Premonitions: Supernatural or Science? #paranormal

A premonition is a strong feeling something is about to happen. They're mostly associated with bad events. Perhaps because impressions of tragedy are stronger than impressions of wonderful.

The premonitions I most clearly recall are those associated with bad events. Way back when I lived in Northern Virginia, I stopped at a corner market after work to pick up a few things. There was this man standing there. When he looked at me, I had the most unshakable feeling of awful. I mean, I felt horror in my bones. Later that evening, my car was stolen.

When I moved into a new apartment in NYC, I had a nasty dream about a dark shadow trying to get inside. I couldn't run down the hall to shut the door fast enough. Needless to say, they were the worst landlords ever.

Are they premonitions, or am I picking up on information my brain doesn't know how to fully process? So it comes across as a terrible vibe, a really terrible vibe?

I've also had good ones. Usually if I dream I did well on a test, I did very well on a test.

Premonitions are actually quite common. There may be a scientific explanation for them. They may be bred into our genes. Being able to react quickly to information that isn't easily quantifiable would have helped our ancestors survive. It can help us survive, if we listen.

I believe in my case, I was picking up on signals and information I wasn't fully conscious of at the time. What do you believe? Is it scientific or is it something more?

Premonition came into my life recently when misreading a road sign. Oddly, it was while visiting the real Oregon town that inspires Settler, the town featured in my series, The Rifters. I thought the sign said, Premonition Center. It did not. I can't remember what it really said, but I took the sign literally as a sign for the next book.

It was such a funny occurrence in a place associated with my series, I knew I had to use it. It's 'a sign' after all.

The main street in Fossil, Oregon. I use it almost exactly as the main street in Settler. Just past the stop sign on the left-hand side is the library. At the end of the street is the high school and the fossil beds. Sight of the infamous volcanic killer bee attack.

Have you ever had a premonition? What about?

Huzzizzle of the Realms - February 2017 UR News

Jeff Chapman

Supernatural mayhem in the Weird West

An enchanted blade. An evil old man. An ancient spirit behind a mask. The Weird West just gets weirder.

Orville and Jimmy are a pair of hucksters, struggling to scrape together enough coin for a square meal. While Orville angles for the big score, Jimmy hopes to make an honest buck for a day's work. When an old man calling himself Marzby asks for help with a supernatural pest, Orville smells opportunity. Jimmy smells danger.

In two shakes of a lamb's tail, Marzby imprisons Orville and only Jimmy can save him from a gruesome death. The price for Orville's life? Jimmy must retrieve an enchanted knife from inside Skull Hill and put it in Marzby's hands in three days time. With the blade in reach, Jimmy runs head on into more trouble: a shapeshifting opossum, a larger than average coyote and an ancient spirit determined to keep the blade where it is. Maybe the evil Marzby shouldn't have the blade, but without it, how is Jimmy going to rescue Orville?

The Black Blade is a weird western novel in Jeff Chapman's Huckster Tales series, mixing horror, fantasy, and comedy in an Old West setting. Climb up in the wagon and follow Orville and Jimmy as they once again plunge over their heads into supernatural trouble.

Store Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon AU | Amazon CA

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Christine Rains

Weaving Inuit myths with the modern day world.

Always read the fine print when making a bargain with a sea hag.

Lost to the clutches of her grief of losing her mentor, Saskia Dorn welcomes the opportunity to take down a warehouse of drug dealers. When their leader makes a break for it, Saskia and her ex-boyfriend, Sedge, chase the criminal shifter into the sea off the coast of northwestern Alaska. Not only do they lose their quarry, but a vicious sea hag snatches Sedge.

Saskia can’t take another loss and attempts to bargain for Sedge’s life and the salmon totem the witch has trapped in her cave. The sea hag wants only one thing: her long lost love. Who is dead. And living under the freaking ocean with the Salmon People. Find the Salmon People and return with the witch’s love before Sedge’s life is forfeit. Simple, right? Yet she can’t leave the Salmon People’s land without finding herself first.

Buy it on Amazon.

Add it to read on Goodreads.

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Catherine Stine 

(writing this suspense novel as Kitsy Clare)

For these last weeks of February my publisher, Inkspell is offering the first ever sale of my romantic suspense, Private Internship. It's not strictly spec fiction, BUT… Sienna and Caz do a spooky Tarot reading on Halloween in an abandoned factory during New York’s Hurricane Sandy blackout… so it counts as psychological horror! Also, Sienna discovers a dreadful secret in her boss’s locked storeroom.

“What could be the worst secret you’d never want exposed? Find out what Caz is hiding that Sienna's trying to find. I was like WOW!!!” 

-Undercover Reviews

“On a dark, stormy Halloween night sculptor, Caz and his intern, artist Sienna are trapped in the old sugar factory where he resides and works. Candles are lit. To keep occupied Sienna pulls out the Tarot cards and what do they reveal? Who is Casper Mason? What secrets is he concealing? Has he found the person who will emotionally break him?” -Reader review

Marked down to $0.99 from $2.99 it’s on sale only thru March 2:

Amazon USA, UK, CA, B&N, Apple, Kobo

M. Pax

Two great giveaways for you!

Over 10 fantasy books, your for the taking. DOWNLOAD FREE BOOKS

Over 45 Urban Fantasy books in this giveaway plus a Kindle Fire! ENTER

Gwen Gardner

A new blog header depicting my fictional town of Sabrina Shores, England, is motivating me to move forward on the next Indigo Eady Cozy Mystery, A Scandal in Boohemia.

Here's a sneak peek:

It's all about adulting when Indigo Eady purchases a new flat then has to figure out how to pay for it. Luckily she lands a temporary job at the local theatre as assistant stage manager. There's only one catch: she has to stop the gangster ghost from haunting her boss. No problem—except for the murderer running loose.

Writing Effective Non-Human Characters

In the genre of speculative fiction, we see many non-human creatures. Yes, most of the time the supernatural creatures are humanoid and/or living in a human world. But there are also those beings from other worlds or those monsters hidden in the unseen depths of our reality that aren't human in any way.

How does a human writer go about effectively portraying such a character then? Here are five tips for writing believable non-humans.

1) The character's physical traits will affect a lot of how they behave. Your non-human may be an arachnid or an alien with no bones. No matter who we are, we are limited by our physicality and the environment we live in. What advantages and disadvantages would your character's body give them? Have they enhanced their strengths? How do they cope with their bodily limitations? How does that all work in their environment?

2) The ways the character deals with their physicality will help build their culture. Our human world is build for fragile warm-blooded beings who walk on two legs and have opposable thumbs. Most things center around the visual. What if your non-human doesn't have that sense? What sort of civilization will they have built? What if there was a world built completely upon the sense of smell? All information would be carried upon scents.

3) With culture evolves ethics. Non-humans aren't going to have a black & white view of the world. They might not even have a concept of good and evil. Your character's morals could revolve around their physical traits or some divine magic. It will be central to how that character thinks.

4) Non-humans aren't going to have emotions as we know them. How they react to a situation will depend on the three things above. It is possible they don't know fear or love. Figuring out the emotional state of your character (or the non-emotional one if it's a robot!) will guide you with how they will act and react within the plot.

5) Even considering all of this, our readers are still human. We must make them relatable to humans. We need something for the readers to hook on to, even if it's just one trait. See that sea dragon above? She wants to fly in the sky. We can all relate to a desire to be more than we are.

Have you ever written non-human characters? Care to share any tips?

Spooky Stories from the Authors of Untethered Realms

Christine Rains

I'm one of those folks who want to believe. There are unexplained things out there, but I've never had a paranormal experience myself. I've been on ghost tours and strolled through cemeteries in the middle of the night. Nothing. Well, except...

During college, I helped a friend care for her two young sons who were nearly one and three at the time. I had an old Ouija board that we'd play around with, and my friend claimed it worked for her. Not long after, her oldest son started talking to someone who wasn't there. Kids have imaginary friends all the time, right? There were strange noises at night. But kids thump around and knock against walls. Nothing convinced me something definitely was going on other than kids being kids, but one incident did leave me wondering.

I had the youngest in my arms as I walked up the stairs to the second floor. The other boy walked in front of me. Both yammered on animatedly until they suddenly stopped. In sync, they turned their heads to the far left bedroom and looked at something unseen to my eyes. They followed it across the hall to the other bedroom. Neither of them were frightened, but I did wonder what they saw.

Cherie Reich

Well, there was this one time some friends and I were the ghosts who scared off some kids, but that's probably not very spooky. For us. *grins*

Back when I was moving to Missouri for college, my parents, sister, and I stopped at a hotel in Illinois, not far from St. Louis, Missouri. The motel was one of those typical cheap places where it is two floors and all the doors open to the outside. I had a bad feeling about the place, but we were tired. It's a long drive from Virginia to Missouri, after all, so I pushed those feelings aside.

I feel asleep rather easily, but come morning, a strange sensation flowed over me. I was between waking and sleeping. I could hear the TV on and my family getting ready for the last bit of our drive. Before I could open my eyes, I heard a deep voice saying, "I will find you wherever you go."

My eyelids flung open and I startled up. No one had heard what I did. No one in the room had spoken those words. Scariest of all, I had heard that voice once in the dead of night when I was thirteen.

Luckily, I haven't heard it since, but I wouldn't stay in that motel again.

Gwen Gardner

The Whaley House is considered one of the most haunted houses in America. Built in 1857, it is located on the site of the infamous hanging of Yankee Jim Robinson in 1852, among other things. Owned by Thomas and Anna Whaley, the house has a long history of death and tragedy.

So what better way to celebrate Halloween than a real live ghost hunt in a real live haunted house? That's what my sister and I did last year. From 10:30 to midnight a handful of strangers intrepidly crossed the threshold to wander throughout this famous house in hopes of making contact with ghosties.

We learned the history of the house, which included the loss of Thomas and Anna's son, Thomas Jr., at just eighteen months old. We used EMF meters (Electromagnetic Field Meters) for detecting the presence of ghosts, EVP recorders (Electronic Voice Phenomena) for picking up ghostly voices and of course you're welcome to bring your own camera. An interesting experience, when you think about the living making contact with the not-so-dead. It was cool seeing colorful lights indicating the presence of ghosts and hearing the electronic-like voices of spirits reaching out to us from beyond the grave.

But the most interesting part was this photo taken by someone in our group:

Notice the arm and body of a woman bending over the cradle. Could this be Anna Whaley, still rocking the cradle of her infant son, Thomas, after all these years?


M. Pax

If I had never seen a ghost for myself, I would still be a skeptic, but I did, and I know it wasn't any kind of trick. Husband Unit saw it at the same time and so as to not contaminate one another, we went and wrote down what we saw then exchanged papers. We saw the same thing.

A year ago, we went on a ghost hunt to a cemetery with a local medium and other truth seekers. The night can play tricks, so I can't say anything definitive happened. But I did hear footsteps on the gravel at one point when no one was walking and what sounded like someone knocking on a gravestone in response to a question we asked. My husband thinks this is a ghost by the tree. I'm not as certain, but you be the judge.

Cathrina Constantine

I believe in ghostly spirits and paranormal activity. My husband is levelheaded and very, very hard to convince. With that said, this is his account: 

He'd been watching television late at night. As typical, he'd fallen asleep. He woke to find ~ what he calls, the grim reaper standing between the door frame. A white ghostly apparition wearing a hood and holding a harvesting sickle. Then it disappeared.

He's a man that doesn't scare easily, and it freaked him out! The next day I said, "You must've been dreaming." He's insistent that he was wide eyed and awake. If it was anyone else I'd be skeptical, but not with my pragmatic husband. I believe him. 

To this day, he will recount the scene when asked.

Catherine Stine

Boo! I love Halloween. And yes, I do believe there are webs of invisible energy fields, and when someone passes, their energy lives on in some form, inside this web. That's just physics, folks--energy doesn't "die" it transforms. The night my dad passed (before I knew), I got up suddenly, went downstairs, checked the time and just then, the phone rang. When I picked it up, I heard the sound of shuffling feet. I asked who was there. No one. But I got the shivers and goosebumps all over. Then, I went back upstairs to sleep. My brother called, a little over an hour later and said my dad had died at the EXACT time I got that phone call.

