Polar Day, the Summer Solstice, and a Free Book

Fairbanks, Alaska at 12:43 a.m. on June 21, 2008

Even though my book Polar Day has been out for more than a year now, I still can't help but think of it when the summer solstice rolls around here in the Northern Hemisphere.

The book, like its predecessor, is set in Fairbanks, Alaska, land of both the midnight sun and the Polar Night. I'm not sure why, but I have always been fascinated by the solstices and the phenomenon of 24 hour daylight or darkness. I'm glad I don't have to live with either extreme!

I know the solstice actually happened yesterday, but I figured it's not too late for me to share a few celebrations that are tied to the event.

The Midnight Sun over Alaska

• Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England is perhaps the most famous location for solstice activities. Every year a host of revelers gather at the ancient site to witness the sun rising above the stone circle. For reasons we will probably never know, the circle was built so that it aligns perfectly with the sunrise on the solstice.

• New York city has held the "Solstice in Times Square" yoga event since 2003. The yoga begins at 7 am and continues until sunset. The day has also been named National Yoga Day as a result of this event. 

• In a tradition that dates back to medieval times, fires are lit in the Alpine region of Austria in honor of the solstice. Party-goers enjoy panoramic views of the fires dotting the mountainside from high up in the Alpine towns. 

• Astrofest in Croatia brings astronomers and star-gazers to the famous Višnjan Observatory. This festival combines science and spirituality for a magical take on the solstice. 

The Midnight Sun game in Fairbanks

• Finally, my favorite solstice celebration is the Midnight Sun baseball game held each year in Fairbanks on the summer solstice. The game begins around 10:30 each year and artificial lighting has never been used. The tradition has been going on since 1906. I thought it sounded like such a fun event I included it to help kick off the action in Polar Day. Although in my version the event didn't stay fun for very long. ;)

Since I'm talking about celebrations, I thought I'd add a little celebration of my own and offer my ebook The Turnagain Arm for free this week on Amazon. The Turnagain Arm is the prequel to both Polar Night and Polar Day, and the events of this story play in to both novels. If you're interested in checking it out, get your free copy here.

Have you ever taken part in a solstice celebration?

Happy Summer to everyone here in the Northern Hemisphere and Happy Winter to our Southern Hemisphere friends!

Group post - the ghost of past stuffing?

(Scrooged)

Most are familiar with the story of Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol and his visitations from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. We at Untethered Realms have our own ghosties in residence and tweaked the idea for the holidays. Ready for an adventure? Where would you like to go?

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River Fairchild –

I’m snagging the ghostie of the Future and heading straight for the invention of the food replicators used in Star Trek! It’s the love to eat / hate to cook and clean syndrome. I’ll snag the first one off the assembly line and take it back home with me!

***

Christine Rains -

Oh! I like River's idea. Calorie free hot fudge sundaes like Deanna always ate! Yeah. But since River already went on that adventure, I'd like to go on one closer to our time. I'd have the ghost of the Future take me ahead about forty years or so to see how my son is doing. Because as a mom, I'm always worried if I'm messing things up.

And look. Wow. Who is that handsome doctor/chef/astronaut/comic book writer in the future tech glasses? A parent can dream!

***

Gwen Gardner -

No trip with the ghostie of Christmas Future for me -- I don't want to know what's in store. 

And I'm well acquainted with the present already, so that's out, as well. 

That leaves a tour with the ghost of Christmas Past. While I'd love to visit Victorian times, I wouldn't want to live there. I sort of love our modern instant gratification thing; hot water, convenient transportation, fast food. 

But if I could go back about 30 years in the past, I'd tell my younger self: 1) get your butt in gear and start chasing dreams, and, 2) quit wasting precious time just because you're afraid to fail,

So now I'm just going to have to live an extra long life, just like Scrooge, to make sure I fit everything in. #NoRegrets

***

M. Pax -

Bet you expect me to take the future ghostie way ahead to see if the Backworlds is true or not. It's tempting, but I also have a passion for history. Did you know Thanksgiving was created by aliens? They gifted us the ambrosia of stuffing. Mmm. My favorite food. So, I'd have to venture into the past to see the aliens bringing us the sweet nectar of stuffing. Yes!!

