Showing posts with label vampires. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vampires. Show all posts

Monday, August 7, 2023

Coming October 1, 2023 - The Folklorist by Eileen O'Finlan

 


I am excited to announce that my next historical novel, The Folklorist, will be released on October 1, 2023, by BWL Publishing just in time for Halloween! Charlotte Lajoie, a young professional folklorist, struggling to build her career in 1973, is given the 1839 diary of her ancestor Jerusha Kendall. Reading the diary leads her to believe that Jerusha and her family were involved in what would come to be known as the New England Vampire Panic. And it seems that at least one of Charlotte's ancestors is still angry about it. 

Jerusha Kendall was only nine years old in 1832 when something awful happened in her family, but she has no idea what. She has grown up knowing that not only her family, but the entire village of Birch Falls, Vermont is keeping it a secret from her. By 1839, when she begins keeping a diary, she's determined to learn what happened that caused her mother to stop speaking to her dearest friend, isolate Jerusha from all but her own family, and withdraw from their close-knit community.

As Charlotte studies Jerusha's diary, she starts to believe that she knows what happened even if Jerusha never figured it out. Meanwhile, Charlotte has her hands full trying to juggle work for an insecure, infuriatingly sexist boss at the New England Folklife Museum, decide on the way forward in her own career, and find a way to bring peace to an aggrieved ghost.

If you're interested in finding out what folklore, ghosts, and vampires have in common, check out The Folklorist in October.

Friday, September 9, 2022

Brace Yourself, Sweater Weather--and a New Book-- is Coming by Vanessa C. Hawkins

 

 Vanessa Hawkins Author Page


      September! It is offically spooky season! The stores are already stuffed full of Halloween goodies, and I just can't wait to jam them in all corners of my house until it resembles something haunted and is a possible candidate for Hoarders: Horror Edition. Whoot! I always get excited for this time of year, because not only are witches and warlocks about, it's also sweater and leggings season and MAN can I rock a good sweater/legging combo! 


For real tho! Pants are way overrated. I don't need that kinda stress in my life, especially with the holidays fast approaching. And as much as I love summer, I hate being so super hot that I can't go outside without slathering cream all over my face to prevent it from turning into some kind of fruit/veg hybrid! 


So leggings and sweaters! Cozy, yet fashionable enough that when someone comes for a surprise visit, you aren't hiding in the next room hoping they go away because you've been sweltering in your underwear all day. Also support. Leggings are like... the new bra. Especially for us folks who've had a baby or two or like to indulge in an extra slice of ice cream cake every now and then.


But despite sweater weather fast approaching, I can't get over the fact that Christmas decorations are already starting to show up on shelves. Is it just me? Is anyone else out there nauseated by the fact that December is like four months away and already the holly jolly face of Santa Clause is trying to pervert our thoughts with this overwhelming beast of a holiday? FOUR MONTHS! That's a third of the year that our stores are infested with this festive parasite!

It drives me nuts. I mean, I like Christmas, but I like Christmas in December! Leave September, October and November alone, Kris Kringle, we aren't ready for you yet! 

Saying that, I am excited to announce that my co author and I are about to release the second book in the Ballroom Riot series. If you didn't notice that sparkly new book cover up top, go and check it out! It would definitely make a great Christmas gift....


Bunker Blitz is set to release in October. Not sure of the exact date yet, but I can promise that it'll be out before Winds of Winter. That thing is just a lost cause by now. I mean... I really want to go watch House of Dragon but I just can't bring myself to do it until he finishes the Song of Fire and Ice series. So I guess I'll never see it... unless by some miracle he pens the book... or he dies and his publisher gets someone else to do it...

Which mean's he's basically immortal now *shrug*

 But in the meantime! Bunker Blitz! Ya know, in case you were too lazy to scroll up ;)


Resentment is brewing in the streets of Comero. Although local dragon Shad O’Rahin thought his enemies were finally eliminated, the return of an old rival threatens to shake his grip on the city’s illegal liquor trade. While he takes steps to eliminate the danger to his enterprise, Shad’s wife, Scarlet Fortune is caught in the crossfire. 

