt, it's kind of like, it's kind of like riding a bike. It's a little hard to learn, but once you get it down, you know how to ride a bike.

It's just like riding a bike. So as we go out, give people a final pitch out to pick up your book and dot coms and all that good stuff. So you can look me up at ashleygayhardt.com. you can also follow me on Facebook at Ashley Gayhart and Instagram

at Ashley Gayhart. Thank you very much Ashley. We really appreciate it. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. You can also find it on Amazon and Books and Burns and Noble. Barnes and Noble and A. Place Fine Books are sold. They'll be a link for in the Chris Foster show. Thank you for Ashley for coming the show. We really appreciate you.

You did great. Thank you. Thank you. for tuning in. Or up her book, wherever fine books are sold, it's called Rosewood Academy, the Awakening by Ashley Gayhart

out May 26, 2006. Thanks for us for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, foreshest, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, for chest, Chris Foss, YouTube.com,

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