***

Ellie Garratt -

I'd have the ghostie of Christmas Past take me back to 1977, so that I could see the first Star Wars film at the cinema. I was only five years old when it came out, so I never had the chance to see it or the other two on the big screen. I was obsessed (still am) with Star Wars. I asked for a Millennium Falcon and stormtroopers for Christmas that year! Alas, I was given a Barbie doll. I'm still waiting for my Millennium Falcon. Maybe this year I'll be lucky?

Creative Commons 2.0 (by-nc-sa)

Julie Flanders -

I'm another who would choose the Ghost of Christmas Past. I'd go back in time to 1930s Cincinnati so that I could spend Christmas with my maternal grandparents. I never knew my grandfather as he died decades before I was born, and I was only nine when my grandmother died, so I've always wished I could have spent more time with her. Even though the country was in the midst of the Great Depression, my mom's family still loved Christmas and celebrated it in the traditional German ways. Being German, they also loved their beer. I'd ask Mr. Past to take me back to one of their Christmas Eve celebrations for the night so I could enjoy sitting down for a beer (or two) with my grandparents. 

Scenes from Christmas Eve in Cincinnati - 1920 (from the Taft Museum of Art) 

Phasers: Polar Night, Giftcard and Ebook #Giveaway ! #RealmsFaire

Welcome to Phasers!

The Rules

I, the game master, will offer up a word associated with a popular work of speculative fiction (scifi, fantasy, horror), such as phaser. The first commenter would then give a word he or she associates with phaser, such as stun. The next commenter would then give a word he or she associates with stun, such as shock. The next commenter would then give a word he or she associates with shock, such as electric. And so one...

All commenters will get put into today's drawing. No comments will be counted after 10:00 p.m. eastern time US each day. Winner will be chosen by Random.org.

Today's Prizes

1. Polar Night by Julie Flanders, ebook
2. Twisted Earths by Untethered Realms, ebook
3.  $5 Amazon giftcard from M. Pax

Today's Game

Polar Night by Julie Flanders is today's inspiration. The game word is:

Winter

More Games, More Prizes! Visit these other Realms Faire games!

Riddle Me This ~ Dueling Bards ~ Phasers ~ Unicorn Hunt ~ Who Roams Here? ~ Beware the Vortex ~ VelociRaffle ~ The Hero’s Dilemma ~Stockade Brigade ~ Hall of Doors ~ The Joust ~ Drench-a-Wench/Soak-a-Bloke

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Fantasy Uprising on sale!

Amazon / Amazon UK / Smashwords / Googleplay / iTunes / B&N / Kobo

Win a $40 Giftcard! Mayhem in the Air is on tour!

Long and Short Reviews is featuring a tasty snack from Gwen Gardner's "Saving Scrooge: A Short Story Prequel to the Saving Marley Series" today. Ooo!

Amazon / GooglePlay / Smashwords / Nook / iBook / Kobo

Summertime and the living is easy?

Source

With all due respect to the writers of the above famous lyric, I beg to differ.

I hate summer. I hate heat, I hate the blazing sun, and, most of all, I hate humidity. It's safe to say summer is not my season. I know that puts me in a small minority. Possibly of one?

Nothing about me is conducive to enjoying summer. My skin is so pale that I could easily pass for a corpse, and tanning is not something it is capable of. The only color my skin can turn is lobster red. I have thick, curly hair that hates humidity as much as I do. Five minutes outside in July and my carefully coiffed curls are transformed into a frizzy clown wig. Even my feet hate summer, as nearly every pair of sandals I have ever owned has given me blisters.

While most people look forward to the standard summer attire of shorts and tees, I cringe with embarrassment at the thought of exposing my blinding white legs. I loathe leaving work and getting into my car when it has been roasting in the parking lot all day. The inventor of air conditioning is one of my personal heroes.

One of the few things I like about summer is baseball, yet this year my Reds are so pitiful that they have merely increased my seasonal grumpiness.

