Archive for February, 2026
Welcome to the February 2026 issue of my newsletter, “News from the Crypt,” and please visit Carter’s Crypt, devoted to my horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance work, especially focusing on vampires and shapeshifting beasties. If you have a particular fondness for vampires, check out the chronology of my series in the link labeled “Vanishing Breed Vampire Universe.”
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
To subscribe to this monthly newsletter, please e-mail me at MLCVamp@aol.com, and I will add you to the list.
For other web links of possible interest, please scroll to the end.
Happy Groundhog Day and Valentine’s Day!
My vampire duology TWILIGHT’S CHANGELINGS (comprising DARK CHANGELING and CHILD OF TWILIGHT) was featured in the January Book Series Starter Event by N. N. Light’s Book Heaven:
In CHILD OF TWILIGHT, vampire-human hybrid Gillian struggles with early onset of vampire adolescence. In the excerpt below, on an icy December night, she has run away from her vampire mentor, Dr. Volnar, and hitched a ride with an unsuspecting college professor. Roger Darvell (protagonist of these two novels) is her half-human father.
Here’s an interview with prolific, multi-genre author Karen S. Wiesner.
*****
Interview with Karen Wiesner:
What inspired you to become a writer?
Honestly? The library! From the time I started grade school, my favorite place was the library. I’d never seen so many books in one place before! All we had for reading in my home were a very old dictionary (which I read from page one to the last–it was missing both front and back covers as well as a couple of the end papers; a moldy, cloth-bound copy of a Nancy Drew book that was pulled from the well; and weekly editions of TV Guide that I read compulsively, as it was really the only consistent reading material that came into the house). Even in kindergarten, the librarian saw my love of books and stories and reading. She gave me a job working in the library, and I was always allowed the right to check out the brand new books as soon as they came in. Storytime was a special part of every day for me. I would fall into wonder, becoming the main characters in each one, with the varied stories that the librarian (or my mom) read to us. I was in my single digits when I wrote my first story (and illustrated it, too). Fast-forward from my first book being published in 1998, and I’ve now written all the books I ever plan to (156 of them!) and will retire from writing as soon as my publisher and I finish editing the last of them–hopefully this year or shortly thereafter. We have seven last ones to finish up, not including a children’s story I’d like to see reissued. In my retirement, I’m hoping to illustrate the children’s books my sister (author Linda Derkez) and I write either together or separately.
Please tell us about your work. Are they connected among each other in any way? Does the reading order of the novels matter?
My contemporary romance series include Adventures in Amethyst Series, Angelfire Series, Cowboy Fever Series, Gypsy Road Series, Kaleidoscope Series, Wounded Warriors Series. Other contemporary romance single-titles I’ve written include RESTLESS AS RAIN and a 2-in-1 set of novellas. For most of these, there is some overlap in terms of certain characters or locations making appearances in one or more of the other series titles or within the standalones. My favorite among these series: Adventures in Amethyst Series, set in Amethyst, Wisconsin, a small, peaceful town on a pristine lake with an active tourist season in summer. When the air turns chill, the area is transformed into a ghost town with only a handful of lifers who stay. Populated with colorful characters, Amethyst is bursting with mystery, romance, and jealousy. Come and visit a place where anything is possible all-year-round.
As for inspirational/Christian romance, I’ve written Family Heirlooms Series and the spinoff Friendship Heirlooms Series. Peaceful Pilgrims Series is set in the same town of Peaceful, Wisconsin and features some of the secondary characters from the Heirlooms installments. Some of the Peaceful Pilgrims stories are Christian, but not all. Peaceful is a small community with old-fashioned values and friendly people you’ll want to get to know and visit often.
I also write suspense. Denim Blues Mysteries is a cozy mystery trilogy. Falcon’s Bend Series was a long-running series set in my made-up Falcon’s Bend that was more hardcore with police procedurals–including both novels and many shorter offerings collected in “Case Files” anthologies. My romantic suspense/action-adventure series, Incognito, features a covert branch of the government called The Network and deals with the complicated, dangerous lives of its operatives. This award-winning, 12-book series is in the process of being reissued by my publisher (fingers crossed that Books 9-12 become available again this year or possibly next).
I have a romantic science fiction/futuristic series called Arrow of Time Chronicles that features a descendent of my beloved clumsy girl Zoë Bertoletti (from Family and Friendship Heirlooms series) on board the human spaceship Aero. When mankind realized Earth would become uninhabitable, Humans built space habitations. Their first allies arrived in 2073 and shared their technology to power ships through space corridors that fold space and time. Only 58 years into their struggle for survival, an enemy emerges. In the wake of this threat an organic menace is only beginning to be recognized, ensuring the annihilation of every living thing if, together, they can’t find a way to stop it.
Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series includes paranormal/supernatural horror novels all set in the eerie (made-up) town of Bloodmoon Cove. Nestled on Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin is a small, secluded town with volatile weather, suspicious folk…and newly awakened ghosts. Don’t close your eyes…
Woodcutter’s Grim Series has a mix of shorts and novels. These speculative romances contain twists of fantasy and horror that stem from retold fairy tales. For the ten generations since the evil first came to Woodcutter’s Grim, the Guardians have sworn an oath to protect the town from the childhood horrors that lurk in the black woods. Without them, the town would be defenseless…and the terrors would escape to the world at large.
In the single-title realm under the speculative romance umbrella, I’ve written SWEET DREAMS and a 2-in-1 set of novellas.
I’ve also written a smattering of poetry and children’s books, and my seven-volume writing reference collection 3D Fiction Fundamentals is in the process of being published and/or reissued with a brand new offering on the horizon. This how-to course covers the A to Z’s of crafting the highest quality fiction. Each of the main books comes with a Bonus Companion Booklet which has any blank worksheets from the main book provided free in an editable digital file. A print edition is available for a fee. Some of the bonus booklets also contain detailed examples and exercises.
My body of work is undergoing all new covers and manuscript formatting, and this overhaul has resulted in the decision to offer many of my series installments in a single volume. As such, book re-numbering is also being undertaken for several of my series. I hope this huge task will be completed this year, or, at the latest, 2027.
The reading order for all my series is listed on my website on a page called “Suggested Reading Order”.
What is your latest or next-forthcoming book?
My very last work of fiction came out (fittingly, given the supernatural theme) in October 2025, the epic conclusion of Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series, BAD BLOOD, Book 11, which wraps up all the series arcs that have developed over the course of the previous ten installments. George and Rafe, some of the last descendants of the Mino-Miskwi Native American tribe whose elders disappeared 125 years ago after tearing a hole in the veil between worlds, have been featured in all previous books in the series. From the beginning, George has been cautious about anything mystical. But is eldritch justice the only thing that can heal Erie County’s paranormal vulnerability once and for all? In this wrap-up novel, the already thin veil between worlds may be sundered completely.
My very last brand-new book will come out hopefully within the next several months: Volume 4 of my 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection: WRITING THE OVERARCHING SERIES {or How I Sent a Clumsy Girl into Outer Space}. As I’m writing this, my publisher and I are editing Volume 3, which will be the reissue of WRITING THE STANDALONE SERIES, formerly published by Writer’s Digest Books as WRITING THE FICTION SERIES {The Complete Guide for Novels and Novellas}. I’ve extensively re-written it to detail how to most effectively write these two very different types of series.
What is the URL of your website? What about other internet presence?
Website
Blog
Publisher’s Page
Alien Romances Blog
Goodreads
I have a large collection of articles I’ve written, as well as videogame reviews and checklists, which you’ll find on my website. Be sure to check out my blog while there, where I post my sporadic art practice (with the goal of illustrating children’s books), my weekly (Friday) posts including hundreds of my “enriched” book reviews on the Alien Romances blog, book releases, reviews, and other updates concerning the entire scope of my work.
As I head rapidly toward retirement as a writer, this interview feels like a fitting summary and wrap-up of my entire career. Thank you for this opportunity, Margaret.
