Pull up a blanket, a cup of coffee (or tea for others), a nice little comfy corner of a couch (or your side of the bed), and spread the joy reading. If you like anything paranormal (werewolves, vampires, witches, demons and more) this is the place for you. If you have any suggestions for me, let me know. I will try them out and put what I think on here.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
#100blogfest
So anyway back to the story. In the playground was a really filthy toiler. If it was in this modern era it would be condemned. Well on my first day or so, I went to the toilet and saw this boy. I was in shock. I ran back into the playground to double check and there he was again. How could this be?
Again I went back into the toilet to find he was still in there. It was almost like an episode of Dr. Who or Star Trek where he kept getting beamed from one spot to the other. So I went to this kid in the toilets mumbling my disbelief at what was happening.
He must have thought I was some lunatic. But after he didn't respond to my garbled conversations, I dragged him into the yard to prove my theory. And low and behold I was right - there were two of him. They must have thought I was some weird nutter when in fact I had never seen twins before.
These blogs are all about fun and sharing. Thank you for reading '#100blogfest' blog. Please follow this link to find the next blog in the series: http://martinkingauthor.com/blog/7094550076
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Guest Blogger: Ian Fydell
How many of you have ever looked up at the stars and wondered what's out there? I bet many of you have. When I was seven years old my parents took me to see a movie some of you may know. It was a "little" film called Star Wars. I can remember pulling up to my house and when I got out of the car, I lagged behind and stared up at the stars wondering...was there a Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker out there battling for control of the universe? Or were there other forms of life somewhere in space...and that's where it all started for me. Later on in Junior High School, my English teacher would encourage me to continue writing as I did well in creative writing assignments. This was before we had computers at home and I remember handwriting many short stories and sharing them with my teacher and family members. Before I knew it, along came my teen years. Friends, cars and girls took up most of my free time. In my junior year of High School I had met the girl I'd eventually marry. Flash forward a few years and I was working a full-time job, then came children, a house with a mortgage and big responsibilities. Writing was always in the back of my mind, but I never could find the time to write. Unfortunately, one day at my job I was severely injured by a piece of machinery. This injury forced me into a new role...Mr. Mom. It was a tough adjustment going from bread winner to bread baker. It was a stressful time in my life and I was told I should look into a hobby. Playing sports and working out weren't an option because of my injury. One day it hit me! I thought, why not go back to that time when I was a seven year old kid who loved to look up at the stars and dream.
Breathing Space: Book One Of The Exodus Trilogy takes place in the year 2095, and the Earth is in severe ecological decline. Pollutants, wars, deep mantle mining, and everyday disregard for our planet have finally taken their toll, and now earthquakes, droughts, volcanic eruptions, and plagues are regular occurrences. Within a few decades, a century at most, Earth will no longer be habitable. Terraforming and conservation efforts have been ineffective; it's just too late to stop the decline.

A malfunction strands them in a sea of tall grass hundreds of miles away from their intended landing site. As they make their way across the plains, they encounter a variety of animals, including intelligent felinoid predators. Eventually the team makes contact with the primitive Toborg, furry hunter-gatherers who appear to have constructed the great pyramids observed by the Exodus probe.
I am not a fan of "predictable endings." Why should the guy ALWAYS get the girl...why does the good guy ALWAYS have to win? When reading my trilogy I warn my readers to expect the unexpected. If you'd like to order a signed copy of my novel you can go to my website, www.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Guest Blogger: Carole Gill
When I was twelve years old, I read Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca. Over the course of the next few years I read every novel she wrote. That, along with Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and Charolotte Bronte's Jane Eyre did it.
What was that I hear you ask?
Answer: I was under the hypnotic spell of the gothic romance narrative.
I cried out for Heathcliff along with Cathy. I felt her icy ghost hand reach inside the window to her old room.
I wept with Heathcliff when he opened her grave for he could not bear to be parted from her any longer.
I felt Jane Eyre's love for Edward Rochester, her joy at being at last his bride and her horror of hearing Rochester say at church, "there will be no wedding today!"
I heard his voice call to her during her self-imposed absence and I heard Jane cry out "I am coming, wait for me!" as she hurried to be forever with Edward Rochester.
I felt the second Mrs. DeWinter's terror as she gazed down upon the rocks Mrs. Danver's wished her to hurl herself down upon.
I felt her love for Maxim and her terrible fear that he would never get over Rebecca.
There was no turning back, not ever. Not even when I found that I loved writing and reading horror. Yes, horror!
You see, I joined the two together in my own writing, by taking dark horror and enriching it with gothic narrative!
My novel, The House on Blackstone Moor is a homage to these novels, yet it's storyline is far darker and more intense.
I wish to write gothic romance unlike any that has gone before. My novel has vampirism, madness, obsession, and devil worship in it.
It's told from the point of view of Rose Baines, who comes home to discover her mad, incestuous father killed himself and her family.
This is not paranormal romance with racy bits. This is darkest gothic horror joined with some romance. Romance I feel enriches the tale and makes us care far more about the characters.
Rose survives two madhouses only to come to Blackstone House, a lonely house on barren, haunted moorland. There are hideous secrets in that house and terrible evil within.
There are demons and fallen angels and Satan too as well as a host of vampires including child ones in this tale.
Here is an excerpt:
"I promise I will tell you everything. The only thing I ask in return if for you not to judge me until you hear my entire story.
When I recall that dreadful night I remember it in confusing images and noise. People came and went. Gentle hands touched me trying to soothe away the shock and the agony - voices too, hushed and sad voices, telling me things I could not then understand.
"Go away!"
I probably said that, though I can't be sure.
Lucidity was not my strong point that night. I do recall someone carrying me out of my home to a neighbor's house.
We lived in Notting Hill then moving from Mayfair after my father's illness - more about that later.
The house was on Blenheim Crescent, a respectable residence in a fairly affluent neighborhood. Despite this, the grander environs of Mayfair was much remembered and longed for by my mother especially. My mother who now lay caked in blood in her bedroom in Notting Hill.
"You remember me, don't you Rose? It's Dr. Arliss."
Dr. Arliss? Our physician. Was he there?
"I am sorry Rose, but you will have to go with them."
People can't be left around screaming, you understand, and I am silenced by strong hands. "Come along miss. That's better."
I hadn't the sense to ask where I was being taken. All I can remember is being removed from the neighbor's house.
They explained that I couldn't very well stay in my own home surrounded by the blood-spattered corpses of my murdered family now could I?
They half dragged me down the stairs and out into the icy rain.
"Just get her in . . . "
A woman reached for me. I caught sight of her face; she looked serious though not unkind. "Come along now dear."
Dear, that was nice. I do believe I thank her. Well, I wasn't right in my head was I?
"Where are you taking me?"
So polite, a soft refined voice heard at church socials . Not me. Churches and I never mixed. Of course I would regret that in the future.
"Harry go get the restraints"
Restraints? It doesn't affect me because it's nothing to me, I'm not really there you see. Well, not all the time.
I must explain something. The first hours following the carnage were a blur to me really. I have only come to understand things over time, which is better in a way, so I can tell you my story more clearly.
I dozed, I think. There had been a pinch in my arm earlier and Dr. Arliss telling me he was giving me something to relax me.
the wagon moved - clip clop - down the streets for an indeterminable amount of time, but then stopped. A door opened and other arms reached for me now. "That's right, love, all out."
They were taking me into a building of some sort.
"What is this place?"
I'm not sure if I asked that question, if I was able to. If I was, I know I didn't receive an answer. Someone had me under the arm, one of the men from the wagon. "It's alright."
Why was everyone telling me it was alright when it was the worst time of my life?
We stopped inside a vestibule. A woman looked up from a high desk, not at me. She looked instead at the man who was still holding my arms. "Name?"
He took out a piece of paper, glanced at it and said, "Rose Baines of 22 Blenheim Crescent, Notting Hill."
"Oh! A lady, are we dear?" I started to answer but her words drowned me out.
"Right, put her in with the rest of them."
This is when I started to feel fearful. The rest of them? That didn't sound nice. I needed help - had I been arrested? They didn't think I did it, did they!
I started to struggle, which was the worst thing I could have done.
"Now stop that at once!"
I cried out. "I am innocent please help me!"
They dragged me away then and as they did I caught whiff of ether and disinfectant.
Was I in a hospital? Maybe that was good, it was better than being in a prison.
Why then, if it wasn't a prison did I see a massive gate just ahead in the very direction we are heading?
I saw a surly face along with jangling keys and I heard the sound of locks being opened.
"In here."
It was a smallish room, more like a cage than a room and far too small for the small humanity populating it. A sea of the most miserable and pathetic faces greeted me. Some were holding their sides and rocking back and forth, others were sleeping or crying. One or two were crouched against the filthy walls muttering to themselves in their agitated state.
The realization hit me. They thought me insane.
I cried out yet no one came. "Please, someone!"
The pathetic creatures I found myself with began to repeat my cries. They didn't do it to mock me I'm certain, but it was horrible anyway.
At last I was quiet. I couldn't stand their shrieking and if that wasn't bad enough, most of them filthy and smelled of the street and the gutter.