My hatred of summer played a big role in the development of my latest novel, Polar Day. After writing my debut novel Polar Night around the winter solstice and the Arctic phenomenon of 24 hour darkness, I became interested in writing a sequel about the opposite extreme. When reading about summer in the book's setting of Fairbanks, Alaska, I was horrified at the thought of a sun which never has the decency to set. When I read about an extraordinary summer heatwave that was baking Fairbanks, it was easy to imagine the primary horror facing the people of my story. What else could it be but fire?

Fortunately, unlike the people of my book, I've never had to face the terror of being burned alive. The only burning I've had to deal with is from the sun. But I still count the days until I can say goodbye to summer.

October is far and away my favorite month of the year. I love the cool, crisp air and I love being able to cover my ghostly pale limbs with jeans and hoodies. I love football, the shorter days, snuggling under a toasty blanket, and hearing the leaves crunch under my feet when I take my dog for a walk. In short, I love everything about autumn.

To quote Green Day and wrap this up with another lyric, this one much more suited to my personality, "wake me up when September ends."

A to Z Challenge: Z is for DZubenko

We've reached the end of another A to Z Blogging Challenge! 

Congratulations and well done to all who participated. 

Here at Untethered Realms, we've been taking on the Challenge as a group. Each day, one of us has shared a teaser from one of our books. 

And now here we are at Z day!

Z is for DZubenko. 

(Yes, I cheated a little bit with this name. But the D is silent, I swear!) 

From Polar Day by Julie Flanders

Thanks to everyone who stopped by here and visited us during the Challenge. It's been a great April! 

A to Z Challenge: W is for Witchcraft

The A to Z Blogging Challenge is underway!

If you haven't heard of it, check out the A to Z blog and join in the fun.

Here at Untethered Realms, we're taking on the Challenge as a group. Each day, one of us will be sharing with you a teaser from one of our books.

Today is W day!

W is for Witchcraft...

From Polar Day by Julie Flanders

A to Z Challenge: F is for Flames

The A to Z Blogging Challenge is underway!

If you haven't heard of it, check out the A to Z blog and join in the fun.

Here at Untethered Realms, we're taking on the Challenge as a group. Each day, one of us will be sharing with you a teaser from one of our books.

Today is F day!

F is for Flames...

From Polar Day by Julie Flanders

Join us for #SpecFicChat:

What happened to the future? It's not Star Trek or 2001. Next #SpecFicChat Fri. April 17th, Noon EDT. Hosted by @UnRealms & @EllieMGarratt 

A Discovery of Russian Witches

When I sat down to write this post I couldn't resist playing with the title of Deborah Harkness' 2011 book, as it fit so perfectly. I felt like I discovered my own special witches when I was coming up with the stories for my latest release Polar Day and its prequel The Turnagain Arm.

I knew I wanted to use a witch as the antagonist in Polar Day but I also knew I wanted the character to be male as opposed to the more popular or traditional female witch. While doing a little research on the history of witchcraft, I learned that when witch hunts swept across Europe during the seventeenth century, a different kind of witch hunt inspired terror in Russia. Unlike the religious-based trials in Europe, the Russian trials were concerned with stopping "witches" who they feared would use magic to inspire revolt against the system of serfdom and aristocracy that ruled the land. The Russians weren't worried about devil worship; they were worried about social agitators. And their primary targets were men.

I couldn't believe how perfectly this real world history fit in with the history of my fictional universe. Aleksei Nechayev, the antagonist in my first novel Polar Night, was Russian, so I had already established a Russian backstory. Once I discovered this history, my new characters came to life and the stories played out from there.

A line of male Russian witches is introduced in my novella The Turnagain Arm through a saloon owner named Vasyl Dzubenko. While he is a witch, he's not the antagonist of that story. Vasyl is a good man who uses his power reluctantly and only to stop evil. Unfortunately his descendant Jamie, the Polar Day witch, is a very different story.

As a history buff, I couldn't have asked for better inspiration for my story than a real life horror such as the Russian witch trials. History never ceases to fascinate me.