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
KING SORROW, by Joe Hill. Constant Readers of Hill’s father, Stephen King, particularly the epic-sized, ensemble-cast novels such as IT, will probably find this book as captivating as I did (despite only a couple of the characters being actually likable, in my opinion). KING SORROW resembles IT by following a group of friends in their prolonged interaction with an entity of supernatural evil. While the creature in Hill’s novel isn’t an eldritch Lovecraftian being possibly as old as the universe like King’s It, human victims are almost equally helpless against King Sorrow, who’s unfathomably alien in his own way. Moreover, Hill’s characters, unlike King’s, invite the evil into their lives. Essentially, they make a deal with a demon. They first suffer the fateful encounter in college rather than as preteens. Instead of skipping between childhood and adulthood in alternating scenes like IT, KING SORROW traces their lives chronologically in linear order over the decades into middle age, aside from a few short flashbacks. The story begins with a mundane incident: Arthur Oakes, a student at a small liberal arts college in Maine, visits his mother (a minister) in prison, where she’s serving a manslaughter sentence for an accidental death during a protest. A fight in the visitors’ room gains Arthur and his mother an implacable enemy, a young woman who persecutes him in a combination of revenge and extortion. With threats against his incarcerated mother, she forces Arthur, who works in the college library, to steal valuable volumes from the rare books room. He finally confides in his circle of close friends, ranging from Chris, the cynical, sophisticated child of a wealthy family, to Gwen, the only main character not in college, who works for Chris’s grandfather and eventually becomes Arthur’s girlfriend. From the rare books collection, Arthur “borrows” an occult tome whose author claims he used a dark ritual to create a ghost out of his imagination. The friends reenact this mystical, mind-altering seance to conjure up a dragon, King Sorrow. (Do they summon him from another dimension or will him into existence? The former seems more likely, but we can’t tell for sure.) Although he stops the persecution of Arthur, the amateur magic-workers can’t put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak. The dragon demands a sacrifice in perpetuity, every year around Easter. If they don’t designate a victim, he’ll take one of them. No problem, they think; there are plenty of bad people in the world. They make a list and work their way down it, with the annual choice rotating among them. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. King Sorrow doesn’t avoid collateral damage; he revels in it, feeding on the pain and fear of the numerous innocents hurt and killed along with the chosen sacrifice. The novel traces the emotional and moral trauma the characters suffer over many years. Chris, the self-centered rich guy, has no compunctions about what they’re doing – doesn’t annihilation of truly evil people, preventing untold harm, justify some random deaths? – but the others’ lives are warped in various ways by the destruction they indirectly cause. I wondered whether they’d prove responsible for 9-11; they are, but only by inaction. They’d considered eliminating Bin Laden but relegated him to the bottom of the list. This novel qualifies as tragedy as well as horror, with terrible consequences generated by one rash decision. At the beginning, I thought of Arthur as the protagonist and was somewhat put off by finding each section focused through the viewpoint of a different group member. When I got used to shifting mental and emotional gears, though, I became invested in each major character, even the ones I don’t like. The narrative includes multiple flashbacks to the fateful ceremony, revealing how every participant remembers it differently. Devastating loss, pain, and sadness shadow their lives through the decades, until they finally devise a way to free themselves from King Sorrow’s dominion. There’s no completely “happy ending,” considering what they suffer, but the survivors find a measure of reconciliation and peace.
THROUGH GATES OF GARNET AND GOLD, by Seanan McGuire. The eagerly anticipated annual installment of McGuire’s Wayward Children series. The books roughly alternate between a focus on either Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children or one of the innumerable worlds accessed through the Doors. This novel is school-centered or at least begins that way. Nancy, who found her way back to the Halls of the Dead in a previous volume, has contentedly resumed her role as a living statue in the realm of the Lord and Lady of the Dead. These inhabitants of that world, although alive, have mastered the art of perfect stillness. Their peace is disrupted when an unknown invader starts slaughtering the living statues. In addition to the people who’ve chosen that existence, this world is inhabited by spirits of the dead, awaiting rebirth or whatever else comes next for them. The ghosts are generally harmless – but what if not all are? With the rare ability to access her Door at will and travel to and from our world, Nancy returns to Miss West’s school in search of help from her friends there. Once again, they must violate the school rule of “No Quests.” Joining Nancy are Kade, Miss West’s designated heir (the one resident with no desire to return to the world that sent him back to this one); Christopher, yearning to reunite with his Skeleton Girl and bearing a flute that controls bones and possibly ghosts; Sumi, previously killed and restored to life, destined to return to the land of Confection when her time is right; and a new character, Talia, who loves and communicates with moths. The novel continues this series’s fascinating array of unique worlds and the distinctive backgrounds of the children drawn to them. The land of the Dead, with its pomegranate grove and cool, serene, white Halls, would be profoundly peaceful if not for the inexplicable murders. The Lord and Lady of the Dead (analogous to Hades and Persephone) prove unable or unwilling to take direct action against the killer. Sumi’s blunt-spoken rebuke of their seeming indifference is one of the novel’s most entertaining moments. The story includes plenty of darkness, though, especially with the surprising reappearance of an antagonist from early in the series. The adventurers gain an unexpected ally, also, in a character we might have thought we’d seen the last of. The ghosts are horrifying in a quiet, melancholy way, but no less dangerous for that. And the villain’s self-justifying speech may even evoke a moment of sympathy. Saving the inhabitants of the Halls of the Dead (including Nancy) at the darkest point requires the talents of all the questing students, even moth-loving Talia, who joined the expedition solely because she has noticed people who go on quests often find their own Doors. As a bonus, the epilogue reveals a character’s life-altering decision I didn’t see coming.