Scarlet is the last vampire left in the Comero Police Department. When blackmail begins to jeopardize her career, she launches an investigation to take care of the situation on her own. But with their first child on the way and an unexpected visit from reptilian in-laws throwing their peaceful homelife into turmoil, the situation may prove too tough to tackle alone. Especially when a pretty gold dragon starts making eyes at her husband!

Their difficulties only escalate, leading them both into danger as they peek at the rotten underbelly of Comero’s vampire blood trade. With other dragons in town vying to drive a wedge between them, can Scarlet and Shad find a way to face the threat together?

…all while picking out baby names?



Friday, May 21, 2021

Island of Mystery and Exile, by Diane Scott Lewis

 

St. Helena, possibly the remotest place on earth, has many myths besides being the place of final exile and death of Napoleon. Come explore the island's other tales.

A SAVAGE EXILE. If you don't like vampires, don't despair, enjoy the mystery and the unique island in the far South Atlantic. I don't get too graphic. The defeated French Emperor was exiled to St. Helen in 1815, until his death in 1821.

Vampires with Napoleon was a fantastical concept. And fun to write, even with the more 'bloody' aspects, though kept to a minimum. My heroine, Isabelle, is a maid to an arrogant countess whose husband joins Napoleon in his banishment after the battle of Waterloo in 1815. Who in his entourage can be trusted?

And what of the strange tales of a 'beast' who dwells in the mountains? Isabelle fights her attraction to Napoleon's enigmatic valet, Ali, as the secrets, and a few deaths, pile up.

"Isabelle is likable heroine, and I enjoyed watching her make the best of a bad situation. Anyone who enjoys historical romance with a paranormal twist might want to check (A Savage Exile) out."

~ Long and Short Reviews

To purchase my novels and other BWL books: BWL

Instead of beasts, an airport is the latest news from this mysterious rock situated in the far reaches of the South Atlantic Ocean. 

I'd planned to visit St. Helena when I first wrote about Napoleon, but the expense to travel there is outrageous. First, you fly into Cape town, South Africa, then wait for the Royal Mail boat to arrive, schedule iffy, and sail to Jamestown, 2,000 miles away. You must seek permission from the British government, who still owns the island. Now the airport makes it easier to travel.




Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène by François-Joseph Sandmann

Many myths surround this isolated 'volcanic fist' at the bottom of the world. One concerning Napoleon is that a hurricane swept over the island, rattling homes, ripping out trees, on the day of his death, May 5, 1821. This has since been debunked. It was actually a nice day, weather-wise.

Whenever anything goes wrong on St. Helena, people claim it's Napoleon's Curse. Rain on a parade, wind shear at the airport, any misfortune. But this seems a 20th century invention.

One story has the island's ancient tortoise, Jonathon, is so old that he actually met Napoleon. But Jonathon isn't quite that old, and he doesn't make house calls.

But vampires? The mythical creatures of St. Helena are the Moncat, a cat-like critter with pointy ears and a monkey tail. A sea serpent was reported sighted off the island in 1848 by the HMS Daedalus. A frightening beast 60 feet long. 

Of more recent sightings, a blonde mermaid, bathing near the mail ship RMS St. Helena, that serves the island. Wishful thinking. (Okay, that's my granddaughter in her mermaid costume)

The most prevailing story is about a Portuguese soldier, Fernao Lopes, who was abandoned on the deserted island in the sixteenth century for criminal activities. He endured thirty years in complete solitude. His ghost is said to still haunt the hills and caves.

Find out more about me and my writing on my website: Dianescottlewis

Diane Parkinson (Diane Scott Lewis) is a member of the Historical Novel Society and the Napoleonic Historical Society. She’s had several historical novels published. Her most recent is the Revolutionary War novel, Her Vanquished Land. 

Her upcoming novel Ghost Point, the 1950s Potomac oyster wars, love and betrayal, will be released in September.

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


Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Legend Tripping and the New England Vampire Panic

 


As I finish the revisions on Erin’s Children, the sequel to Kelegeen, to be released by BWL Publishing, Inc. in December of 2020, I’m already looking ahead to my next historical novel. It will be set in Vermont, moving between the 1830s and 1970s. One of the threads connecting the two time periods is an activity known as legend tripping. For those unfamiliar with this term coined by folklorists and anthropologists, it pertains to the adolescent rite of passage whereby a pilgrimage is made, usually at night, to a location where some horrific event occurred. If the site is rumored to be haunted, all the better!

During the 19th century several New England states, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Vermont prominent among them, saw the odd phenomenon of what would later become known as the New England Vampire Panic. 

Tuberculosis was rampant at the time, but often not well understood especially in isolated, rural areas. The highly contagious disease ravaged families and, sometimes entire communities.old Tuberculosis, or consumption as it was called in the 19th century, causes the victims to appear to be wasting away. Towards the end, they may cough up copious amounts of blood and complain that when trying to sleep it felt as though someone was sitting on their chest.

These symptoms put people in mind of a supernatural force sucking the life out of the patient. Folklorists and anthropologists believe that in their desperation to save a dying family member, people harkened back to an ancient European superstition, which claimed that a recently dead relative was returning at night to feast upon family members. The only cure for this was to exhume the bodies of relatives who had died of consumption to see if the corpse appeared fresh. If so, they had found the culprit! Removing the heart and burning it, then dismembering the corpse and rearranging it were believed to be the remedy as it prevented the “vampire” from rising from his or her grave.

Excavations have shown this practice to have been employed numerous times throughout New England in the 19th century. Once this became known in the 20th century, the graves of acccused vampires became obvious destinations for legend trips.

Interestingly, those who engaged in this practice rarely, if ever, used the word vampire. It wasn’t until this phenomenon was nearly over that Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published and became popular in the United States. Nonetheless, the notion was similar. Though it occurred mainly in rustic locales, the practice of exhuming and damaging a corpse for the purpose of stopping a vampire was well enough known at the time for Henry David Thoreau to mention it in his journal.

So how does this play into my next novel after Erin’s Children? Imagine a young woman studying for a degree in anthropology with a specialization in local folklore finding out that one of her own ancestors was one of the supposed vampires.


Nineteen year old Mercy Lena Brown of Exeter, Rhode Island aka 
"The Last New England Vampire"


Mercy Lena Brown's grave stone in
Chestnut Hill Cemetery, Exeter, Rhode Island.
Of all the supposed vampires, her grave became
the most popular with legend trippers.





Wednesday, July 29, 2020

The Narcissistic Villain




Villains can be a tricky proposition--in fiction as well as in our day to day world.  We all hope we don't become entangled with malevolent people--ones who wish us harm--in real life. "Mad and Bad & Dangerous to know," was said of Byron, who was definitely NOT the kind of man you wanted to enchant your daughter. However, in a story, a villain provides driving force to a plot, and gives the hero and heroine an antagonist with whom to spar.  Inside a book, we are safe; there is no actual blood spilled.

By the way, the gentleman on the spooky cover above is not the villain, although he is a shape-shifter. The villain in Zauberkraft: Black is "a man of wealth and taste" who also happens to be a vampire. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and vampires, certainly, have eternity in which to brood and plot.

Villains can be fun to write--my cohort were brought up on movie theater cowboy serials, thus today, in our most entertainment ready mode, we still enjoy a good melodrama. Here, the white hats win and the black hats are carted off to justice. And what could be more melodramatic than a movie like "The Heiress"? Though this picture was made before I emerged from my mother, it's one of those movies I vividly remember seeing for the first time. I remember long cold Skaneateles winter-frigid afternoons, wrapped in woolens and watching a small Zenith TV. The somber black and white flickering on the screen matched the mood of the frozen world outside.

For anyone who isn't familiar, here's the plot. A naive, lonely heiress falls prey to a narcissistic con man, whose plan is to marry her, drive her mad, and then have her committed so he can assume control of her fortune. At first, he is the caring, genteel lover of whom she's dreamed. He does every little romantic thing for her so that, without knowing anything about him, she accepts his proposal. In modern psychological parlance this is called "love bombardment."  It's the full charm offensive with which the narcissist sweeps his target off her feet.

Next, the husband seduces the parlor maid and enlists her aid in his plot. Then the two of them begin to undermine his wife's trust in her sanity. Every night, he turns down the gaslight in the hall just a little bit, all the while staunchly insisting that his wife's "just imagining" it. The setting, in 19th Century America, where women were easily dispatched to asylums by husbands who had tired of them, smooths the villain's way.

Now, more than half a century later, "gaslighting" is a term with which most are familiar. Now, however, instead of referring to the actions of a single smooth sadist in an old film, it's commonly used by therapists to describe one of the ways in which a narcissist first undermines and then controls his relationship partner. In the real world, the narcissist is a dangerous creature, and lately it seems they are everywhere.

Back to the more innocuous world of fiction, where a narcissistic personality type makes a great villain. The narcissist, it turns out, has a sort of universal playbook. Reliably unreliable, considering only their own advantage, they love nothing and no one. In their world, empathy, or its cousin, sympathy, are incomprehensible, concepts "for suckers." They swallow up the people around them like a black hole. Absolute power, a constant stream of praise from sycophants combined with blind obedience to their whims is a narcissist's dream of heaven.





Some of the other traits that characterize a narcissist are grandiosity, an excessive need for admiration, disregard for the feelings of others, inability to accept criticism, and an air of entitlement and superiority. They target vulnerable, empathetic people who have something they want; they are masters of manipulation. When they don't get what they want, they become epic bullies, hounding their targets into submission.


Without really knowing what exactly I was doing or sticking a label on and then writing a character to fit the diagnosis, I have used this type of antagonist in several of my books. In some of these stories, the character is somewhere along the spectrum toward utter self-centeredness.

After all, the true full blown malignant narcissist (at least, as a fictional character) is one who seems constantly in danger of "over the top." There is, after all, a wide spectrum of human behavior and one of the first duties of a writer is to convince the reader that the story is--on some level--believable. So many of my villains are somewhere in the dark gray end of the zone, not irredeemably black.  Still, there are some terrors in these books of mine. 







~~Juliet Waldron
Website of Juliet Waldron




Thursday, April 6, 2017

Say What, Now? By Gail Roughton


Visit Gail Roughton at Books We Love, Ltd.
Has it ever crossed your mind that a lot of problems are caused by folks unnecessarily complicating things? We've all got folks in our lives who're masters of that.  You know, like the people who, when hanging a picture, first pull out their handy-dandy stud-finder and locate a stud (regardless of whether the picture weighs a few ounces or whether it's in an ornate frame and weighs a ton), and then pull out the tape measure and measure top to bottom and side to side before picking a spot.  This was my husband's preferred method when he was younger; nowadays, he's more apt to follow my method of eyeballing the wall, hammering in the nail and hanging the picture. I've always been a "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line" type of gal.

But the prize-winners among the folks who unnecessarily complicate things are English teachers, especially senior high English teachers and college professors.  Please let me state here that I have the utmost respect for teachers, truly I do. However, I'm afraid teachers, especially those who teach in the aforementioned upper levels of the educational system, might have a bit too much respect for just how complex and complicated a writer's mind is.  We're really not that complicated.  What am I talking about?  



This.  This little diagram is what I'm talking about.  We're writers. We're not rocket scientists.We're telling a story. We're not making comments on the inequities of society.  Well, we are, but that's because any story we write is, of necessity, reflective of the society in which it's set. In other words, we write what we know because guess what? It's what we know.  Unless of course it's science fiction or fantasy. But it's not like we're sending out hidden messages visible only to those who sit and analyze our wondrous words. 

For instance, when my youngest son was in college, one particular assignment required him to discuss the significance of Bram Stoker's use of the Three Sisters in Dracula as an allegory for the social inequities in the treatment of women in Victorian society. Or something similarly esoteric to that phraseology, it's been a while.  And really. Say what, now? 

We're talking about Dracula here.  Truly one of the masterpieces of literature. I read it when I was in the eighth grade and I didn't sleep for three nights thereafter. I didn't sleep without a cross and a St. Christopher's medal around my neck for the next ten to fifteen years, either. Was that the effect Bram Stoker was going for? Oh, you betcha it was. Was he disappointed it never crossed my mind that the Three Sisters weren't being treated fairly as equals to the Count, just as women in 19th Century England weren't treated as equals to men? Well, I can't exactly ask him but I really doubt he'd have lost any sleep over it. I think if anybody asked him what was going through his mind when he created the the Three Sisters, he'd say "I was trying to scare the bloody hell out of anybody reading the story." And if anybody asked him for his thought processes in creating such an allegory for the social inequities of his society, his response would be "Say what, now?"  In an English accent of course.

Because evil never dies. It just--waits.
I write to entertain. To be honest, I write to entertain myself. That's honestly my primary motive for writing. I've written books widely disparate in style and genre and usually the bottom-line motive is I'm bored and I need some entertainment. That being said, of all my books, The Color of Seven is the one an English teacher would be most apt to find full of hidden allegories and parables and comments on society (not that I think any English teacher would ever be using it in an English class). That's because it spans over a century in time, beginning in the 1880's and extending to the present as it tells the story of a family living in Macon, Georgia in the post-Civil War South. Racism, mixed marriages, and prejudice are all elements of the plot. And then there's the eternal battle of good versus evil, light versus dark thing, I've always been a sucker for that, it gives me the excuse to throw black magic and voodoo and vampires in. I call it my Southern Gothic family saga horror, and my unabashed and unashamed motive in writing same was to scare the hell out of my readers while making them fall in love with some of the characters and totally loathe a few others, which is the pinnacle of success for any writer. (And at the risk of sounding as though I'm tooting my own horn, feedback from readers indicate I was successful in that endeavor, at least with a few folks.) 

As to the more serious social issues I admit are an integral part of the background and plot of this book--trust me, I didn't set out to write a novel highlighting those issues. They're in the book because I'm southern, born in 1954. I cut my teeth on Civil War history, I grew up in the 1960's. I never did a lick of research on anything in that book (unless you count copying the street names and business names off an old 1888 map of my hometown of Macon, Georgia which is why the story starts in the 1880's in Macon, Georgia--I wasn't about to waste that treasure) except for the voodoo black magic elements involved. I didn't do any research  because I didn't need to. And why not?  Because we write what we know, what's already there, burned into our brains and woven into the very fibers of our being. There's not always a hidden agenda.

Therefore, if any English teacher ever did ask a student to discuss the use of vampirism in The Color of Seven as a statement on the post-Civil War dichotomy between the races, trust me--the only appropriate response would be "Say what, now?" Everything doesn't have to be complicated, folks. You know what they say.  "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck--it's probably a duck." Enjoy the simple pleasures! (Including a good scare.)


Visit Gail At Books We Love, Ltd.
You can also drop in at her WebBlog,


Saturday, January 9, 2016

WHERE DID THIS AUTHOR COME FROM?



 


You’ve probably asked that question a lot. After reading a great book, one can’t help but wonder what made that particular author see the world that way, tell a story like that, and reach so deeply into your heart. It’s the real reason we write you know; to reach deep into your heart and find a place to connect.

For this writer, I can tell you it isn’t all fantasizing, typing, and smiling at book signings. It’s not all research, focus, and locking everything away while writing. Trust me; it’s not what you think. This writer’s life is a lot like yours. It’s full, and twisted, delicious and pretty messy. Allow me to explain.

I’ve been a radio and television copywriter, a wife (twice, long story), and a mother. I’ve worked in advertising, events planning, and in various offices doing various things; some far more fun than others. At the age of 40 I became a professional chef, a chef instructor, a culinary competitor, and eventually a professional culinary shopper. You’re looking at a grandmother, an author success coach, a speaker, a teacher, and finally a writer.

I’ve survived breast cancer and two divorces, living in Los Angeles and moving three thousand miles…twice. I tend to do things twice. I’m a volunteer, a community activist, and a good neighbor, except to the groundhog who mistakenly believes that I plant lettuce every year just for him and his family.

In other words, this author comes from everywhere and everything. She’s a pretty average person who loves history, spirituality, high energy, entertaining, fantasy, family, travel, and the supernatural. In fact, I think it probably takes all of that to make a writer.

Reading the above list makes me wonder when I got so old. Somewhere between wife and writer I learned something important about why writers write and how to find a place in the reader’s heart. It’s simple. Tell your truth. If a writer’s truth is on the page the reader will feel it, even if that truth is about an angel falling for an outlaw or a vampire seeking the key through the Pearly Gates. If a writer tells a story that taps into all the elements of their life, a reader gets a chance to ride the ride and enjoy the experience. It’s like Disneyland between the front and back cover!

What book took you on that adventure? Which author has found their special place in your heart? I’m Deborah Riley Magnus and I’d love a chance to tell you my stories!


Tuesday, December 29, 2015

KRAMPUS CHRISTMAS




An antidote to our relentless diet of Christmas sugar is the Krampus, a German/Austrian devil who comes to winter celebrations, usually on December 5, which is also Saint Nicholas' day. For a very long time in Bavaria and in the territories of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, he’s been the dark companion to their Good Spirit of the season. He’s doubtless a good deal older than the red-coated, croizier-toting saint, with his horns, furry pelt, and long tongue. Krampus arrives to punish bad children, right beside Saint Nicholas, in, some commentators have noted, a kind of bad cop/good cop routine. He carries chains which he shakes and a bunch of birch twigs, with which he threatens punishment.
 


Old Christmas cards from the region, especially from the 19th Century, show Krampus—sometimes portrayed as a female—delivering spankings in classic bondage attire. However, I believe that Krampus is in essence, male, particularly because of the enormous horns, trophies taken from the iconic mountain Steinbock, which are usually part of the headgear. Surviving from ancient times, despite more than a thousand years of intervening Christianity, there’s still a magnificent horned god who dances in German streets during this cold, sunless time. 




 Nature, in the form of the Teutonic Goddess, Mother Perchta, is no longer fertile, no longer generous to her children. The Wheel of the Year has turned. Now she whips the land with winds, ice, and snow. The birch is sacred to her, and is represented by the rune Berkana.  Are these demonic creatures wielding birch rods her minions?
Are they  avengers--or the agents--of Evil? After all, they are said to carry bad children away in sacks for late-night snacks! 
Are they chasing Winter away or are they the pain and cruelty of Winter itself?

The answers to these questions were lost a very long time ago. 


For the second part of my “Magic Colours” series I wanted to create a shape-shifting creature who lived in the Austrian Alps. Krampus came at once to mind, so I decided to use his legend, changing it here and there to fit my ideas about the character. 

In Black Magic, a disillusioned young soldier, Goran, returns home from the Napoleonic wars to find his family estate semi-abandoned in the wake of more than a decade of European war. During the "year without summer" (1816) thousands of  people in the northern hemisphere sickened and starved, for beside the cold and dark, there were torrential rains. (We now know this was caused by the cataclysmic eruption of the Tambora volcano.) In the alps, all the extra precipitation caused devastating avalanches.
Home at last, depressed, and aimlessly wandering, Goran stumbles into the seasonal celebrations of his tenants. It appears to be a traditional Summer Solstice party, celebrating the start of a warm and sunny year. There is food, beer and the possibility of sex, but after the talk, the drinking and dancing, he finds, too late, that he's walked into a trap. His tenant farmers have their own ideas about what their newly returned young lord can do for them.
When he awakens the next day, he finds himself changed into a sort of local god, not only the horny talisman of fertility, but an avenger of wrongs, a caretaker of man and beast. Now another link in an ageless chain, Goran will “wear the horns” and share, whether he likes it or not, the life of all who dwell on his  mountain.