Any other history nuts out there?

Polar Day is now available in paperback and on Amazon Kindle. To celebrate my new release, I'm offering The Turnagain Arm free this week, through Friday, 2/13. If you'd like to get to know my witches, get your free download here.

About Polar Day:

The midnight sun bakes Fairbanks, Alaska as residents gather for the annual summer solstice baseball game. Amidst the revelry and raucous shouts of “Play ball,” a spark alights and a jogger bursts into flames. Detective Danny Fitzpatrick, still reeling from his near death at the hands of vampire Aleksei Nechayev, watches in horror as the man burns alive.

Someone is burning Fairbanks and its residents and leaving nothing but smoldering embers behind. As the city sweats under a record-breaking heatwave and unexplained fires claim more victims, Danny and his colleagues struggle to find an arsonist who can conjure fire out of thin air.

To Danny’s horror, the only one who may be able to help him stop the arsonist is his nemesis Nechayev. Will the vampire help in the hunt for a witch?

All Aboard for The Turnagain Arm

The Turnagain Arm on Kindle

The neighborhood where I live is situated along the Ohio River, directly up a very steep hill that ends at the train tracks that run along the riverbank. On clear mornings and nights, we can hear the whistles of the trains as they make their way along the river. I've always found the whistles eerie and for whatever reason the empty tracks have always been a bit creepy to me. An old abandoned train station used to sit along the tracks and when I was a kid I always imagined all kinds of scary things going on in that deserted station and on the tracks behind it. It seemed to me that station probably had lots of tales to tell.

I got the idea for my latest tale, The Turnagain Arm, after hearing a train whistle coming up from the river while I was walking my dog Clancy early in the morning. Later, I heard another whistle to end the day. It was fall and the night was crisp and chilly, and the whistle lingered in the air long after the train had moved past us. 

I wanted to write a story about what my Polar Night vampire Aleksei Nechayev was up to before the events of that book and after his human experiences as a Russian soldier in World War I. When I read that the Alaskan Railroad construction began in 1914 and reached its peak in 1917, the same year Aleksei became a vampire, my interest peaked. When I then learned that the Trans-Siberian railway from Aleksei's home of St. Petersburg to the far east town of Vladivostok was completed in 1916, I knew I had the beginnings of my story. Suddenly it became crystal clear how Aleksei left the ravages of World War I in the Russian West for a new start in Alaska, as freighters regularly went from Vladivostok to the Western United States and to the Alaskan territory. Like the day that gave me this idea, the story begins and ends with the haunting whistle of a train. 

While researching the time period and the area, I found this great video put out by the Alaska Film Archives showing early footage of the rail's construction, which started in a tent camp that is now the city of Anchorage. 

There are also great historical photos of the early days of the railroad camps, such as this picture of two women who ran their own waffle house. I was so intrigued by the thought of two women running their own business in those days that I created a character who ran a waffle stand of her own.

Source

About thirty miles south of Anchorage was the most difficult stretch of the railroad's construction, the area known as the Turnagain Arm. The tracks had to be constructed at the base of steep vertical cliffs that ended in the body of water that gave the area its name.

This is what the tracks at Turnagain look like in the present day, so it's impossible to imagine how difficult and dangerous it must have been to construct them back in the 19-teens.

Source: alaskarails.org

This photo from the Alaska Digital Archives gives some idea of the conditions the rail workers were working under.

Source

I loved the idea of setting my story in such a hostile and forbidding place. The characters who live and work in the Turnagain Arm camp are a hearty and tough lot by necessity, but they also find time to relax and enjoy themselves in the Turnagain Arm saloon.

Unfortunately for them, the vampire named Aleksei Nechayev finds himself drawn to the saloon as well. And the workers who call the camp home soon learn that the brutal conditions of the Alaskan wilderness are nothing compared to the danger they face now.

Want to take a trip to The Turnagain Arm? Find the novella on Amazon Kindle and on Goodreads

Happenings in the Realm: Huzzizzle October 2014 #SpecFic #SciFi #Fantasy #Horror

Twisted Earths is HERE!