I was there for a long time I think, crying quietly and dozing too. An attendant came around a few times, mostly to look in at us and then saunter away, immune to protestations or questions, mine included.
I did sleep. I don't know for how long . . .
Due to reader response, I am writing the sequel, Unholy Testament, which is basically a confession by a demon. He takes it upon himself to confess to the one he claims to love all the sins he has committed during his existence.
There is much ground to cover from his beginnings to ancient Egypt and Jerusalem to Dacia, ancient Transylvania, on to the Crusades, the Black Death, Countess Elizabeth Bathory and so on.
The story is told against a backdrop of tremendous tension as nothing can be assumed. There may be no happy ending here or perhaps there is.
After all, what in life is certain?
Please visit my website/blog, and join my Facebook author page, I would love to see you there!
Thank you!
Friday, August 5, 2011
Me & My Ghoulfriends

After I read "How To Date A Werewolf" I was immediately attracted to her books. And Rose Pressey did it again in "Me & My Ghouldfriends"
Larue is the main character, who is the owner of Book Nook a little bookstore she bought from her grandparents in Magnolia Kentucky. She sees & talks to the dead.
Larue is constantly followed by none other Mr President Abe Lincoln. LOL I know right?
Anyways, Larue meets new hunky coffee guy Callahan who is the owner of Full Cup , which is the new coffee shop of course right next door to Book Nook.
She then realizes she has competition, Bitch across the street Brianna wh
o thinks
she can have any man. She goes on a few dates with Callahan, and knowing he has the hots for her as well, notices something is not right.
He stopped talking to her, his eyes are different, and finds out he has been with Brianna.
Larue and her bestie Mindy spy on her, and finds out she is a witch, and Larue tries everything she can to save Callahan.
Will she save him? Or will Brianna have her way?
Me & My Goulfriends is on the top of my list fave books, and I suggest you check her out!!!
Buy Me & My Ghouldfriends for .99 Me & My Ghoulfriends
Check out her website here
And follow her on Twitter
Sunday, July 31, 2011
An Article From Nicole Cushing

Nicole Cushing, is a fellow author who came out with works such as an anthropology "Werewolves & Shapeshifters: Encounters With The Beast Within" and "In Laymon's terms"
I saw an article by her through Dark Media City, and I found it quite interesting. And decided, why not post it on here, for those who haven't found it before, and will also get them going as well. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did . . .
"Horror isn’t the only thing I write, but it may be the genre I love the most. During this past year, I’ve discovered myself gravitating more and more to the short fiction of authors like Ramsey Campbell, Gary Braunbeck, and Glen Hirshberg. These stories seem (to me) to have lived up to horror’s greatest promises to move the reader, evoking a series of intense emotions (regret, revulsion, and grief, to name a few) through rich characterization. Often, the tales deal with the aftermath of trauma. Sometimes, they work because they manage (through the skillful use of language) to create subtext, mood, theme, and atmosphere; to weave dread into otherwise ordinary settings or places (Campbell, in particular, is the master of this variety of neuron-tingling subtlety; check out his World Fantasy Award-winning “Mackintosh Willy” to see what I’m talking about).
I want to see this sort of horror fiction proliferate, but it faces a daunting challenge. A generation of horror authors (my generation of horror authors, as well as those in their twenties), have been raised with movies (foremost) and television programs ( a close second) as their primary literary influence.
I’m not the only one who notices this. If anyone knows horror, it’s the aforementioned Mr. Braunbeck. In his Bram Stoker Award winning memoir/manifesto To Each Their Darkness he writes the following: “most of (the next generation of horror authors) have no influences that existed before 1982, and much of their work doesn’t read so much as horror novels as they do film or miniseries treatments.”
It’s an odd situation. It’d be like a sculptor describing Monet as her primary influence, or an actor basing his performance on the style of a particularly gifted trombonist. Something’s just not right. Film is an art in and of itself, and great things have been done with it. But it’s not writing. Writers should read to help learn their craft, to become familiar with the topography and terrain of language. Language is the primary tool of the trade. It’s so simple it borders on tautology: words are the building blocks of fiction.
Only, something has happened in the last generation. The horror boom of the ’70s and ’80s unleashed a massive wave of film. I don’t think it’s possible to have grown up in that era and not have been influenced (at least indirectly) by Stephen King book-to-movie adaptations. And if it wasn’t King, it was Romero. Or it was Serling in his Night Gallery phase. Or it was any one of the syndicated horror anthology shows (Freddy’s Nightmares, Friday the 13th: The Series, Tales from the Darkside, Tales from the Crypt etc.) Mine was the first generation to be carpet-bombed with horror in a variety of visual media (low budget film, big budget film, network and syndicated television, some good and some lousy but all of them, of course, visually-oriented).