THE CYPRIAN, by Mercedes Lackey. This installment of Lackey’s Elemental Masters nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century series reimagines the fairy tale of seven brothers transformed into swans. In this adaptation, the eight siblings comprise four pairs of twins, with protagonist Elena as one of the youngest. The story begins, however, with a variation on legends of shapeshifting women captured as wives by human men who steal their animal or bird skins or cloaks — seal, swan, whatever. One of Elena’s oldest brothers, Ben, accidentally finds his mother’s hidden feather cloak. She immediately dons it and flies away. Ben keeps the truth of her disappearance secret for many years, except to speculate with his siblings that she must have gone back to “her people.” Elena and her brothers share with their mother the power to see small, winged creatures they call fairies, actually sylphs. Their mother has always warned them not to allow their strait-laced, emotionally distant father to know of this gift. The children get no training in elemental magic except what they learn from the sylphs, so they don’t fully understand the nature of their abilities. Not long after their mother’s disappearance, their father brings home a stepmother. Indifferent rather than cruel to the children, she proves to possess elemental magic also, specifically water rather than the children’s air gift. As most readers will suspect, she had used magic to ensnare her husband. When she tries to drown the boys in a frozen pond, they invoke their mother’s heritage to become swans and become trapped in that form. Their father, believing them dead, dies soon after. To the stepmother’s baffled rage, she learns she doesn’t own the estate. She leaves with only her personal property – and Elena, whom she disguises as a boy to serve as her footman. The villainess resumes her previous life as a Cyprian, a high-class courtesan. Elena’s masculine persona can’t last forever, of course, and when her situation becomes precarious, she plots an escape from her miserable situation. The turning point comes when the sylphs reconnect with her. They put her in touch with Elemental Masters whose aid gives her hope at last. Once Elena begins the magical task of restoring her swan brothers to human shape by fashioning shirts from nettles, forbidden to speak throughout her labors, the story adheres fairly closely to the classic tale. Unlike her folklore counterpart, though, she doesn’t have to suffer the ordeal alone and unaided. Overall, the plot has a classic fairy-tale shape, dire catastrophe leading to a dark moment but culminating in a happily-ever-after won by sacrifice. Incidentally, this book displays the same oddity as every Mercedes Lackey novel published by DAW I’ve read in recent years: The cover blurb either consists almost completely of backstory with scant attention to the actual plot or summarizes the entire story up to the climax (this one does the latter). Granted, I’ve done much the same as the second alternative, but reviews and cover copy serve different purposes.
THE CHANGELING QUEEN, by Kimberly Bea. “Tam Lin” is my favorite traditional ballad. Among the several novelizations of it I’ve read, this one is unique in not being told from the viewpoint of Janet, who rescues her lover from the seductive, wicked Faery Queen holding him captive. Instead, it’s narrated by the queen herself. Rather than ending with the liberation of Tam Lin, THE CHANGELING QUEEN begins there. The queen tells Janet her story in hopes of convincing the girl that the very survival of the Faery realm depends on the sacrifice of her lover. The queen recounts her history in past tense, with the story’s current scenes in present tense. The other uniquely riveting aspect of this novel consists of the revelation that she began life as a healer/midwife’s alleged daughter in an ordinary human village. From earliest childhood, mentored by her mother the cunning woman, “Bess” has known she was a changeling, half mortal and half faery, substituted for the real Bess. Her “mother” calls her a cuckoo, yet treats her with fondness and teaches her well. After the healer’s death, Bess takes on that role but faces the same suspicion her “mother” did. Surely, the priest and some others believe, her skills must come from the Devil? Bess falls in love with a shepherd and enjoys happiness for a while, although her peace is troubled by a faery lord who often crosses her path. Her life changes when her relationship with her shepherd lover ends in tragedy. Moreover, she learns she’s the presumed dead child of the late Faery Queen. Despite her mortal “taint,” Bess has to assume her mother’s throne. The author beautifully conveys the enchantment and peril of that realm, as strange to the new queen as to the reader. By no means are all her subjects prepared to accept her as ruler. She must navigate the hazards of faery politics while learning about her obligations to the realm, which is dying. Faery requires periodic sacrifices, the fate from which Janet saves Tam Lin. It’s fascinating to watch the queen grow from a half-mortal, heartbroken young woman into the ruthless creature she becomes, willing although not glad to choose victims for the sacrifice. We can’t help sympathizing with her need to save her realm, yet of course we know how the ballad ends and don’t want Tam Lin to die. The author offers a surprising solution to the quandary, with a bitter choice that feels like a completely appropriate culmination of the queen’s life story.
For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
*****
Excerpt from CHILD OF TWILIGHT:
Professor Grier glanced at her, taking his eyes off the tight curve he was negotiating. At that moment the tires skidded on the ice-glazed pavement. The professor spun the wheel wildly from side to side. Gillian heard his heartbeat shift into overdrive. Her own pounded out of control. The van slid across the curve and onto the shoulder. Its right front bumper collided with a sapling and rebounded.
Gillian felt her safety belt strain against her chest. Grier’s panic flooded her. She couldn’t gather her wits to brace against the jolting of the car. She felt the brakes catch. The van fishtailed, plowed into a leafless clump of bushes, and stopped.
Gillian’s vision went dim. Something more than the wind howled in her ears. Her skin felt on fire. She leaped up, lunging against the belt and barely noticing it snap. Her bones were cracking open, her body turning inside out, her very essence boiling up from her heart and bowels.
She doubled over, forehead on the dashboard. Abruptly the burning pain metamorphosed into a convulsion of ecstasy immeasurably beyond what she’d absorbed from Grier’s touch.
It ended too quickly. Her eyes cleared. Meeting the professor’s dumbfounded stare, she glimpsed in her peripheral vision what held him transfixed.
She saw the tips of her wings.
What did he see? Only wings? Or also dark fur sprouting on her skin, the fangs and pointed ears of some feral creature from legend?
His terror pierced her between the eyes. Or was it her own? This can’t be—I’m too young—I don’t know how! And then a still more terrible thought hit her: He saw me change!
She fumbled for the door handle, jumped down from the van, and launched herself into the air.
Fear-driven instinct made up for her ignorance. Buffeted by wind and sleet, she soared above the trees. Blindly she flew northward until exhaustion forced her to the ground. Landing in a wooded area a few miles from Interstate 95, she huddled in the midst of a stand of evergreens with her head buried in her arms, shuddering with tearless sobs.
When her panic ebbed enough to allow thought, she sat up and craned her neck to look over her shoulder. The wings were gone. I’m too young for the change! Dr. Volnar was supposed to teach me—later. A mocking inner voice reminded her, You chose to run away from him, remember? Isn’t there a proverb about making beds and lying in them?
The back of her blouse hung in shreds, for only a very mature member of her race could include clothing in the rearrangement of molecules. She ached all over. Even though her “flight” was mostly levitation, since the silken wing membrane could not support her weight—despite her being both lighter and stronger than a human girl of the same size—she still had to use hitherto unexercised muscles for balance and steering.
She struggled to bring to mind all she’d been taught about the change. Among their other psychic powers, her people could alter the external shape of their bodies. The change involved no loss or gain of mass, no reshuffling of internal structures. And the shape assumed was fixed in the genes, a cellular memory, apparently, of an ancestral form. What the observer saw, however, depended partly on what he expected to see. And someone with experience and control could project an illusion, making the shapeshift appear more radical than it really was.
This abstract knowledge wouldn’t do her much good now. She needed practical instruction. Go back to Volnar and beg his pardon? Dark Powers, no! Absolutely not! She’d rather ask her father for help.
Assuming he would help, if he knew how. She’d told Professor Grier the truth about not contacting her father ahead of time. Knowing Roger Darvell hadn’t wanted her to be born and hadn’t shown any interest in her since, why should she expect him to worry about her now?
I’ll face that problem when I get to Annapolis.
Meanwhile she had to get there. Several hours of night remained; she’d better travel while she could. The sleet had changed back to freezing rain and slacked off to a drizzle. She would have to walk, staying away from highways and towns. Hitching another ride was out of the question. She knew her ripped blouse would inspire too much curiosity. Besides, the thought of being seen by anyone else terrified her. Suppose the change seized her without warning again? So much for adventure!
-end of excerpt-
*****
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, visit the Dropbox page below. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
All issues are now posted on Dropbox, where you should be able to download them at this link:
All Vampire’s Crypt Issues on Dropbox
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links:
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Facebook
Here’s my page in Barnes and Noble’s Nook store:
Barnes and Noble
Here’s the list of my Kindle books on Amazon. (The final page, however, includes some Ellora’s Cave anthologies in which I don’t have stories):
Carter Kindle Books
Here’s a shortcut URL to my author page on Amazon:
Amazon
The Fiction Database displays a comprehensive list of my books (although with a handful of fairy tales by a different Margaret Carter near the end):
My Goodreads page:
Goodreads
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My Publishers:
Writers Exchange E-Publishing: Writers Exchange
Harlequin: Harlequin
Wild Rose Press: Wild Rose Press
You can contact me at: MLCVamp@aol.com
“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter