Reading by Season by Eileen O'Finlan

                                                                                                                                                                   

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Over the years, I have noticed an interesting phenomenon. At certain times of the year, usually at the change of seasons, I get the overwhelming urge to read specific types of books. Often, just as we are sliding into summer, I get the hankering for historical fiction set during either the American Revolution or the American Civil War. I've no idea why the warmer weather induces such a fancy. After all, those are hardly what most people would call beach reads, but there we are. 

I've never been into the typical "beach read" anyway. The last time I read a book on the beach (many, many years ago), it was The Shining by Stephen King. I was so into it that I completely lost track of time - a common occurrence when I'm reading a good book - and didn't realize that four hours had gone by. I'd been laying on my stomach, propped up on my elbows. I got a massive sunburn and wore the outline of it on my back from my low, scoop-back, one-piece bathing suit for the next two years! Yes, Stephen King books can be dangerous!

Now that we are heading into fall, the temperatures here in New England are beginning to dip, the days are getting shorter, and autumn is definitely on its way, my book cravings are turning to the supernatural. I'm beginning to amass a "to be read" pile of such books, having just finished two of the genre's classics - Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and Henry James's The Turn of the Screw.

I'm sure I'm not alone in turning to these types of books at this time of year. It makes sense. (Certainly more than yearning for Revolution and Civil War books just because it's summer.) Come the holidays and the long, cold winter, I'll probably start looking for something more cozy. But from now through Halloween, bring on the vampires, ghosts, and haunted houses. 

While it took a year to write The Folklorist, (after at least six months of research), I really got into it the most during the fall. It was exciting to craft a novel that could have been on my own autumn TBR list at the same time I was craving that type of book. I think it helped me write the kind of book I most wanted to read at that moment.

Included in this fall's reading will be books from BWL's Paranormal Canadiana Collection. If Nancy M. Bell's Night at the Legislature is any indication, they are sure to induce plenty of spine tingles!

Of course, I might throw a book or two by Stephen King into the mix. At least at this time of year, I won't be risking a sunburn.

The beginning of my fall TBR

A Window to my World

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Here is the cover of my new book which will pre-release in October. Isn’t it great? I love the idea of the window because my main character, Bonnie, is in the process of lifechanging events and the window is so symbolic of looking outward, or looking beyond the walls that have held her back.

Windows are often overlooked (no pun intended). They are just “there”. We look out a window, we look in through the window. We window-shop, yet sometimes we need to just see the window. I like the way Sydney J. Harris makes a comparison between us and windows:

“People are like stained - glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”

Perhaps a more well known “windows” expression is “The eyes are the window to the soul” or as another author said, “They say dreams are the windows of the soul--take a peek and you can see the inner workings, the nuts and bolts.” Either way, there is much more to each of us than window dressing, and sometimes we have to look deep to find it. At the same time, we need to be careful, or as Benjamin Franklin said:

“Don't throw stones at your neighbors if your own windows are glass.”

As writers, it is our job, and responsibility, to show our readers what is beyond those windows; to open the world for them and take them places they can’t go on their own, and to describe it in such rich detail they feel as if they are indeed in the middle of a flower garden.

“Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds and other minds and dreams. They are journeys you can make to the far side of the universe and still be back in time for dinner.” Neil Gaiman

I love to write, sharing stories with my readers that will make their days a little brighter, like light through a window. My love for the written word “unlocks doors and opens windows that weren't even there before.” (Mignon McLaughlin)

Erma Bombeck, one of my favorite columnists, once said, “Never have more kids than you do car windows.” This does not apply to books, because the more books you have, the more windows to open; the more worlds to explore.

So open this browser window and explore worlds I have imagined just for you. https://bwlpublishing.ca/baldwin-barbara/

I hope your day is as bright as a freshly washed window!

Barbara Baldwin

www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

www.amazon.com/author/barbarabaldwin

 

 

 

The Ghosts that Haunt New Brunswick by Diane Scott Lewis

 

Amelia is sent to a strange land in the eighteenth century to marry a soldier she's never met. But will the handsome Acadian, Gilbert, capture her heart? Part of the wonderful series of Canadian Historical Brides. The founding of a new colony by the Loyalists who fled the American Revolution.

To purchase On a Stormy Primeval Shore: CLICK HERE

As we near Halloween, I wanted to delve into the myths and ghosts of New Brunswick, Canada, where this novel is set.

In years of tales or myth, people have reported scented lilac ladies that float through rooms; keys that shift location; headless women; howling hounds; ghostly ships.

The Dungarvon Whooper is one of the most famous ghosts of New Brunswick. At Whooper Spring off the Dungarvon River (near Quarryville; once known as Indian town), there's an old logging campsite. The story goes that in the nineteenth century a young cook was murdered there by his lumber camp boss. His revengeful ghost terrifies local hunters, and especially lumbermen, with spine-tingling whoops.

Supposedly, the cook's grave has ever-blooming flowers. If anyone disturbs the grave, the ghost rushes out and screams. 

Another ghost story is told by an Acadian (the original French settlers) merchant. 

About forty years ago, in Northeastern N. B., a young man told a merchant that he was going fishing for months. He asked the merchant to supply his aged parents with groceries and when he returned he'd pay for them. Except, when the young man returned, he bought a car instead of paying the debt. When the merchant discovered this, he shouted: "He can go to hell!"

A week later, the young man went fishing again, got tangled in rough water, fell from his boat and drowned. Not long after, the merchant was cutting hay in his field. A big wind blew up, and in the middle of it rose the drowned man, his hair  blowing wild, wearing the same clothes he'd bought from the merchant's store. The merchant was so frightened, he burned the bills owed to him.

The drowned man's father came to him the next day and said he was walking his dog, and it howled and howled as if something was there. The unnerved father insisted on paying the debt. The village priest said to the father that his son was in Purgatory, and needed the debt paid so he could 'move on' to heaven.

In 1876, Rebecca Lutes of Moncton was only 16 when townsfolk believed she had supernatural powers. A judge condemned her as a witch and she was hanged from a tree branch, buried upside down, and concrete poured over the grave to keep her from crawling out. Today strange happenings are reported, floating lights, mysterious fires, and a creepy black cat, around her grave. 

I want to thank Alison Hughes for her wonderful site Eastern Gothic, ghost stories, for the first two stories:

https://new-brunswick.net/new-brunswick/ghoststory/ghost3.html

For more on me and my books, please visit my website: DianeScottLewis   

Diane lives in Western Pennsylvania with her husband and one naughty dachshund.

My Burford Ghost Story

 

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As a kid, I was traveling with Mom in UK, and staying in one of her favorite places, Burford, Oxfordshire. This is, BTW, 1961. She always stayed in black and white Tudor hotels if at all possible. We hadn't been in England for many days when we entered the interior courtyard of just such a place, driving in our green Morris wagon through the narrow made-for-carriages entryway. 

There was no double room available. After a bit of discussion, they put me upstairs on the 3rd floor which was right under the eaves of this venerable building. A steep stairway went up, and on the way the porter said they only put the young and spry up here.  

Then as now, I was history mad, so I scouted around, really enjoying the feel of the place, the dark beams, the crooked walls, the off-kilter floors, the heavy dark antiques which filled the hallways and public rooms. All this carved, blackened antiquity was new and delightful, the stuff of travel books, and now--I was actually here! After supper, I went up to bed to read, leaving Mom in the salon bar downstairs talking to other guests. 

 The toilet (a.k.a. “loo”) was down the hall, so I'd made a final trip before settling in for the night. There wasn't much light up there, just enough to see the stairwell opening. I knew there were only two other guests staying up on the floor besides me.  

The roof, with beams bare, slanted down over the bed, which was a formidable four poster with carved posts and broad box feet. It, my mother had said was "probably Jacobean." Even if it wasn't, it was making a credible effort to look even older. I remember the smell, too, of polish, of damp and of the ages since the house had been built. Clearly, this room wasn't used often. I finally fell asleep listening to footsteps below coming and going and a blurry mumbling sometimes interrupted by laughter seeping up from the floor below.

 I awoke in the night—and to my distress, I had to go to the toilet, which meant a walk across the hall. I groped around for the light and found my door key. With the key clutched tight, I descended from the high bed. It was very quiet now, just after midnight by the watch I'd set on the nightstand. 

I didn't have the suitcase which contained my bathrobe with me. Dressed only in a flannel nightgown, I didn't want anyone to see me, but when I opened the door, it was now entirely dark in the hallway. That pitiful dim light, I thought, must have gone out.

 Then, just as I finished locking the door behind me, I turned and saw the ghost. I knew enough English History to know this was a cavalier, a fine one, too, with long locks and a trimmed beard which came to a nice Charles I point.  He had high leather gloves and a hat with a red plume. His collar was of lace, and he had on a long waist coat, but no outer jacket. 

 Now, FYI, the English Civil War was not my preferred time period. No, at fifteen, I was an obsessive Ricardian, devouring Paul Murray Kendall's Richard III, and Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time and historical novels set in the appropriate time period. The doings of the members of the House of York were as familiar to me as were those of my schoolmates. 

Since we'd begun to travel in the UK, if a thing wasn't medieval, well, it was barely worth looking at. In fact, I had been anticipating the next day, when Mom and I were to drive to see what remained of the home of Lord Lovell, who'd been King Richard’s dearest friend. His home was now a ruin beside the nearby River Windrush.

 

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The ghost put one hand on his hip. His lips moved and I understood what he said, although there was no actual auditory sensation involved. He said he was an ancestor of mine, who had come here to raise a company to fight for the King, and that he had been waiting for me for a very long time. The oddest thing about him was that he appeared to be almost up to his knees in the floor, no boots were visible.

 At this point, I got scared. Suddenly, I was cold, freezing! I wanted to run but I couldn't move, to shout, but the sound stuck in my throat. 

Then, it changed again. Although I was still standing in the hallway, standing in my nightgown, with that low-wattage electric light illuminating drab yellowish walls, not a single creature, living or dead, was there with me.

 The next morning over breakfast, I told the entire story to Mom, including the fact that the ghost had “stopped at the knees.” My mother got very excited, for she never sees things like that, and has always wanted to. She was terribly interested in what the ghost had said, because she said she had always had such a longing to have a cavalier in the family. I remember saying something annoyingly teenage like "if only he had been a medieval ghost."

 At this point, people at the next table were giving us looks. Then, the host, who’d been  saying good morning to other breakfasters, came by. He moved a chair over to our table and said, sotto voce, "Ah--don't-please--talk about that in the dining room. I'm terribly sorry your daughter was disturbed, but that—fellow--is quite a nuisance, you know. When he’s active we can barely use the third floor--especially that back guest room."

 We leaned heads together over the table and continued the conversation quietly. Our host went on to explain that he’d had a parapsychologist visit, an investigator who’d also, after staying upstairs for a few days, had had an encounter with the third floor ghost, though it hadn't spoken to him. Our host said that the investigator had explained that we only saw the ghost down to the knees because “he is standing on the old floor—the way it was before remodeling,” an event which had apparently taken place just after the last war.

 So that's one of my ghost stories, a thing which happened a long time ago. I have come to doubt this man truly was an ancestor, however. A branch of my mother's family had originally come from the Burford area, but they were probably weavers or something similar, not sword carrying gentlemen. Retelling this tonight, I wonder if this “ancestor” bit was the line the ghost used on all the history-struck teens he met.

 

Juliet Waldron

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Nova Scotia Ghosts

Ghost Stores – how true are they?

 Although the stories of women are scarce, there is an unlimited supply of ghost stories for the Maritime Provinces. They comprise a collection of forerunners, apparitions, and other-worldly events. Forerunners foretell a death. They include:

 

• three knocks on the door with no one outside
• visions of a relative seen in the night
• ghostly figures following you on the road
• non-existent figures are seen in a rear-view mirror
• footsteps heard on the stairs with no one there
• footprints are seen on a floor where no one has walked
• the sound of a vehicle arriving but no one is there

Usually, forerunners are followed by the death of a family member or friend often before that person has reached a ripe old age.

For two real ghost stories of this generation, told to me by a reliable source, visit my blog on A Plethora of Ghosts

Stories of ghostly events and their outcomes are available in many books. 

 (The Books are linked to Amazon.ca if you would like the book.)

 The most famous eastern story collector is Helen Creighton whose books, Bluenose Ghosts, are well known.

 I've also shivered to the Ghost Stories of authors like Vernon Oickle.

 

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Here Comes the Brides of Banff Springs by Stuart R. West

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Rarely do I read romance. Even rarer? Rereading a book. But that's exactly what happened with author Victoria Chatham's elegant and entertaining historical romance novel, Brides of Banff Springs. The first time I read the book, I sat back with a sigh, wishing I could spend more time with Ms. Chatham's wonderful characters.

Books We Love LTD recently rereleased an extended second edition of Banff and, of course, I dug right into it. I loved it all over again.

The title refers to a myriad of "brides" of varying social and economic fortunes, a sort-of "brideacopia" of Downton Abbey-styled colorful characters. There's Fliss, a poor, sad maid at the ritzy Banff Springs Hotel in Canada, who's married to a bellhop, but has to keep their unity a secret in order to maintain her job; on the flip side, there's Burma, a brassy, sassy spoiled brat of a socialite who's engaged to a truly cretinous gold-digger; hey, how about the mysterious ghost bride who haunts the Banff Springs Hotel?; finally--and best of all--there's the heroine, Tilly, a down-on-her-luck poor girl who begins her backbreaking duties as a maid at the hotel while maintaining a never give in attitude and upbeat spirits. She's also being pursued by amorous trail guide, Ryan, but holds her own.

I'm certain you'll agree after checking out the following excerpt:

* * *

To Tilly, it was the loveliest evening of her life. Just before Ryan left her, he chucked her on the chin, and she smiled up at him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. “Wear pants if you’ve got them. I’m taking you trail riding.” Tilly choked back a groan. There it was again, that proprietary streak that gave Ryan his take-charge attitude. It might work for guides and packers, but it sure wasn’t going to work for her.

She fisted her hands on her hips. “I’m going to marry you. I’m going to take you riding,” Tilly said. “Doesn’t it ever cross your mind that a girl might like to be asked what she wants?”

Ryan looked at her in mild astonishment. “Don’t you want to go riding?”

“That’s not the point,” Tilly sputtered. “Why can’t you just ask me, instead of telling me? I do have an opinion of my own you know.”

His easy-going shrug infuriated her even more. “All right. Would you like to go trail riding with me tomorrow?”

“Thank you.” Tilly tilted her chin up as she glared at him. “I would very much like to go riding with you. And I do have pants and boots.”

“Hmm.” He appeared to be considering her response. The gleam of humour in his eyes put her on edge and she looked up at him warily, waiting for the comeback she knew would trip off his tongue. “So, if you’re coming with me anyway,” he said, “why make all that fuss? Why not just say okay?”

 “Because you can’t just take it for granted that I’ll fall in with your plans.” Tilly pulled away from him. “What if I’d wanted to do something else?”

“Do you?”

“Ryan!” She threw up her hands in despair. “I can see that arguing with you will be like trying to catch a cloud.”

“Don’t waste your time then.” He kissed the tip of her nose, wished her goodnight, and walked off leaving her laughing.

* * *

I adore the character of Tilly. And I think that's the secret to the book's success. Hands down, she's one of the best heroines I've come across lately in fiction. She puts the pluck in plucky. But the other characters are just as vividly drawn by Ms. Chatham's exquisite prose. And did I mention there's a ghost story involved? Something for everyone. Hey, if this ol' persnickety codger fell for the book's charms, ANYONE can.

I give it 5 enthusiastic thumbs (or...um, something like that)!

Check into the lovely Banff Springs Hotel today. Tell 'em I sent you.

Book your reservations now!

Ghostly and Supernatural Tales from Quebec Province

I do not enjoy scary books, ghost tales, or frightening movies. Maybe it’s the creepy music in the flick added to augment the buildup to a blood-curdling moment that sends my heart thumping to near lethal levels and my blood pressure rising. My husband and daughter love them. Even coming through a closed door, that sinister music has its desired effect on me.

Not to say I don’t believe in the unexplainable. Two days after our beloved springer spaniel Casey crossed over the Rainbow Bridge at the age of 14, I was watching TV. Something in the periphery of my vision caused me turn away from the Yankees game. Not trusting what I thought I saw, I did a double-take. To my astonishment, there was Casey standing in the open doorway, her head hanging, ears forward, attention focused on me—a familiar posture in life when she wanted something. We made eye contact for a long moment. And then she dissipated like smoke in the wind. Some have told me that Casey probably just wanted to say goodbye.

Years ago, when I was still living in my parents’ home during summer breaks from college, I was having trouble falling asleep one night. Maybe I was suspended on that fragile boundary between dreams and consciousness when something tangible brushed my cheek and rustled the hair falling over my ear. And then a woman’s whispered voice announced (to whom or what?), “She’s asleep now.” Shortly after, a deep, sonorous baritone from beyond my open window began intoning what sounded like “Pil…grim’s…Pri-i-ide.” If I wasn’t 20-something at the time, I probably would have high-tailed it into my parent’s room and begged to let me sleep with them.

OK. This is supposed to be about ghosts, ghoulies, and other bump-in-the-night stuff from

Mark Twain

Quebec Province. As a Connecticut Yankee, no one deserves a mention here more than Mark Twain. This is from a piece by Mark Abley in the Montreal Gazette (October 17, 2014)

In December 1881, one of the most celebrated writers in North America came to  Montreal on a lecture tour. Mark Twain … was then near the height of his fame. …

 “That afternoon, a reception had been held for him in a long drawing room of the Windsor Hotel on Peel — recently built, and at the time the most palatial hotel in Canada. There, Twain noticed a woman whom he had known more than 20 years earlier, in Carson City, Nevada. She had been a friend, but they had fallen out of touch. … She seemed to be approaching him at the reception, and he had ‘a full front view of her face’ but they didn’t meet.

“Before he gave his evening speech in a lecture hall, Twain noticed Mrs. R. again, wearing the same dress as in the afternoon. This time they were able to speak, and he told her that he’d seen her earlier in the day. She was astonished. ‘I was not at the reception,’ she told him. ‘I have just arrived from Quebec, and have not been in town an hour.’”

Baron Baumgarten

All right. I agree. This is kind of “woo-woo,” but hardly the stuff that inspires goose bumps. But both Quebec and Montreal, with their long and illustrious histories, are rife with tales of the mysterious and macabre. There are so many such stories that I’ll limit them both by time and necessity.

As a writer of historical fiction, I’m drawn to some of these older stories. For example, McGill University is Montreal’s oldest (founded in 1821) and also one of the most haunted in a city of multiple haunted places. Its Faculty Club was once the opulent mansion of the German-born sugar magnate, Baron Alfred Moritz Friedrich Baumgarten.

At the turn of the 19^th century, the Baumgarten house was a center of social activity, so much so that it became the favorite stopping place of Canada’s governor-general when in Montreal. The start of World War I ended all that when anti-German hysteria forced him to sell off his assets and lose his standing in society. He died in 1919, a broken man. In 1926, McGill University bought the mansion to house the school’s high chancellor, General Sir Arthur Currie. After Currie’s death in 1933, the building was repurposed for use as a faculty club.

From the beginning, faculty and staff at the club reported feelings of unease when in the building, while others experienced some truly strange happenings. A piano in the basement began playing itself and no manner of trying to stop it succeeded. Doors opened and closed of their own accord. Elevators ran between floors with no one inside to operate them. In the billiard room, balls moved on the table and into the pockets as if a game were being played, and portraits on the walls appeared to follow people with their eyes as they walked past them down the halls. Even its phones had a life of their own, calling college offices late at night when no one was in the building. And then there’s the fireplace, closed off for decades, still emitting the smell of ash and smoke. There are tales of murder, particularly that of a young servant girl whose untimely death had been covered up and whose spirit has been seen wandering aimlessly, apparently seeking justice. Some postulate that many of ghostly happenings are the work of Baumgarten himself, whose restless soul attempts to regain what had been lost.

The death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West

On the Plains of Abraham in Quebec on September 13, 1759, the battle between France and England for supremacy in the New World ended with the death of the charismatic British General James Wolfe and took his opponent, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, who died of his injuries the following day. Here some 258 years later, ghosts of the dead from both sides can be seen drifting across the battlefield, particularly one lone soldier at the entrance to Tunnel 1, accompanied by the acrid smell of sulfur smoke and the sound of cannons.

From Montmorency Falls in Quebec comes a sad story and one that seems to have many similarities to other tales of such nature. That of a beautiful young woman whose fiancé was called off to war and died in 1759 during the French and Indian War. Legend has it that the grief stricken maiden donned her wedding dress and went out in the evenings calling his name in hopes that he would return. The Lady in White has often been seen in the mist of the falls, tumbling to her death.

Of course there are more such stories, many more, but for now that’s all folks.

Wishing you all a ghoulishly Happy Halloween...but please keep the music down.

 

 ~*~

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Kathy Fischer Brown is a BWL author of historical novels, Winter Fire, "The Serpent’s Tooth" trilogy: Lord Esterleigh’s Daughter, Courting the Devil, The Partisan’s Wife, and The Return of Tachlanad, an epic fantasy adventure for young adult and adult readers. Check out her BWLAuthor page or visit her website. All of Kathy’s books are available in e-book and in paperback from a host of online and brick and mortar retailers. Look for Where the River Narrows, the 12^th and final novel in BWL’s Canadian Historical Brides series, coming in July 2018.