I know the Goosebumps books appeared in the early ’90s, but they came too late to be any good to me. The damage was done. I think that any writer who grew up in that era came to the sacred art of story telling with expectations formed in front of one or another flickering screens. Our brains were changed to filter the idea of horror through a common, televisual/cinematic schema.
At the same time, King evolved into something I’m not quite sure we’ve ever seen before: the horror author as bona fide celebrity and wealthy role model. One can scarcely imagine a skittish Lovecraft hamming it up for an American Express commercial. One can scarcely imagine kids in Poe’s time wanting to grow up to live just like him. But that’s how it was with King.
Thus, a generation of creative kids grew up admiring an author of horror fiction but being most directly influenced by horror film. Together, these two factors created the perfect storm (and we’re still drenched in its rain to this day).
If you think I’m exaggerating, take a gander at this quote from blogger Will Errickson: “I can’t imagine what it must have been like for authors such as Arthur Machen, H.P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, M.R. James, Sheridan LeFanu, et. al., to write horror fiction without having horror film as an influence.” To his credit, Errickson is at least aware of Machen, et al (which is more than can be said for many, these days). And to be fair, it’s entirely possible that he’s read more of their works than I have. But his statement really is an astounding one. [Updated note: see Will's clarification/added context for his remark in the comments section of this post]
I find the idea that Lovecraft was somehow handicapped by not having seen…well, Cujo, for example, (or even Night of the Living Dead) about as far off the mark as one can get. Anyone who reads Lovecraft’s essay Supernatural Horror in Literature knows what it was like for Lovecraft to write without films as an influence. He seems to have done quite well without them. He had scores of writers to influence him (not the least of whom, Poe). Moreover, he had the various trials and tragedies of his own life – the madness and subsequent death of both parents, along with his own bouts of depression and anxiety. He had his interest in astronomy. Lovecraft had plenty to inspire him. He’s far from a perfect writer, but he changed the field forever – paving the way for a new kind of horror focusing primarily on the dread revelation of humanity’s insignificance in the cosmos.
So what are the consequences of all this for fiction? Braunbeck identifies some of these in another passage of To Each Their Darkness, referring to an anonymous “up-and-coming writer I know who cites horror movies and their directors as being her major influence. And it shows. She couldn’t write a good sentence if guns were being held on her family and one of them killed each time she over-used adjectives…you can correctly infer that there is something missing from her work for me.”
I think the influence of film on horror fiction yields even deeper maladies than poor sentences, though.
As an inordinately visual medium, cinema is focused on the world outside the protagonist. As an inordinately linguistic medium, fiction writing (through the device of point of view) allows us much vaster access to the protagonist’s inner life. The author is sketching the character by pointing out what the character is noticing, by indicating what they say (and maybe just as importantly, what they don’t say). Depeche Mode lyrics notwithstanding, words are very necessary. The bounty of language (in dialogue, in the description of heart, mind, room, and landscape, in simile and metaphor) provides a mechanism to set the emotional temperature of a scene to a degree of specificity that image itself can’t match. In horror, this is particularly important because the sensation of fright is dependent on the reader putting herself in the character’s shoes. It’s not enough to see what the character sees. We need to feel what the character feels.
Some of the newer authors I’ve met don’t seem to get this (or, perhaps, don’t even care). I’ve run into one or two who approach writing almost cynically, as a sort of minor leagues of horror storytelling – a proving ground only worthwhile as a route to get their work optioned so they can get involved (however tangentially) in the film business. They want to give birth to multiple film adaptations (just like their idol, Stephen King) and the task of putting words onto paper is, for them, an inconvenience to be endured for the privilege.
I don’t know a lot about the film business, but I know enough to be able to roll my eyes at such fantasies. There are some newer authors who I’m convinced are so film obsessed that they’d be much happier as film makers, but they insist on writing. (I fear their insistence stems from the difference between the cost of film making equipment and the cost of pen and paper. This can’t bode well for the genre).
A book that strives to be cinematic, and only cinematic, is doomed from inception. It ends up as neither sufficiently well-written to be a good book, nor sufficiently visual to be a good movie. At most, it’s (as Braunbeck implied) an unfilmed treatment. That’s great if your audience is potential filmmakers, but it lets down the reader just about every time. Some of the best books I’ve ever read are those that make the most out of being books. They’re the sort of stories that are, at least in places, unfilmable (and I mean that as a compliment). The horrific effect is triggered by particularly effective prose. Thomas Ligotti’s books, for example, have actually been said to trigger something of a depression in some of this readers. He doesn’t do that by adjusting lights or putting just the right makeup on actors. He does it by typing.
One of the reasons I’m so passionate about this is that I have personal experience with it. For years, I was one of those people whose primary ingestion for horror was movies and television shows. As a child growing up in a quasi-fundamentalist home, I wasn’t allowed to bring horror fiction into my home (even an attempt to smuggle the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual into my house was met with parental censorship – D&D or anything at all involving dark fantasy was, in my parents’ eyes, “demonic”). All I had for inspiration were the films and programs appearing on television. By the time I sat down to attempt writing my first stories in my early twenties, I thought that a typical episode of Tales from the Crypt provided the ideal template for plotting and characterization. That’s how clueless I was.
Over time, I discovered the subculture of the horror small press (focused, as it then seemed to be, on a parade of various horror conventions, websites, and print publications). I don’t think that subculture helped. It celebrated film with almost-equal gusto as it celebrated fiction. My efforts to write fiction were filtered through expectations I learned from watching films.
For me, poverty proved the only salvation from this particular range of influences. That is, I went through a period of my life in which I could no longer afford cable television. I found myself selling many of my horror movies in order to pay for groceries and bus tickets. I found myself unable to even rent anything other than the occasional film. I could no longer afford to attend horror conventions. Finances made me quit cold turkey. In that sense, poverty was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to me.
I went years without keeping up with movies. And, when the time was right and I got the bug to write stories again, my palate had been cleansed. I soon realized that if fiction was my art, I needed to get reading. I found myself inspired by advice I heard from Brian Keene – and apparently also said by several authors before him – “read every day, write every day”.
I began reading every day. I began writing every day.
At the same time, I lost interest in visual media almost-entirely. To this day, I probably watch less than two hours of visual media a week (most of the time, either documentaries or cartoons). I would love to see that asymptote toward zero. More time to read.
I found that (subjectively) the quality of my fiction improved the longer I kept my eyes away from the screen and onto the page. Objectively, I found that I started to get my first acceptances to reputable markets. I found that I started to really understand storytelling for the first time. The more I read, the more my fiction changes. I find myself increasingly appreciative of that sort of horror that is called (for lack of a better word) “literary”.
And so here I am – advocating for horror fiction that takes, well, fiction as its primary influence. Perhaps nothing is more indicative of the absurdity of our times than my suspicion that I’m fighting for a lost cause.
Here is the website that is was from:http://nicolecushing.wordpress.com/
Make sure you read her other writings
Happy reading!!!
Saturday, July 23, 2011
ZOMBIES!!!! AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

Yeah, I know, I'm corny, but hey, that was what my head was saying when Zombie A.C.R.E.S. started following me on Twitter. When I went on the page, they instantly had my heart (considering, I read anything paranormal and always there's a zombie somewhere lol).
http://zombieacres.com/aiz-alice-in-zombieland
Stories, merchandise, giveaways . . . you name it, it's there
The website also has a kickstarter.com profile to get funds together for the project:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1260147261/aiz-alice-in-zombieland-1-limited-zombcon-edition
Currently they have 6 backers, $96 pledged and they need at least $1,200 by August 27, that leaves them 34 more days . . . click on the link above and pledge, even if it's $1, $1 can go a long way, and if you enjoy this project you can get even more, the more money you spend towards this website . . . go ahead . . . pledge, you won't regret it!!!
Follow them on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/ZombieACRES
"Like" them on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/zombieacres
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Mistral's Kiss

I've been a HUGE fan of Laurell K Hamilton's since 2008 when a dear friend of mine introduced me to her books. It all started with Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake), then half way through the series I was introduced to Merry Gentry. A half human half faerie who is princess trying to get pregnant before her cousin to get the throne.
"I am Princess Meredith, trapped in the kingdom of faerie, compelled to conceive a child, an heir to the throne, by engaging some of the realm's most beautiful men. Now Mistal, Queen Andais (her aunt) new captain of the guard, has risked the Queen's jealous wrath to come to my bed. Our joining has reawakened old magic, mystical power so ancient that no one stands against it and lives . . . not even my strongest and most favored: my Darkness and my Killing Frost. Not even Mistral himself, my Storm Lord. But because Mistral has helped to bring this magic forth, he may live another day.
If I can reclaim control of the fey power that once was, there may be hope for me and my reign in faerie. I might yet quell the dark schemes and subterfuges surrounding me. Through shadows of obsession and conspiracy gather, I may survive."
So, as you can see, I actually enjoyed this book, as always lol. I recommend this series strongly if you like alot of sex, domination, suspense, horror, all mixed into a series that gets more and more intense each book.
Good readings!!!