Nine twisted stories from nine twisted worlds.

Purchase from: Amazon / iTunes / B&N / Kobo

Only 99 cents for a collection of fantastic stories!

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Contributing authors:

Angela Brown

River Fairchild

Gwen Gardner

M. Gerrick

Graeme Ing

M. Pax

Christine Rains

Cherie Reich

Catherine Stine

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Twisted Earths is a collection of tales from Untethered Realms, a group of speculative fiction authors. The stories are as varied and rich as the types of soil on this and other planets—sandy loam, clay, knotted with roots and vines, dreaded paths through unexplored planets, and in enchanted forests, lit by candlelight and two moons.

M. Pax, author of the series, The Backworlds and The Rifters spins a tale called Patchworker 2.0. Specialists with digital interfaces are the only ones who can distinguish between biological energy and mechanical pulses, and “patch” AIs, which hold the world together. Patchworker Evalyn Shore meets up with an AI with deadly intent.

Cherie Reich, known for her epic fantasy series The Fate Challenges and The Foxwick Chronicles, presents Lady Death. Umbria, a beautiful and powerful swordsmith, is given an impossible task by her brother Leon when he asks, “You are the assassin. Are you scared to destroy Death when you are up to your elbows in it?”

Angela Brown is the author of the paranormal Shadow Jumpers and NEO Chronicles series. In her story, In The Know, Jacob, a loyal family man is struggling to stay out of debt when he’s hired to report on big plans for a future Detroit. He’s given a mysterious manila envelope with instructions to “open it alone” or pay the price. With switchback twists you won’t see coming, a debt of a much steeper cost is what he just might end up paying for his involvement.

Catherine Stine, author of the futuristic thrillers, Fireseed One and Ruby’s Fire, offers The Day of The Flying Dogs, a sinister tale of brilliant, troubled NYC high-school student, Theo. He experiences a day at Coney Island that includes drugs, delusions, a lonely capybara, Nathan’s hotdogs and a mind-bending lesson in our very twisted universe.

Christine Rains, known best for her paranormal series The Thirteenth Floor, gives us The Ole Saint, a story at once sweet, horrific and heartrending. Ezra longs to fit in and have boys stop calling him witch and freak, yet his unique supernatural skill sets him apart, and the last gift from The Ole Saint cinches the deal.

Graeme Ing, known for his young adult fantasy, Ocean of Dust presents The Malachite Mine, a gripping, scream-inducing ride. Whatever was Mary thinking when she accepted her husband’s gift of a most terrifying twenty-first birthday celebration in an abandoned Russian mine?

River Fairchild, author of her Jewels of Chandra series, presents A Grand Purpose. Rosaya and her cousin, Drianna are soon to be married off, but Rosaya is unhappy with her assigned match. She’s much more intoxicated by the older Firrandor, a wizard she hardly knows. When Rosaya is accused of killing an oracle boy, all bets are off, not only for her love, but her freedom.

Gwen Gardner, who pens the cozy paranormal mystery series, Indigo Eady, adds to her collection with Ghostly Guardian. Indigo and her rib-tickling ghost-busters must travel to a dangerous pirate-laden past in order to unearth a curmudgeonly eighteenth century spirit that is plaguing the Blind Badger Pub.

Misha Gerrick, whose War of Six Crowns series is forthcoming, gives us a story called Red Earth and White Light. Emily, a young ghost bride has long haunted a house. She longs to cross over into the afterlife, but she’s trapped in memories of lilies and betrayal.

Calling All Authors and Writers

I could use your help in getting the word out about this year's Realms Faire. The faire is about you and helping you gain some visibility for your work. It has several opportunities to help you do that. 

1. Be a sponsor and donate prizes. This gets you listed on the Realms Faire scrolly and pages. The events giving away your swag will mention you. 

2. Test your mettle in the joust. People will be cheering for you for five days straight. You will get a spotlight on one of the five days. You get a nifty badge. Limited to 10 knights.

3. Duel with words in Dueling Bards. You and your work are spotlighted on one day. Limited to 10 bards.

Be a sponsor  /  Be a Knight  /  Duel as a Bard

Get The Rifters and The Initiate while they're hot off the press!

The Rifters is a FREE download until 12/31/14. The Initiate is 99 cents on preorder until October 20, 2014!

Download The Rifters from: Amazon / AmazonUK / B&N/Smashwords /Googleplay /

iTunes / Other

Preorder The Initiate from: 

Amazon / Amazon UK / AmazonAU / AmazonCA /AmazonDE / iTunes / B&N / Googleplay / Other

  The Afterlife Series is online!

AMAZON - Available Now

AMAZON - Available Now

AMAZON - Available 10/20

The Turnagain Arm, a prequel to Polar Night which takes place in 1917 during the building of the Alaskan railroad, is now available on Amazon for just 99 cents!  Find out what vampire Aleksei Nechayev was up to when he first made his way to Alaska. It's safe to say it wasn't anything good. 

DORIANNA Launches OCT 24!

Dorianna, Catherine Stine's YA horror/paranormal launches with Evernight Teen on October 24. You are invited to Come join the fun at the release party. Catherine, with Bewitching Book Tour's help, is throwing a Facebook party on OCT 29 with fun games, and two guest authors writing dark YA. 

Also, stay tuned for the tour, with a Rafflecopter chocked full of UR and other authors who write amazing dark fantasy!

Genre Confusion

Source: Wikimedia

When people ask what genre I write in, I never really know how to answer the question. The question brings more than a little anxiety, as the honest answer is simply “I don’t know.”

My first book Polar Night is a detective story that features a vampire as its antagonist. My second, The Ghosts of Aquinnah, includes a ghost, but it’s really more of a mystery combined with a love story than a paranormal novel. I would classify both of my books as mash-ups of different genres. But “mixed bag” isn't exactly the answer people are looking for when they ask about genre.

I understand the importance of genre and can’t deny I have sometimes been envious of authors who write in clear-cut genres like science fiction, suspense, romance, or “chick lit.” I've seen authors do brilliant marketing work in creating their brand and platform based around their genre of choice. If I had to pick a brand for myself I suppose something involving a very confused person would be most accurate at this point.

But I also can’t deny that sometimes I wonder why the answer to the genre question can’t simply be “fiction.” When it comes to reading, I've never thought much about genre. If I see or hear about a book that sounds good to me I read it. And I can think of tons of books I've read over the years that don’t seem to fall into any one genre.

One of the things I enjoy about being part of Untethered Realms is that I love that the designation of speculative fiction provides such a big umbrella. I think I have a better answer for the genre question now.

As readers, how important is genre to you? Does it bother you if books fall into more than one category?

The Woman on the Webcam

I first came up with the idea for my novel The Ghosts of Aquinnah when I was planning a trip to Martha's Vineyard and looking at this webcam of the Aquinnah lighthouse on the Martha's Vineyard Online website.

I started wondering about looking at the webcam and seeing the same person every time I looked at the site. Who would this person be? What if she was always alone, even in the dark of night? And what reason could she have for being there?

As you can see from this screencap of the webcam, Aquinnah is a friendly and unassuming place during the day. If you were standing on these steps and facing the cars, the ocean would be off to your right and straight ahead. The sound of the waves below you is awesome from this location.

But it's a whole different story at night.

With the exception of the lone security light and the lighthouse beacon, there are no lights at Aquinnah at night. The more I looked at the cam, the more I thought that this would be a perfect place for ghosts to roam about. I started playing with that idea, and eventually The Ghosts of Aquinnah was born.

The following excerpt takes place after my character Hannah first sees the woman dressed in 19th century clothing on the webcam. She starts to wonder, who is she? And why is she there?

Unable to stop thinking about the mystery woman, Hannah tried again to come up with a reason for her dress. Perhaps she belonged to one of those religious groups where women dressed conservatively. But that wouldn’t explain what she was doing alone at the lighthouse in the dark of night. 

 

Hannah realized it wasn’t just the woman’s presence that had seemed odd to her, it was also her demeanor. The woman was very young, but she looked overwhelmed with sadness. Hannah set down the glass, suddenly worried that perhaps the woman had gone to the cliffs to commit suicide. Was that why she’d never returned to the stone steps? Had she jumped from the cliffs into the sea?

Hannah didn’t find that likely. The overlook was fenced in, and the ground below it was more sloping than steep.

Hannah shook her head and finished her water before putting her glass in the sink. Why was she trying to figure out what this woman was doing? What concern was it of hers, anyway? If the woman wanted to dress oddly and wander around the island at night, that was her business. 

 

As she headed back to the bedroom, she could imagine Jon saying that she was fixating on this woman as yet another excuse to avoid her work. He wouldn’t be wrong. But as she turned off the kitchen light she realized what it was that had struck her the most about the woman on the webcam. It wasn’t just her dress or the sadness that was so plain on her face. 

 

It was that in spite of the fact that she seemed to be so lost and alone, she moved with a purpose and sense of determination that was evident even through the lens of the camera. She looked like she was looking for something. Or like she was searching for someone.

Blurb:

A brilliant flash of light transcends through time.

Another freezes a cloaked figure within a frame of salty mist as waves crash against a rocky shore. Her harrowing expression shadows the beacon to a pinprick.

By the next blaze, she is gone. Only the lighthouse remains.

Hannah’s eyes blink in step with each heartbeat. Images of her deceased parents and Martha’s Vineyard explode like firecrackers inside her mind.

She shakes her head.

For weeks this eerie woman dressed in nineteenth century garb has been haunting my webcam, but tonight she stared into my soul.

Why? ...

Who is she? ...

Casting aside months of research on historic lighthouses, Hannah drives to the coast and boards a ferry.

What is the strange connection she has to this mysterious woman suspended in time?

Hannah finds out.

But, it’s not at all what she expects...

Hannah unravels a century old murder.


The Ghosts of Aquinnah will be released on December 5, 2013 by Ink Smith Publishing. Order now at:

Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Smashwords ~ Ink Smith Store

Author Bio: Julie Flanders is a novelist and freelance writer in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has a life-long love affair with the ocean and has spent more summer vacations than she can count on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. When not writing, Julie can be found playing with her pets, reading, cheering on her favorite sports teams, and watching too much television. The Ghosts of Aquinnah is Julie’s second novel. Her debut novel Polar Night was released in February, 2013 by Ink Smith Publishing.

Find Julie at:
 

Website ~ Blog ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Pinterest ~ Goodreads

Come one, come all to the Blogger Book Fair!

The Blogger Book Fair is going on all this week, through Friday, July 26, and all are invited to join in on the fun!

The fair is run by Kayla Curry and I can't even imagine how many hours of work she puts into the event to get it up and running. There are hundreds of authors participating and many are holding giveaways and other promotional activities for the fair. In addition, there are tons of fun and creative events going on, including Readers Choice Awards, Flash Fiction and Synopsis Challenges, and Excerpt Days. Visit the events page here to see everything that is scheduled during this fun-packed week.

I am taking part in the fair with my novel Polar Night, which will be reviewed by one of the many great book bloggers participating in the event. I'm also interviewing four fellow BBF authors at my blog this week, so please stop by and learn about these authors and their books. In addition, visit me at L.R. Wright's and Shah Wharton's blogs today and at the blogs of Jeff W. Horton and Cathrina Constantine on Wednesday. It's been fun swapping posts and interviews with these authors!

My Untethered Realms comrade M. Pax is also involved with the fair and is giving away ebook copies of The Renaissance of Hetty Locklear. Hetty is an EXCELLENT book so I know you'll want to enter this giveaway if you haven't already read it. Click here for the giveaway page.

Mary and I are both entered into the BBF Reader's Choice Awards, hosted by Shut up & Read, and you can vote for us both here. Polar Night is entered in the "Fantasy - Mature (1)" category and Hetty Locklear is entered in the "Science Fiction - New Adult" category. Please vote for both of us!

And please visit all of us at the Blogger Book Fair this week and "book your trip to far away places!" :)