Author Archive
Welcome to the March 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.
My humorous vampire story “First Day at Human School” was published in issue 49 of the horror zine NIGHT TO DAWN, which you can find here:
NIGHT TO DAWN magazine:
Night to Dawn
A snippet of the story’s opening scene appears below. It’s part of the “Vanishing Breed” vampire universe and stars Dr. Roger Darvell from DARK CHANGELING, CHILD OF TWILIGHT, and various short stories. Check out the series here:
This month’s interview features YA author Curt Richards.
*****
Interview with Curt Richards:
What inspired you to become a writer?
I taught school at various levels for 40 years. During my teaching career, I wrote a weekly article about classroom experiences for our local newspaper. I also fell into directing our high school plays – and eventually writing 2 plays. When I retired, I wrote a book for new teachers. So, I guess you could say that I came about writing gradually.
What genres do you work in?
I am currently working in Young Adult fiction, but my first two publications were nonfiction.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
I get a seed of an idea and then let it grow. I don’t know where it’s going but I try not to interfere with its growth.
What have been the major influences on your work (favorite authors or whatever)?
I try to read across various categories of fiction. I read mysteries, romances, suspense, and coming-of-age stories. Really, I like to read anything that catches my attention. I also read nature books and scientific books.
How has your career as a science teacher affected your writing?
I always tend to weave nature into my writing. I love stories that take the character into the woods or any natural area.
Please tell us about your YA novels. What kind of research did you do for the rural 1960s setting?
So far, my novels have been set in areas similar to where I grew up. If I am writing about a particular area, I will go there and observe, take notes, talk to the locals, etc.
I grew up in the 1960’s, so much of what I write I have experienced in some form.
How do the skills needed for writing a play differ from those for a novel? What’s it like having a play of yours produced for the stage?
A play is 100% dialogue, so every word should draw the audience into the setting. Having my plays produced by someone other than me is the greatest high for a writer. To sit and see my work come alive on stage is wonderful.
What inspired you to write your guidebook for new teachers?
I trained 13 student teachers throughout my career. I felt that new teachers need guidance in real-world classrooms and suggestions for handling situations that may arise.
What will readers find in your book on the Lord’s Prayer?
This book is aimed at anyone who may be suffering from an unhealthy compulsion. The main message is that they are not alone and with the love of others and God, they can enrich their lives. The beautiful words of this prayer offer reassuring insights that can be applied to anyone suffering from misguided passions.
What is your latest or next-forthcoming book?
This year (2026) the next book in my young adult series will be released.
What are you working on now?
I am working on the third book in the series.
What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
I can only say what I have learned from this experience, but I understand that I am not doing this to pay the bills. If that is the case, write what makes you smile, keeping in mind that publishers are there to make money, so don’t be discouraged by rejection. Keep doing what you love. Don’t wait for motivation. Roll up your sleeves and get to work. Hard work will open the door to motivation.
What is the URL of your website? What about other internet presence?
Author Website
LinkedIn
Instagram: curtrichards202
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
SUMMER IN ORCUS, by T. Kingfisher. This is an older YA portal fantasy I’ve previously read in Kindle format. I was glad to find a trade paperback edition I wasn’t previously aware of. Having forgotten most of the details, I was delighted to be able to read it in tangible form. The young heroine follows the template of many of Kingfisher’s female protagonists, unsure of how to cope with the adventure thrust upon her. Beginning in fairy-tale style when she meets the witch Baba Yaga, the story develops into a quest reminiscent of THE WIZARD OF OZ: The heroine gains peculiar but fiercely loyal companions and traverses a varied, often magical landscape toward a goal where she has little idea what’s expected of her. Summer, eleven going on twelve, is the only child of a pathologically anxious, overprotective single mother. When Baba Yaga’s chicken-footed cottage appears in the alley behind their house, the padlock on the backyard gate opens at Summer’s touch. The cranky witch, promising Summer will find her heart’s desire, sends her to another world, accompanied by a talking weasel. (He doesn’t have a name other than “Weasel” and informs Summer he isn’t a magical familiar. All weasels can talk; it’s just that humans don’t listen.) Her portal between the mundane and enchanted realms consists of a hallway lined with stained-glass windows, one of which bears three sentences of advice: (1) Don’t worry about things you cannot fix. (2) Antelope women are not to be trusted. (3) You cannot change essential nature with magic. While the first admonition makes sense, she doesn’t fully understand the others until circumstances reveal their meanings. Summer’s adventure thus also echoes ALICE IN WONDERLAND in some ways, with riddles and, later, punning names. At a loss to identify her heart’s desire, she gets a direction for her journey from three shapechanging sisters, who tell her there’s “a cancer at the heart of the world.” When Summer encounters a victim of that blight, a tree whose leaves turn into frogs, she determines to heal the dying tree if possible. Unlike many portal-fantasy heroes, she isn’t a Chosen One and doesn’t aspire to save the world, just the tree. Being a well-read child, she frequently compares and contrasts her situation with the Narnia books. Unlike Dorothy, she doesn’t worry about getting home, because people in Narnia-type tales always do. She is concerned, though, about whether she’ll return home the moment after she left (and if not, how her mother will react) and hopes she won’t be magically forced to forget the enchanted realm. She soon wins staunch friends, including an aristocratic, foppish hoopoe, who travels with a flock of “valet birds” (they don’t talk, at least in human language), and a wolf named Glorious, who’s a were-house. Every night he changes into a cozy cottage. Amid various side adventures and dangers, they’re pursued by sinister agents of the Queen-in-Chains. After encounters both threatening and helpful, and at least one heartrending loss, Summer directly confronts the mysterious queen. Like the Wizard of Oz, she turns out to be astonishingly different from what the heroine expects. Summer discovers her own superpower — not warlike prowess, magical gifts, or preternatural cleverness, but the emotional intelligence she’s learned over a lifetime of comforting her mother. A satisfying story that restores the heroine to the mundane world with well-earned confidence and maturity.