~Juliet Waldron
 http://www.julietwaldron.com/
BLACK MAGIC is available at these sites:












 

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Thankful for Orange Kool-aid by Diane Scott Lewis


With an intense, type A personality, I sometimes find I haven’t stopped to “smell the roses” (or gardenias in my case) much. I stormed through my teens, twenties, thirties…and so on, careening toward something I hadn’t yet figured out. Finally, I decided to embark on the passion of my youth, writing novels. That will be so easy, won’t it? I’m vastly talented and creative, aren't I?

The other day, after tied to my computer screen, I had to let the dog out for his duty, and I sat on my front steps. The weather was gorgeous, no humidity, and I glanced down on my gardenia bush, which has never bloomed (too cold in Virginia, I guess) Update: I now live in Pennsylvania—even colder. I recalled the luscious blooms my mother grew in California. That fabulous gardenia smell I remembered from my childhood.
With Halloween only days away, more of my childhood filtered in to my cyber-fried brain. Our small town came alive—or dead—every Halloween. We children roamed the streets, entered haunted houses, and visited houses where fake hanged men were tossed from ropes off roofs so we could scream. My mother hand-made our costumes, and prepared popcorn balls and caramel apples that no one was afraid to eat, because we all knew each other and felt safe. We gathered tons of candy we weren’t leery about munching on.

One street over, two women who were teachers, wore excellent witch costumes and stirred a huge cauldron that they placed in their lighted garage every year.
Inside the black pot swirled orange Kool-aid, with orange slices floating on top. On Halloween night we children, after stuffing our mouths with sticky candy, knew we could come here and partake of a refreshing drink. I hope I thanked those women, because I always appreciated their efforts. Who these days would bother, because of all the warnings about tainted treats? Plus, some parent would sue if their little darling got cavities or fat thighs—all that sugar!
So I’m thankful for my wonderful, fairly safe childhood, all the kind people I met, my mother’s gardenias and that delicious orange Kool-aid.

To get in the Halloween mood, be sure to check out my vampire novel, A Savage Exile. Were vampires roaming the island of St. Helena during Napoleon’s exile? Is a top official one of them? Or someone close to the emperor? A young French maid is caught up in the dangerous mystery.

Click HERE to purchase A Savage Exile.

If you want to know more about my books, usually historical novels, please visit my website:
http://www.dianescottlewis.org



Tuesday, March 24, 2015

The Emperor Napoleon Invades England (almost) by Diane Scott Lewis



This year is the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. I wrote a book about Napoleon years ago, and found that after he was "captured" and taken to England, the reception there was quite the surprise.
In the summer of 1815, Plymouth, England received startling news. A ship had entered the sound with the notorious Corsican Ogre on board. England had fought different coalition wars with General Bonaparte (the government refused to accept him as in emperor) on and off since 1796, and defeated him at Waterloo on June 18, 1815.



HMS Bellerophon
In the aftermath of Waterloo, the 74-gun, third rate ship, HMS Bellerophon, was assigned to blockade the French Atlantic port of Rochefort. The ship had served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. In July, finding escape to America barred by the blockading Bellerophon, Napoleon came aboard "the ship that had dogged his steps for twenty years" to finally surrender to the British.
Napoleon had thought he would be granted asylum in England, but the British government knew it would never work. He’d still be too close to France, and many in the French military were still loyal to their defeated emperor. Rebellion in France was feared. Britain had to protect the fledgling government of the unpopular Louis XVIII.

On July 26th the Bellerophon entered Plymouth Sound. A multitude of small boats, full of curious people, quickly surrounded the ship.
The boats grew so thick that hardly any space of water could be seen between them. Women in bright hats, along with men and children, called out "Bonaparte." Napoleon accommodated them by showing himself at the ship’s rail and tipping his hat to the ladies. Here he was in the flesh, the man who had menaced the continent for nearly two decades. Napoleon was heard to remark about the English ladies, "what pretty women you have here."

The British officials dreaded the sympathy their relentless enemy was garnering among the common people, and ordered the boats pushed away from the vessel.
Skiffs from the ship, with armed sailors, rudely shoved back the spectators, causing some of the smaller boats to capsize, injuring the people inside, and at least one person drowned.
George Keith Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith, was at Plymouth when Napoleon arrived. The decisions of the British government were expressed through him to the fallen Emperor.

Lord Keith
Lord Keith refused to be led into disputes, and confined himself to declaring steadily that he had his orders to obey. He was not much impressed by the appearance of his illustrious charge and thought that the airs of Napoleon and his suite were ridiculous. He also grumbled that if the Prince Regent spent a half hour with Napoleon, they would be the best of friends.

The Duke of Sussex, the sixth son of George III—the king debilitated by madness since 1810—spoke in Napoleon’s favor. Allow him to remain. But the British government was adamant: Bonaparte, and everyone in his entourage, would not be allowed on England’s soil.

On July 31st, Lord Keith informed Napoleon that he would be exiled to the far, South Atlantic island of St. Helena. Under duress, Napoleon was transferred to the HMS Northumberland for the ten week voyage. He would die on the island six years later. Plymouth returned to the routine of a harbor town.
Sources: Wikipedia; In Napoleon’s Shadow, by Louis-Joseph Marchand, and my own research.

I have since written a book about a French maid who travels with Napoleon’s entourage to St. Helena, and discovers the island is haunted by vampires. Plus the enigmatic man she loves hides his own deadly secrets.
Both of them indulge in desire, but must scheme to rescue Napoleon from a sensuous vampire.

Click here to purchase A Savage Exile: vampires with Napoleon on St. Helena

Visit my website for more information about my books: http://www.dianescottlewis.org




 


Sunday, June 29, 2014

CREATURE FEATURES by Juliet Waldron




Several years ago I decided to begin to write a story centered around a creature. By doing that, I knew I was entering a crowded, expert field that had been successfully creating vampires and werewolves, witches, and all the rest of the occult cousinage for many, many years.



Wiki Commons Source
 
Still, why not? I had had a notion to write a sequel to Red Magic. Unlike the other novels I’ve written which are full-on historical fiction, Red Magic  was cross-genre in at least four ways, because there are elements of fantasy, history and adventure as well as the old-fashioned romance at the core. Moreover, if you end a story with the birth of fraternal twins-- in this case, a girl and a boy--there is an obligation to write a follow-up around them. It’s an ancient story-teller's convention, probably well-established by the time the Greeks dreamed up Apollo and Diana.   


 
Okay, so all well and good, but almost immediately I was stuck again. The tall, dark hero and his red-headed sister I already knew something about—their loves, loyalties and a few of their day-to-day human problems. The question remained: into exactly what sort of creature would my hero morph?

Personally, vampires alarm me. It seems to me there are enough scary people in the real world who fit into this category without making up fictional ones who are going to (somehow) become the love interest. On the other hand, I’ve always had a soft spot for werewolves, but there sure are a lot of them howling at the moon already.

I decided to step back a pace. Why not try something less limiting? Going after the all-encompassing “shape-shifter” idea seemed a way to make an unusual hero who wasn’t boxed into a particular set of conventions, such as drinking blood or only being active after dark. If the hero/creature could become different animals, his metamorphosis could be different every time, which would definitely give my imagination a work-out. Like the boy Wart in The Sword in the Stone, my hero could sometimes be a carnivore and sometimes a herbivore, sometimes four-legged, sometimes winged, as the need and/or inclination arose.



I'm nearing the completion of Black Magic now. If I can just keep my "fanny in the chair," it should be done within the next month and ready for a stern edit. For me, it's been quite an experience, a crazy road trip out of my usual historical writer's comfort zone. 




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