Yes, it was someone's pocket dial, but I am SURE that my dad somehow had an influence in it. I have more stories like this, but I'm out of room. Here's me, below, already ready for this holiday. Can you say, Good Witch?!

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Who You Gonna Call? Not Ghostbusters!

Ghosts of Fire

An elements of Untethered Realms anthology

Coming in October

A writer’s mind is an interesting thing. It starts with the question, What If? And goes from there.

For the upcoming Untethered Realms short story anthology, Ghosts of Fire, my story was born in much this way…

Who’s in charge of monitoring threats to your country? In the United States we have homeland security and in the United Kingdom MI5 is in charge of domestic security. Both countries are well versed in threats to their respective countries, who’s behind them, and how to protect against them.

But what if there were threats most people didn’t know about or even believe in?

As in the supernatural kind?

Who you gonna call?

Not Ghostbusters, that’s for sure! Not for serious threats to your country.

The general public doesn’t know about these threats and it’s best to keep it that way. No reason to cause mass panic. Chaos would reign. Just take care of the problem.

That’s where Secret Branch comes in. Its existence is known only to the Prime Minister and a few of his cabinet members. And what of the special agents who work for Special Branch? They have special gifts, of course; the ability to see supernatural beings and the skills to rid England of any threats coming from them.

In Mind the Gap, one such special agent wants to gain favor with a particularly attractive detective he knows, so he sets out to find the art thief she’s after using good old fashioned investigative skills.

But when you’re a “special” agent, the supernatural are always going to have other ideas.

And this is how my story was born...

Who would you call?

Fantastical Witchy Factoids!

I recently released my historical fantasy Witch of the Cards.
(For those who are curious, it's 99 cents, free on KU until July 20)
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For fun, I've compiled some fun factoids about witches!
Before people had hospitals and surgeons to fix people, they had midwives and herbalists. When babies or moms died in childbirth, or the herbal fix was insufficient to cure what we would now know was a fatal disease, who do you think was blamed? The same women who delivered babies and gave expert herbal remedies! In a fearful world, they were labeled as witches, or agents of the devil.

A fave "baddie" in Oz

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Bruno Bettelheim was a famous psychiatrist who worked with troubled children and believed fully in the power of myth and fairytales, which include witch stories! In his words: "...the imagery of fairy tales helps children better than anything else in their most difficult and yet most important and satisfying task: achieving a more mature consciousness to civilize the chaotic pressures of their unconscious." Fairytales are spiritual explorations. In the fairy tale we see life divined from the inside.
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Ironically, in ancient Rome even though women were housebound with zero political power, the most revered, influential people were the high priestesses presiding over the oracles, such as the one at Delphi. These women were said to be able to predict the future, wield supernatural powers and have innate knowledge of the divine realms. Greek citizens would go on pilgrimages to seek out their womanly wisdom. Now, that’s what I call some bad@ss white witches!

Fortuna & her wheel

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In Chaucer’s and Boccaccio’s European middle ages (mid 1300s) people were expected to be devout in their Christianity. Many believed literally in the devil and the power of witches. Interestingly, as devout as they were to the going religion, they also prayed to the sprites and night nymphs of their recently dropped Pagan beliefs. They also believed in Fortuna, or the wheel of Fortune—that fortunes rose and fell by the whirl of a wheel, often portrayed by a beautiful woman, Fortuna. How’s that for supernatural female power!
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During the Victorian Era in 1899 Charles Godfrey Leland published a

1899, Aradia cover

book called Aradia or Gospel of the Witches. This Aradia goddess, the incarnation of Diana/Artemis was going to bring magic to the Victorians and hopefully free women from the oppression of the times. Beautiful book cover, right?
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Tamsin Blight 1798-1856 was a famous English witch healer, able to remove curses or spells from a person. She was also said to have put spells on those who displeased her. She was also known as Tammy Blee and Tamson.
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Houdini & Doyle in friendlier times

In the 1920s and 30s there was a craze for psychics, card readers, and mediums who claimed they could communicate with people’s dead relatives. Harry Houdini, the famous magician, ironically made it his life’s work to try and debunk these folks. Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the Sherlock Holmes series was a huge believer in the supernatural. He went head to head in heated debates with Houdini. I found this fascinating, and I wove this into Witch of the Cards, where Fiera, a talented seer meets up with a skeptic. But in my novel, he becomes a believer. LOL.
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The Tarot fascinates me. I collect cards for their variety, beauty and amazing images. They are thought to have originated all the way back in ancient Egypt, as a cosmic source of wisdom and divination of the future. The Egyptian word tar means royal and ro means royal – thus the royal road to wisdom. Later, in northern Italy, a complete deck for card playing and gambling was devised. In France in the 1700s, a “cartomancer” named Jean Baptiste-Alliette created the imagery in the decks we often see today. There are cups, swords, wands, and pentacles. And the Major Arcana cards that hold great symbolism, such as the hermit, the world and the death card (which can also mean rebirth!).

Tarot name origin

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In my novel, Witch of the Cards Peter Dune has a Tarot and Séance shop on the boardwalk, where he holds readings and séances. In walks Fiera, who not only has a mysterious and electric connection to Peter, she can do more outrageous and unexpected things with the Tarot than simply reading them! I won’t give away the surprise here. She’s also a sea witch so her supernatural powers are twofold.
Do you know how to read the Tarot? What’s your favorite card?

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new nonfiction on witchery

Two new nonfiction books on witches launched recently. Amber Mar’s Witches of America and Stacey Schiff’s The Witches: Salem 1692. I am reading both on my kindle.
Mar traveled across the USA to interview a diverse bunch of self-described witches. Here’s a quote from her intro: “There may be hundreds of strands of Paganism, but these super-esoteric paths share a clear core. They are polytheistic and nature worshipping, and believe that female and male forces have equal sway in the universe. They teach that the divine can be found within us and all around us, and that we can communicate regularly with the dead and the gods without a priestly go-between.”
Makes sense to me. Does it to you?

An A to Z of Funny Things About the Paranormal

(Is that a ghost in the old shack or a smudge on the lens?)

April is a busy month in the blogging community with the A to Z Challenge. I love participating in the challenge, but too many real life events are happening in the next few weeks that will steal my time online away. I'll be cheering the participants on, though.

In celebration of the challenge, here's my A to Z list of funny things about the paranormal. I hope you enjoy and maybe find something new to fascinate you!

A - Amazons. Legendary warrior women. One myth says they died out because they interbred with centaurs. Maybe that's why they didn't want human men!

B - Bogeyman. He lurks in children's closets and kidnaps them at night. It could be that's because he's a demented genie and is acting on disgruntled parents' wishes. 

C - Chupacabra. Weird government experiment or coyotes with mange? I don't know, but the chupacabra reports in Russia say it likes to arrange its victims aesthetically. 

D - Djinn. These aren't the genies which are Jinn. The Djinn hate all living creatures and the gods. They want to combine into one powerful Djinn and cleanse the universe of everything else. What they need is a bunch of robots to form one giant robot! 

E - Elves. One of the most popular supernatural beings. But are they friendly or evil? While you're trying to figure that out, watch out for the invisible ones who cause the disease "elfshot." It was once a real medical condition when invisible elves shot people with invisible arrows. 

F - Father Time. A bearded old man who hands over the hourglass to a baby when the calendar changes to a new year. Some believe Father Time and the New Year Baby are one and the same, constant cycle of beginnings and endings. Both in diapers. 

G - Ghosts. Are they imprints left in this world from humans or beings from another dimension? Being haunted has long been a fear of humans, and there are accounts going back 2,000 years of young men playing practical jokes by faking hauntings. 

H - Hellhounds. These fearsome canines guard the world of the dead. There are several tales about headless hellhounds which I think would freak me out more than the ones with sharp teeth! 

I - Imps. Be it a tiny goblin or a lesser demon, these little critters like to pull pranks. All they want is human attention, but their wild nature prevents them from being good companions. Maybe if they stayed off the wings of airplanes, I'd be less afraid of them. 

J - Jackalope. It's not unusual to see myths about animal hybrids. But this one might not be totally fake. The Aztecs worshiped a creature like it, and it's no surprise it had to do with fertility. 

K - Krampus. Originally the Krampus combated white witches at the winter solstice, but then he became the Anti-Santa. He kidnaps naughty children and sucks the evil from them. Maybe he's related to the chupacabra? 

L - Leprechaun. If you capture one of these fairies, they will grant you three wishes. But not all of those wishes are possible. They can only imbue you with good luck to obtain whatever you want, so you still must do the work. Of course, that could mean simply buying a lottery ticket!

M - Mummies. Not zombies. They are born of a curse and have the intelligence they had in life. Also, mummies can gain beauty and immortality by eating human flesh. So not zombies because they are much worse! 

N - Naiads. Beautiful water nymphs. Children coming of age were washed in their waters, but watch out if you're a handsome man. These nymphs are jealous and greedy! And don't realize humans can't breathe water. 

O - Ogre. A giant monster that eats children. But not their feet. They do have some taste, after all! 

P - Pegasus. This divine winged stallion has quite the heroic mythology. He also has a very intimate relationship with the Muses. 

Q - Quetzalcoatl. Say that five times fast! He is the feathered serpent Mesoamerican god of wind and learning. Some legends say he was the only god who was against human sacrifice. Could be why there are several stories about other deities trying to kill him! 

R - Roc. This legendary bird has origins in myths around the world. In one, it shakes the Tree of Useful Things causing the fruit to fall, and that's why humans have useful things. If that tree existed today, you can imagine what "fruit" might grow on it and that is why the Roc only shook it once. 

S - The Stool. And yes, I mean poop! Several different droppings will come together to form one big sentient blob. Don't breathe in. The noxious fumes could kill you. 

T - Trolls. These creatures live isolated in mountains and caves. Many people in northern Europe still believe in trolls and have protected lands for them to live on. So if you're traveling there, always bring a goat. 

U - Unicorns. These magical horses with a single horn are not seen in Greek mythology because the Greeks believed them to be real. Though they described it as a wild donkey which liked to skewer people from behind with their horn! 

V - Vampires. There are so many tales about these bloodsuckers. Once upon a time, they were grotesque and fearsome, but now they are sexy and sparkling. Vampires used to cause mass hysteria through fear, and now they do it with their hot bodies. 

W - Werewolves. Oh look! Another creature that was once feared and is now the hero in several paranormal romances. And yet, women generally still don't like hairy men.

X - Xing Tian. A headless Chinese deity whose nipples are eyes and his belly button a mouth. Yet even without a head, he continues to fight battles. The image in my mind is like some weird Sid and Marty Croft character. Frightening. 

Y - Yeti. The Abominable Snowman. He was once worshiped as a Glacier Being, the god of the hunt. Nowadays, instead of hunting, he's being hunted by eager people with poor photography skills. 

Z - Zombies. Reanimated human corpses. Here's a handy tip: stop a zombie by feeding it salt. You might be stocking up on shotguns for the zombie apocalypse, but I'm buying a salt mine!

Huzzizzle of the Realm - November 2015 #horror #paranormal & #fantasy Reads

Books to keep you up at night!

New release by River Fairchild

Guardians of Telesma

An ancient prophecy. A doorway between realities. A woman destined to save a world—or destroy it.

When Kate Ryan discovers an ancient artifact at a dig site, her life is changed forever. Swept across the boundaries of dimension, she’s plunged into an alternate world of magic, shape-shifting cats—and a prophecy calling for her death at the hands of the Guardian.

Draven, Guardian of Telesma, took an oath to kill the Outsider whom the legend warns will destroy his world. He hesitates as his attraction to this woman proves stronger than his sense of duty. Now he must protect his sworn enemy against his own people as he struggles to prove the prophecy wrong.

Kate faces an impossible choice. Stay and try to save those who refuse to accept her, or turn her back on them and the man who’s captured her heart? If she makes the wrong decision, will it bring about their destruction?

Release Day - Dec 1st but available now for Pre-order!

/ Amazon / 

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Thanks for joining in the Realms Faire and playing the Phasers game! I was delighted to see many of you as winners: Nick Wilford, Olga Godim, Birgit, Michelle Wallace, and Elephant's Child!

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Coming November 25th!

 

Lovelorn Spirits (The Paramours #3)

 

The Paramours - ghost hunting with a kiss.

 

Vivian Ray does not like working with the suave Miles Walker, but he's the best medium in the paranormal business. When they are possessed by a pair of passionate ghosts, Vivian and Miles realize they might have feelings for one another. But it's difficult to separate their own emotions apart from the spirits', and Vivian doesn't want to believe she's in anything more than lust with Miles. There's something much more dangerous after them, though, and if they can't help the ghosts work through their past, the investigators could lose their own lives.

 

Pre-order here: Amazon * Kobo * Goodreads 

More Woo Than Boo!

The dark shadow in the corner. The misty figure in the cemetery. The puff of warm breath on the back of your neck when you're alone in the room.

Those things might cause some to run away screaming, but there are those of us who are fascinated by the supernatural. It's the allure of the unknown. How your heart beats faster, how your senses seem more sensitive, how every little thing has the possibility of being something extraordinary. It makes you feel more alive.

I'm a big fan of ghost hunting shows. A lot of the time, things are explained by simple reasoning, but then there are those moments when you can't explain something. The strange voice on a recorder or the shimmering image on the video footage. It's like a treasure hunt to find solid proof of the supernatural.

Fear still tickles at the back of my mind, but my curiosity has me more in love with experiencing something paranormal than it does telling me to run away. And I'm certain many other people feel the same way. We want to know and those bumps in the night won't scare us away. They will only woo us further.

Are you fascinated by the supernatural or would you rather have nothing to do with it?

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Check out The Paramours who are more in love with ghosts than I am!

Blurb: The Paramours - ghost hunting with a kiss.

When Nina Azure’s talent as a ghost dancer doesn’t persuade a handsome phantom to talk, she entices him with sizzling sexual energy. Ben Moore’s spirit is tied to this world with guilt, but he breaks his self-imposed silence for the beautiful Nina. Lust makes him fully physical and she loses herself to desire. She must help him carry on to the afterlife, but her attraction to him is immensely powerful. She must push aside her own feelings and let him go—and perhaps find romance among the living.

 

Buy links: Ellora's Cave * Amazon * Kobo

 

Add it to read on Goodreads.

Releasing this Friday:

Blurb: The Paramours - ghost hunting with a kiss.

Claire McKinney has a theory that poltergeists aren't evil spirits or negative energy. When she locates a powerful vortex at the center of a haunting, she discovers a gorgeous man trapped inside. Zendal cannot escape on his own, but if Claire can create enough sexual energy with him, he will be able to break free. Intense as their passion is, it does not release him from the vortex. Claire finds herself caught not only by the ominous portal, but by Zendal's carnal zeal as well. Can she extricate them from the trap or will they forever be its prisoners?

 

Add it to read on Goodreads.

Speculative Fiction with bite!

There are a lot of creatures in speculative fiction that can chomp and nibble you. In more ways than one! In celebration of my newest release, I want to hear about your favorite stories with bite. Give me more great tales to add to my TBR list!

A fledgling vampire wakes in a funeral home run by demons.

Blurb:

Erin Driscol works the perfect job consoling fellow demons by feeding off their grief at Putzkammer & Sons Funeral Home.

When fledgling vampire Nicolas Reese comes to Erin for help, she learns the truth behind the legends and hides him from his sire and the vampire hunters who seek him. But when the Putzkammers begin to die one by one, Erin is caught between her act of kindness and the need to save her adopted family. Only by facing her own personal demons can she stop the slaughter and still rescue Nicolas from his dark fate.

Author: Christine Rains

Editor: Cherie Reich

Cover Artist: Erin Dameron-Hill

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