ENCHANTING THE FAE QUEEN, by Stephanie Burgis. This fantasy-world, enemies-to-lovers romance is the second volume in the projected “Queens of Villainy” trilogy. While having read WOOING THE WITCH QUEEN isn’t absolutely necessary as a prerequisite to this book, it’s advisable, since this second installment provides new information about the invented world to build on what readers learned in the first one. The “enemies” in this novel are rivals on a personal level, not just antagonists because of their countries’ ongoing hostilities. The three self-styled Queens of Villainy, of course, aren’t actually evil. However, they’re devious and ruthless, prepared to do almost anything in their mutual pact to protect their realms from the empire determined to eliminate all obstacles to its domination goals. Lorelei, the faery queen of the mortal kingdom of Balravia, behind her frivolous mask of “notorious fae seductress” (as described in the cover blurb), combines her glamour – both mundane and magical – with fierce intelligence to that end. The reader immediately recognizes the sparks flying between her and her archenemy, the empire’s most celebrated general, as a blend of the overt hatred they claim and the sexual tension they suppress. In short, they’ve been obsessed with each other for years. Since his parents’ execution for treason when he was a child, to make up for the family’s dishonor General Gerard de Moireul has become a paragon of military prowess and unyielding virtue. On the surface, nothing appears more opposite to his rigid self-control than the infuriatingly flippant personality of Queen Lorelei, who literally sheds glitter everywhere she goes. After she kidnaps him into the faery realm, Oberon, her worst rival, forces the two of them to compete together in a series of magical contests. Not only do they discover each other’s strengths and realize they make a highly effective team, they reluctantly begin to like each other. Eventually they reveal their pasts and share their vulnerabilities. I enjoyed their verbal fencing and found their gradual progress from foes to lovers completely credible. Immediately after their ultimate mutual boundaries fall, so does a dire blow, which I won’t describe because of spoilers. Transported back to the corrupt emperor’s court, Gerard walks into a trap. As her only hope of saving him, Lorelei enlists the help of the other two Queens of Villainy. The climax and denouement smoothly intertwine Lorelei and Gerard’s personal plight with the growing international crisis. The emperor, having replaced his loyal, intelligent advisers with sycophants, has fallen completely under the influence of a party determined to “purify” the empire of all nonhuman races. (Does this sound familiar?) The novel has a satisfying conclusion that ties up the immediate plot threads while looking forward to the final volume of the trilogy, MELTING THE ICE QUEEN.
DEATH IN THE PALACE, by Barbara Hambly. Fourth book in her “silver screen historical mysteries,” set in Los Angeles in the early 1920s. These novels essentially constitute an alternate-world, non-supernatural re-visioning of the historical fantasy novel BRIDE OF THE RAT GOD, one of my favorites of Hambly’s works. The main characters in the series duplicate those in BRIDE OF THE RAT GOD under different names. The three Pekinese dogs even have the same names as in the earlier novel. Protagonist Emma Blackstone, an English war widow, has come to America as paid companion to her late husband’s sister, Kitty, aka silent film star Camille de la Rose. While frequently recruited to “doctor” film scenarios (scripts) that need fixing up, Emma mainly functions as dog sitter, errand runner, and general organizer for her flighty sister-in-law. They’re fond of each other despite their very different personalities. Kitty drinks too much – as Emma often wonders, “Hasn’t anybody in Hollywood heard of Prohibition?” – and has short-term affairs with every attractive man she meets, despite being the mistress of the studio’s co-owner. Although apparently a scatterbrained ditz, she occasionally displays unexpected perceptiveness and compassion. Emma, classically educated and orderly-minded, quietly observes the peculiarities of the American Babylon. Even after a year, she sometimes feels as if she’s been transported to the land of Oz. Although still subject to pangs of grief for her late family and husband, she has found new love with cameraman Zal. DEATH IN THE PALACE begins with a letter to Kitty from a young New York millionaire, offering her $50,000 to marry him for one week and then get a divorce. It turns out he’s made the same request of several other actresses. We don’t learn the motive for this odd behavior until late in the story, with its underlying sinister ramifications. The plot moves the regular cast of characters from Los Angeles to New York for the production of a big-budget picture, which Emma compares to being whisked from Oz to Barsoom. Along the way, they encounter various real-life people, including William Randolph Hearst (the mysterious death aboard his yacht early in the book actually happened) and the Marx Brothers in their vaudeville days. Bitter rivalry between Kitty and a female co-star ensues, along with numerous other suspicions, enmities, and complications. The murder in the Palace theater, referenced in the title, doesn’t occur until one-third through the book, with a victim who’s not the one implied by the cover blurb. Toward the end, I had a little trouble following the large cast of characters and their convoluted relationships, but I thoroughly enjoyed the story anyway. Interactions among the people interested me more than solving the puzzle itself, although the solution is also satisfying. I find this series’s portrayal of its historical milieu, with the exploration of southern California in the 1920s, the subculture of the early film industry, and the technicalities of early movie-making, endlessly fascinating. As with most amateur detective series (if you can suspend your belief in so many murders happening within a limited social circle), these novels can be read in isolation, though they work better in publication order.
AGNES AUBERT’S MYSTICAL CAT SHELTER, by Heather Fawcett. Although the title and cover of this novel suggest cozy fantasy, I don’t think that classification quite fits. Granted, Agnes’s refuge for feral felines qualifies as cozy until the outside world breaks in, but that world brings danger and sometimes chaos. As in the author’s Emily Wilde trilogy, a conscientious, hardworking, detail-oriented heroine progresses through an antagonism-to-reluctant-attraction relationship with a capricious, enigmatic, magically powerful man. Widowed Agnes and her married sister, Elise, run the shelter with the help of volunteers, subsisting on a meager budget as they rescue cats from the street, give them food, shelter, socialization, and medical treatment, and find homes for them. According to the cover blurb, the story takes place in Montreal in the 1920s. While the text confirms the location, it never specifies the year (as far as I noticed). All we can infer from the technology in use is a date sometime in the early twentieth century. In this alternate history, magicians openly exist, sensibly mistrusted by the general public. The catastrophic side effects of a magicians’ duel have left the shelter’s previous rented home uninhabitable. Agnes gets rejected by multiple landlords when they learn she intends to move in dozens of cats. Finally, she manages to rent a house from an amiable but rather odd young man named Yannick, who’s only the owner’s representative. To her horror, she soon discovers her actual landlord is the notorious “Witch King,” Havelock Renard, who reputedly almost caused the end of the world. He lives reclusively in the house’s multi-level basement. He’s not only something of a grouch, he’s allergic to cats. In addition to his stock of magical items, his quarters contain a large oven that seems to produce baked goods on its own. So far, so cozy, until Valerie, Havelock’s sister and implacable foe, shows up demanding a grimoire of legendary power. He insists he doesn’t have it among his disorganized hoard of “Artefacts.” Since he himself isn’t quite sure what he does or doesn’t possess, Agnes, offended to the core by the disorder of his shop, takes on the monumental task of sorting and cataloging its contents. Naturally, the two of them develop a reluctant mutual fondness despite their opposite personalities, As the reader would expect, Havelock’s reputation proves to be far from the whole truth. Destruction and calamities ensue. Agnes gets unwillingly drawn into the sorcerous subculture, including glimpses of an other-dimensional magical forest with an atmosphere of numinous terror. Although she cares for very few people as much as for the cats, Havelock eventually becomes a member of that small group. Happily, her feline charges play a vital role in saving the two of them and the city from disaster. A captivating book for fans of cats, urban fantasy, and enemies-to-lovers romance.
For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
*****
Excerpt from “First Day at Human School”:
“Uncle Roger, look what I can do.” The pale, dark-haired six-year-old boy rose a foot off the carpet and floated across the living room to alight in front of his uncle.
“Very impressive,” Dr. Roger Darvell replied sincerely. He himself hadn’t been able to levitate at that age. Of course, to judge from the tiny available sample, including Roger’s own three-quarters vampire daughter, all vampire-human hybrids differed in their traits and abilities. Doubtless it hadn’t helped that Roger’s human adoptive parents, much less Roger himself, hadn’t had any clue about his half-breed heritage.
“Just remember, Timothy,” said Claude, the child’s father and Roger’s full-blooded vampire half-brother, “you mustn’t do anything like that in front of people outside the family.”
“Especially at school,” Claude’s human wife, Eloise, added.
“I know,” Timothy said with a long-suffering sigh. He wasn’t a “Tim,” much less “Timmy.” Even at this young age, he’d indignantly rejected any gestures toward forcing a nickname on him. Anyway, he didn’t possess a trace of cuteness to invite one. With adult vampires’ ability to sense emotions, their infants didn’t require visual appeal to enhance the mother-child attachment. Timothy’s thin face, arched eyebrows, and pointed chin gave him an elfin look that might impress most human observers as slightly weird.
“The sun’s going down,” Eloise said. “Why don’t you take Thor outside to play?” Although daylight wouldn’t disable a purebred vampire, much less a hybrid, direct exposure to it caused them discomfort.
The Great Dane dozing in front of the unlit fireplace glanced up and thumped his tail at the sound of his name. “Okay. Come on, Thor.” Timothy darted out of the room with the dog in his wake. Before his birth, Claude and Eloise had bought this spacious house with a privacy-fenced yard in an upscale suburb, although they’d also hung onto Claude’s other properties, including a penthouse in the heart of Los Angeles.
“We’ve been trying to shift his sleep schedule more toward the human norm,” Eloise said, “but it’s a slow process.”
Britt Loren, Roger’s human bond-mate as well as professional partner in their psychiatric practice, watched the boy leave, then turned to Claude and Eloise. “So you’ve really enrolled him in an ordinary first-grade class? Well, ordinary for an exclusive private school?”
“I want him to embrace his human side as well as his vampire half,” Eloise said. “He needs to get properly acquainted with ephemerals other than just you and me. After all, he’ll be living among them.”
Britt nodded. “True, as part of a very small minority group. But what about his extreme adaptability at this age? What if he picks up confusing ideas from the other kids or even the teacher?” That trait could lead to disastrous consequences such as young vampires absorbing human superstitions about their own species. For instance, Claude, like many of his peers born in the eighteenth century, suffered from a phobia of religious objects.
“We’ll debrief him every night,” Claude said, “to nip any confusion in the bud.”
“And we definitely don’t let him watch horror movies,” Eloise added.
-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:
For anyone who would like to read previous issues of this newsletter, they’re posted on my website here (starting from January 2018):
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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
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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
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:
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All Vampire’s Crypt Issues on Dropbox
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Carter Kindle Books
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“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter
Welcome to the January 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 New Year!
If you read romance fiction, please consider taking a few minutes to fill in the State of Romance Reader Survey here. Free books are available for respondents to download if desired. It’s offered in association with the Romance Writers of America, but anybody can participate:
My Victorian Christmas romance novella “A Ghost in the Green Bestiary” was featured in N. N. Light’s Christmas and Holiday Book Festival:
Below is an excerpt from that story, in which heroine Lucy watches the traditional Christmas mumming performance while trying to avoid a serious conversation with Walter, to whom she had almost become engaged. (Robbie is her little brother.)
My first interviewee of 2026 is multi-genre romance author Margaret Izard.
*****
Interview with Margaret Izard:
What inspired you to become a writer?
People often ask what sparked my writing journey, and the truth is—it wasn’t one big moment, but a steady pull I felt my entire life. I grew up surrounded by the performing arts, completely in love with storytelling and the escape it offered. I started writing in my thirties, took a long pause to raise and tutor my triplets through college. Then, about six years ago, I put my foot down and told my family I would start a new project.
Once I picked up the pen again, the worlds, the magic, and the romances poured out. Writing became a way to blend everything I love: history, mythology, emotion, and that sense of wonder we all chase. I chose writing, even if it took a while to find me. I’ve been happily lost in these worlds ever since.
What genres do you work in?
I primarily write paranormal romance—rich, immersive worlds filled with Fae, dragons, magic, mythology, and epic love stories. That’s where my heart lives, and it’s the foundation of the entire Stones of Iona mega verse and the upcoming Dragons of Tantallon saga.
I’ve also begun writing contemporary romance, exploring grounded, modern love stories with emotional depth and a touch of wit. But no matter the setting—historical, magical, or modern—romance is always at the center. It’s the thread that ties all my books together and the genre I’ll always return to.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
I’m absolutely a plotter—a heavy one. My outlines can run more than 200 pages, complete with detailed beats, character arcs, and even snippets of dialogue. Planning the story helps me address developmental issues early, so when I sit down to draft, the writing flows much more smoothly and quickly.
That said, I always leave a little room for discovery. Even with a meticulous plan, my muse has a way of surprising me, and I love giving her space to do that. While the roadmap is solid, the journey still holds a bit of magic.
What have been the major influences on your work (favorite authors or whatever)?
My work blends the things I love most: romance, mythology, history, and escapism. I’ve studied the performing arts my entire life, so storytelling has always come naturally to me.
Scotland itself has been one of my biggest influences—its landscapes, history, folklore, and the sense that magic that runs through the land. Those elements have shaped the heart of the Stones of Iona mega verse.
How has your background in theater and dance affected your writing?
My lifelong background in theater and dance influences my writing in more ways than I ever expected. Performing arts trained me to think in movement, emotion, and rhythm—all things that naturally slip into my storytelling. I approach scenes the way I once approached choreography/directing: every step, every gesture, every pause has purpose.
Theater taught me character motivation, how to feel a scene from the inside out, and how to create tension you can almost breathe. Dance taught me physical storytelling, the way bodies move through emotion—desire, fear, longing, heartbreak—and that translates directly into the intimate, sensory style of my romances.
Because of that background, my books often read like staged moments: visual, atmospheric, and full of emotional choreography. I don’t just write what characters say—I write how they stand, breathe, lean, hesitate, and collide.
In short, theater gave me voice, dance gave me movement, and together they make my stories feel alive on the page.
Please tell us about your “Stones of Iona” series. And how do you research your historical fiction?
The Stones of Iona series is the beating heart of my entire mega verse. It begins with Stone of Love and follows a sweeping romantic and magical journey woven between modern Scotland, ancient history, and the hidden realms of the Fae. At the center of everything are the enchanted Stones themselves—the Good Stones: Love, Hope, and Faith, forever pursued by the darker Stones: Fear, Lust, and Doubt, all of which ultimately point toward the most powerful of them all: the Stone of Destiny.
Each book follows a new couple facing a new emotional battle. Yet, all the stories connect through family ties, Fae intrigue, dragon-shifter lore, and a mythology that expands with every generation. While each book can stand alone, reading them in order reveals a detailed tapestry.
When researching history for these stories, I take a multi-layered approach. I rely on period newspapers, letters, and broadsheets, as well as academic works on Highland culture and folklore. Architectural studies and sketches of the era often ignite inspiration as strongly as a scene itself.
One of my most meaningful research moments happened during my 2023 trip to Scotland, when I stood behind Glasgow Cathedral on the hill that is now the Necropolis, Scotland’s City of the Dead. Later, I found drawings from that same spot, created long before the graveyard existed. Knowing that people centuries ago stood where I had stood, taking in the same view, shaped Alex MacDougall’s emotional landscape in my recent release, Highlander’s Holly & Ivy, and became a quiet but powerful influence on his journey.
For me, history and magic are never separate—they breathe together. The research grounds the world, and the magic Stones unlock their wonder.
What is your latest or next-forthcoming book?
My Next Book: Stone of Destiny, releases February 9, 2026.
Stone of Destiny is the epic conclusion to the Stones of Iona series—the final piece of the seven-book arc and the long-awaited fulfillment of the prophecy that has threaded through every story. This book follows Kat MacArthur—still grieving her brother’s loss to another time—and Ceallach, the Fae warrior she loved in secret from the start. Their connection has simmered through the series, and now, as the Gathering of the Stones approaches, their bond grows impossible to ignore.
But destiny has never been simple for the Fae. Ceallach fights the pull between duty, prophecy, and the mortal woman who has stolen his heart. His soul binds him to the Iona Stones during the Gathering, and he knows that choosing Kat could bleed her for a price she never agreed to pay. Kat refuses to stand aside—she needs to help her family, the Stones, and Ceallach himself. Even if doing so, puts her directly in the path of fate.
Stone of Destiny brings every thread together: the Good Stones—Love, Hope, Faith.
The dark Stones—Fear, Lust, Doubt, and the final, deciding power that binds them all—Destiny.
Readers can expect sweeping romance, sacrifice, high stakes, and the most emotional and magical moments of the entire series. Every choice Kat and Ceallach make echoes through both realms, and love becomes the one force strong enough to confront destiny itself.
This book is deeply meaningful to me—not only because it completes the journey I began with Stone of Love, but because it ties together years of worldbuilding, research, and the heart of the Iona mythos. It is the finale I’ve been writing toward from the very beginning.
I can’t wait for you to return to Stones of Iona mega verse one last time.
What are you working on now?
Now that Stone of Destiny is complete and preparing for its February 2026 release, my focus has shifted to my next major series: The Dragons of Tantallon. This saga spins out of the Stones of Iona mega verse and follows three dragon-shifting brothers featured in Stone of Love, Book 1 Stones of Iona. Dameon, Magnus, and Tiberius—each cursed, each powerful, and each destined for a soulmate who can break their father’s ancient spell.
Cursed by their father, Balor, the exiled Formoire king, the brothers carry a legacy of danger and desire. Their only hope lies in completing the soul-bonding ritual—seven steps that test trust, emotion, magic, and fate. Failure entombs them in Fae crystal for eternity. Succeed, and they will reclaim their freedom, their future, and a love powerful enough to challenge realms.
The series blends everything I adore writing—sweeping romance, deep emotional arcs, Scottish atmosphere, dangerous Fae magic, and the intensity of fated mates. Each book follows a different brother with a unique love story, unique wounds, and unique battles to face.
The dragons are part of a world I’ve poured my heart into for years, since I drafted the first book shortly after Stone of Love, and I’m thrilled to bring it forward as its own full series.
Expect magic, heat, heartbreak, redemption—and dragons.
What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
Just start writing. Put the words on the page—even if they’re messy, imperfect, or not quite what you imagined. You can’t revise a blank page, but you can shape, polish, and refine words once they exist.
I always encourage new writers to read widely, write often, and don’t do this alone. Community matters—other writers, critique partners, or even one trusted friend who cheers you on. Writing can feel solitary, but storytelling thrives when shared.
And finally, feedback is a gift. I reread and edit my work many times. Each pass sharpens the emotional arc, deepens the characters, and strengthens the story’s heart. Improvement doesn’t happen in one draft—it occurs through persistence.
Start. Write. Rewrite. And keep going. The story you’re meant to tell will find you on the page.
What is the URL of your website? What about other internet presence?
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
SNAKE-EATER, by T. Kingfisher. The third Kingfisher novel in 2025 (with another forthcoming in March)! In her afterword, she describes the “platonic ideal” of her horror fiction as “a woman and her dog alone in a house full of creepy family secrets,” which encapsulates her first horror novel, THE TWISTED ONES. While her others don’t necessarily include dogs, the protagonists do tend to be women returning home in emotionally fraught circumstances, for a certain value of home. In the case of SNAKE-EATER, Selena flees with her black Lab, Copper, from her overbearing long-time lover, Walter – who dominates and criticizes her only for her own good, of course – to her aunt’s home in the tiny town of Quartz Creek, an arid western milieu totally different from anything Selena has known. For decades her only contact with her aunt has come through occasional postcards. Still, a vague invitation to visit sometime makes Quartz Creek Selena’s only possible refuge. The shock of learning her aunt died the year before devastates her, but she can’t consider returning to Walter. He would indulgently take her back, and her abortive escape would become one more time “Selena Had Done Something Foolish and Walter Saved Her.” Selena plans to stay in her aunt’s vacant home, “Jackrabbit Hole House,” for one night, then for a few days, then maybe for a few weeks, while she decides how to move forward. Meanwhile, she meets quirky local characters including Jenny, mayor as well as postmistress, fire chief, and police chief; Grandma Billy, who keeps a flock of chickens and a guard peacock; and Catholic priest Father Aguirre, who’s surprisingly respectful toward the local desert gods/spirits (the distinction is fuzzy). Selena, as more than one person points out to her, apologizes too much. She’s paralyzingly afraid of doing the wrong thing and certain her new neighbors, who gift her with fresh produce and (in Grandma Billy’s case) a daily bounty of eggs, will perceive her as a “moocher.” She’s even reluctant to “impose” on the weekly community potluck dinner. At first I thought her need to memorize “scripts” for every social interaction depicts her as mildly autistic, but it soon becomes clear that she simply lacks any shred of self-esteem. Over a lifetime, her confidence was systematically beaten down by a domineering mother and a gaslighting fiancé. Reluctantly getting used to life in Quartz Creek, she soon realizes she wants to stay. True, the local people’s matter-of-fact belief in supernatural entities strikes her as peculiar, and she suspects Grandma Billy of being downright crazy. Moreover, as we learn later in the story, Father Aguirre has his own secret. Selena begins to accept the truth only when she witnesses such things as a timid squash spirit in the vegetable garden – unless she’s losing her mind. But she has to accept the reality of the spirit realm when she learns of her aunt’s relationship with Snake-Eater, the roadrunner god. As both the narrative and the author’s afterword emphasize, real-world roadrunners don’t resemble the cartoon bird. They’re more like two-foot-tall dinosaurs, as Selena discovers when she balks at taking on her aunt’s former role, and Snake-Eater won’t take “no” for an answer. Similar to the heroine of THE TWISTED ONES, Selena (with the help of Grandma Billy and Father Aguirre) follows her dog through a portal into another realm, where she has to face the gods of the desert. Ultimately, she triumphs over Snake-Eater not through combat, physical or magical, but through open-mindedness, friendship, her bond with Copper, and her kindness to creatures such as the squash god in the garden and scorpions in the house. The denouement includes a delightful confrontation that sends the insufferable Walter packing. I do have one reservation about the novel, in agreement with a review I read: Its setting around or soon after 2050 seems irrelevant and unnecessary. Aside from passing allusions to near-future technology, little of which reaches Quartz Creek, we learn the approximate year only from the age of Father Aguirre’s truck. Why does the author include this pointless distraction? Her afterword doesn’t say.
BRIGANDS & BREADKNIVES, by Travis Baldree. Sequel to cozy fantasies BOOKSHOPS & BONEDUST and LEGENDS & LATTES, starring rat-person Fern, the bookstore owner in the former. The author’s afterword expresses a reluctance to write the same book over and over, as if “fantasy small-business ownership is the answer to all of life’s woes.” Thus, he acknowledges that this novel turned out less cozy than the other two, yet he still means it to be “affirming” – as, in the end, it is. Restless in her situation at the beginning of the story, Fern divests herself of the store and sets out to join retired orc mercenary Viv, from the two previous books, in Viv’s new home. Fern plans to make a fresh start by opening a new bookstore near Viv’s coffeeshop. Viv joyfully welcomes her and introduces her to friends glad to help with the project. Upon the grand opening, though, Fern finds herself let down rather than excited about the culmination of the shared work. Dismayed by her own ingratitude, she tries to work up the courage to tell Viv how she feels. Drunkenly wandering the streets by night, she accidentally stows away in a cart belonging to the legendary elven warrior Astryx Blademistress. By the time Fern wakes up, they’re far down the road. Astryx, in her role as bounty hunter, is escorting a goblin captive to the client who commissioned his capture. Fern bargains with the elf for transport to the nearest large town by offering her services as a translator of the goblin’s language, of which in fact she speaks only a few words, all of them obscenities and curses. She also makes herself useful as an entertainer, reciting the plot of an adventure novel along the way. So she ends up on a road trip with a famed swordswoman out of practice with company or conversation, a cart-pulling donkey, a goblin oddly casual about his alleged captivity, and a pair of magical Elder Blades, one in the form of a breadknife and prone to frequent complaining about its plight. Along the way, Fern makes multiple attempts to write a letter to Viv explaining her disappearance but can’t find the right words to apologize. Traveling across sparsely inhabited country, the party confronts both natural hazards and hostile attacks. This story, which would make an excellent Dungeons and Dragons campaign, also features midlife crisis character growth. Fern’s disappointment with the move into which she’d put so much effort evokes sympathy. Personally, my first reaction was to wonder what was wrong with her, since living in a bookstore near a coffee shop sounds to me like the ideal existence. She herself, however, wonders the same thing. By the time she returns where she started, to reconcile with Viv, Fern has developed insight into herself and what she really wants. While foul-mouthed characters usually put me off, I had little trouble adjusting to her verbal tic of constant obscene language; it comes across as just part of her personality. The strangely accommodating goblin prisoner and the self-aggrandizing magic breadknife provide comic relief between life-threatening crises. As in the two previous novels, I thoroughly enjoy the multi-species culture of this invented world.
LETTERS FROM AN IMAGINARY COUNTRY, by Theodora Goss. Most of the tales in this collection were new to me, but not the first, “The Mad Scientist’s Daughter,” which ultimately evolved into the enthralling Athena Club trilogy, starring the daughters (begotten or created) of the famed mad scientists of nineteenth-century fiction. To my delight, many of the other stories also expand upon characters from classic works. My favorite, naturally, is “The Secret Diary of Mina Harker,” original to this collection, not the same version of Mina as in the Athena Club series. Likewise, the title character of “Frankenstein’s Daughter” isn’t identical to Justine in those books. “Lost Girls of Oz” portrays an alternate reality in which Oz actually exists, but it’s cut off from the rest of the world, so you can’t get there – unless you’re a girl recruited for Dorothy’s army. In “Child-Empress of Mars,” the latest of many heroes from Earth arrives on a Red Planet that resembles Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Barsoom. The witch in “England Under the White Witch” isn’t explicitly identified as Jadis, but that’s obviously who she is; the protagonist, for a long time a devoted follower of the witch-queen, eventually becomes disillusioned with a world of perpetual winter. “Estella Saves the Village” takes place in a shared-world community inhabited by people from classic Victorian novels. In “Pug,” Goss brings to life a character from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE so minor she doesn’t have any dialogue, Lady Catherine’s sickly daughter. “A Letter to Merlin” revisits the Arthurian mythos through Guinevere’s multiple reincarnations. To mention a few stories on other themes, Goss pays tribute to her native Hungary in “Dora/Dora: An Autobiography” and “To Budapest with Love,” while speculation that imagined countries could become real is explored in the title story, “Cimmeria: From the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology,” and “Pellargonia: A Letter to the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology.” The collection includes an introduction by Jo Walton and the author’s notes on the backgrounds of the stories. Fascinating.
For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
*****
Excerpt from “A Ghost in the Green Bestiary”:
About four-thirty, as twilight was falling, Aunt Eunice knocked on Lucy’s door. “The mummers are here. Will you come down to watch? I’m sure Robbie would love to see them.”
Not having spent Christmas here in many years, Lucy was eager to witness that performance herself. After bundling Robbie into his coat, cap, boots, and gloves, she and her mother donned their own wraps and followed her impatient brother downstairs. When they gathered with family and servants at the top of the driveway, the flurries had stopped, covering the earlier snowfall with a fresh, thin layer. Walter, standing beside his parents, smiled at Lucy. Pulling her cape closer, she tried to convince herself that only the brisk breeze sent a shiver rippling through her.
About a dozen local boys and men, some bearing lanterns, clustered in front of the house. They wore oversize coats or heavily padded outfits to disguise their shapes, and homemade masks fashioned with various degrees of skill concealed their faces. Sacks and pillowcases had eyeholes cut in them and grotesque features painted on. One man sported a papier-mâché horsehead, and another shrouded his head in a veil of white lace. A knight in gray trousers and jacket brandished a wooden sword and wore a helmet made of a cardboard box adorned with silver paint. His crudely carved shield bore a red cross. Beside him stood a four-legged, green dragon with two pairs of boots visible beneath its sagging costume.
Robbie shrank against his mother’s side and asked, pointing at the man with the veil, “Is that a ghost?”
“No, dear.” She patted his shoulder.
“And there’s a dragon.”
Lucy whispered, “It’s two men in disguise. Everybody’s pretending. Now, just watch.”
The mummers sang all the verses of “Deck the Halls,” while the dragon cavorted to the tune, its tail dragging on the ground. Next they belted out a couple of rowdy wassail tunes, a clear hint of the festive reward they anticipated.
After the songs, most of the men drew back to clear a circle around the monster and the knight. The warrior, who was probably meant to portray Saint George, pointed his weapon at the dragon and shouted, “Yield, foul fiend!”
With a blood-curdling roar, the dragon raised its claw-tipped forearms and charged. It slashed at the knight while the latter pounded on the monster with the flat of his sword. After several minutes of hearty combat punctuated by bestial snarls and manly vows of dire vengeance, the two foes thrashed on the ground in a climactic exchange of blows. The dragon, groaning in agony, expired in a burst of gore represented by a gush of fake blood from its chest. Saint George rose to his feet with arms raised in triumph. A second later, the dragon leaped up, too, and the pair took a bow to laughter and applause.
Uncle George’s butler and footman brought forth trays of steaming mugs, spiced cider from the aroma, which they passed around to the performers. Slices of brandy-soaked, fruit-studded Christmas cake followed. Some removed the masks to eat and drink, while others simply lifted the bottoms of their cloth face coverings. When the front half of the dragon pulled off its head, Lucy said to Robbie, “See, just men play-acting.”
Walter murmured in her ear, under the surrounding chatter, “The fellow with the veil hasn’t made a sound except to sing. He seems familiar, but he couldn’t be who I think. That person hasn’t shown up for the festivities in years.”
Lucy turned with a start. She hadn’t noticed Walter edging closer to her. She tried to answer lightly, “Well, it’s Christmas. Everyone is welcome, aren’t they?”
He nodded, holding her gaze with disturbing intensity. “Yes, everyone.” He offered his arm. “Walk with me, please.”
She hesitantly rested her fingertips on the crook of his elbow. Even through his coat and her glove, heat radiated over her skin. Their feet left faint prints on the thin layer of new-fallen snow as they strolled around the right wing of the H-shaped manor to an arbor festooned with winter-dormant climbing roses. After he used his handkerchief to wipe melted snow from a bench under the trellis, she sat there with him as many inches apart as the space allowed.
“I understand why you didn’t answer my letters at great length right after your father’s death,” he said. “But why have your replies been so brief and cool for most of the past year?”
Straight to the point, then, whether she was ready or not. She studied his profile, faintly visible in the moonlight. With his wavy, dark-chestnut hair and swoon-worthy brown eyes, he could pose for a portrait of the hero in a Gothic romance, aside from his scholarly-looking spectacles.
This is not what I should be thinking now! Nor could she bear to think about the humiliation of explaining that her less than ardent letters were connected to her family’s reduced circumstances. She didn’t have to, she decided, unless he made an explicit proposal of marriage.
-end of excerpt-
*****
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“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter