Archive for August, 2025
Welcome to the August 2025 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.
The Wild Rose Press has accepted my YA ghost novella “Her Death Was Doubtful” for their “Haunting of Pinedale High” shared-world series. It will be released on September 29 of this year.
My light paranormal romance novella “Summertide Echoes” was published by the Wild Rose Press on July 7. Here’s the blurb:
Joyce Walton wants to sell the vacation cabin she and her childhood best friend, Mark Girard, inherited together. The money will make her long-cherished business plan come true. To her shock, he’s determined to hang onto the place. Although they’ve drifted apart in recent years, she still cares for him. She’s always counted on his support, so why can’t he understand the urgency of her need? Mark believes his younger sister, who died in her teens, lingers on the property, visiting him in dreams at the cabin but nowhere else. He struggles with severing this last remaining tie. Yet he doesn’t want to hurt Joyce, especially when his old feelings for her reawaken. After encountering the ghost of their old Saint Bernard and dreaming of Mark’s sister, Joyce accepts the reality of the supernatural manifestations. Why are the two spirits haunting the cabin? On top of that, she’s falling in love with Mark. How can they settle the clash over their shared property without ruining any hope of a shared life?
The book’s page:
“Summertide Echoes” was featured in a Book Heaven Wednesday spotlight by N. N. Light’s Book Heaven on July 9:
You can read one more excerpt from the story below. After sharing a dinner at the cabin, Joyce and Mark encounter their aunts’ long-dead Saint Bernard.
Issue 48 of vampire and horror zine NIGHT TO DAWN includes my short, funny story “Interview with a Reluctant Vampire”:
By the way, Night to Dawn Magazine & Books also published my collection of three humorous tales about vampire-human crossbreed psychiatrist Roger Darvell, DOCTOR VAMPIRE:
Here’s a follow-up interview with YA fantasy author Mark Rosendorf.
*****
Interview with Mark Rosendorf:
What inspired you to become a writer?
To be honest, this is actually my second writing career, and I call myself a Born Again Author. Let me explain this term I coined:
As a child, I always enjoyed writing and knew that writing books was in my future. I achieved that dream in 2007 when my first book, “The Rasner Effect” was picked up by the publisher, L&L Dreamspell. It was an adult suspense/thriller which was followed by two sequels, a sci-fi book, and a short story. The truth is, I knew nothing about how to navigate the book industry and how to get my work out there for fans all over the world to read. By the time I learned my way around the literary world, I was burnt out. I decided to be happy with the fact that I achieved my dream of becoming a writer and settle on an early retirement as a writer. To show how little of an impact I made on the writing industry, no one else even realized I retired.
Two quick facts about me: I am a high school guidance counselor working with students with special needs. I was also a professional magician (which predates my writing career) and, to this day, I teach magic to my students as part of our performing arts program. A few years had passed since I quit writing books and just focused on working with my students and putting together the shows for the program and teaching them magic.
One night, at about 3:00 am, I was thinking about how much work we put into the magic, yet to the audience, it may as well be witchcraft. Suddenly, the idea hit me for a book I had to write. Over the course of a number of nights, the characters, the plot, and the entire story flashed in my head like a bullet to the brain. I was up for hours those nights writing it all down, under my blanket with a flashlight, trying my hardest not to wake up my wife. This is how The Witches of Vegas, a five book fantasy series written for young adult readers, was born.
So, using all I learned from my first writing career, I have now written and still write a new and completely different series in a different genre (fantasy and sci-fi) for a different audience. That is why I call myself a Born Again Author.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
My best ideas come at the most inopportune times. They hit me while I’m in the shower, at three o’clock in the morning, or when I’m driving. When they hit, they’re like lightning, one bright flash, then it’s completely gone. This is why I keep notepads in the shower and next to my bed with a flashlight. I use a recording app on my phone in the car.
I then take all of my notes and write out the chapter in a notebook. I’m not worried about grammar or sentence structure, just the story. I then take that and type it out on the computer where I’m now focused on grammar, sentence structure, as well as the creative story itself. In essence, my first time typing it out is my second draft.
What would you describe as the special challenges of writing YA fiction?
The biggest challenge is creating a YA story which will appeal not just to teens today but to teens in future generations. Teen slang and interests change almost by the day. I’ve produced published articles and podcasts on the set of rules I’ve created and follow on keeping stories timeless, and much of that advice is geared toward YA books. I call them my “Back To The Future” rules.
The last thing you want is to turn off a future generation of readers because they just can’t relate to the characters in the story. A fifteen-year-old today may enjoy a specific YA story, but what you don’t want is a fifteen-year-old picking up the book in the far future and saying, “the teen in this story sounds like my grandpa.”
Here’s a podcast where I present my “Back To The Future rules that I hope will help any aspiring writers out there: How to Make Your Writing Timeless
Please tell us about your “Witches of Vegas” series.
The Witches of Vegas series features everything you could want in a story. Fantasy, sci-fi, suspense, action/adventure, humor, romance, and starting in the third book, time travel and a unique take on alternate timelines.
The Witches of Vegas revolves around two main characters. One is fifteen-year-old Isis Rivera, the adopted daughter of The Witches of Vegas, a family of witches and their vampire mentor, Walter, who hide in plain sight as magicians on The Vegas Strip. Their show becomes the number one show in Vegas due to the amazing “illusions” they create on stage and the low cost for props and illusions since they’re creating their magic out of thin air in order to train and practice their witchcraft.
The second main character is a teenage magician’s apprentice, Zack Galloway. Zack is raised by and works for his uncle, “The Amazing Herb Galloway,” who used to be one of the Vegas greats. Now, with The Witches of Vegas’ show sending every other magician running for greener pastures, Herb and Zack’s show barely keeps an audience and is in danger of being cancelled. Unfortunately, their failed attempt to keep up with The Witches of Vegas has left them without money to relocate. Their next home could be the streets.
Isis and Zack should be enemies. But, when a threat from Walter’s past comes to Vegas with a vendetta against the entire world, it will be up to these two teenagers to somehow bring their families together. But will even they be enough to stop the threat of Wiccan vampire, Valeria, who has had hundreds of years to prepare?
While The Witches of Vegas series’ two main characters are teens, there are also enough adult characters with different personalities. Guaranteed, there’s a character in this book that will appeal to any and all readers.
As the author of GHOST THERAPY in the “Haunting of Pinedale High” series, please tell us about the background of that novel and what it’s like to write in a shared world.
As far as writing a shared world, I had a huge advantage over other writers in the series in that I went first. I was able to set the tone, create the town of Pinedale, and create the school where the hauntings take place. I did communicate with a lot of other authors in the series, and placing their needs into my presentation of the town (for example, one author wanted a diner near the school, so I implemented that). But everyone else, for the most part, used Ghost Therapy as a reference point for their stories in “The Haunting of Pinedale High” series.
Ghost Therapy revolves around Sam Anderson, a fifteen-year-old student at Pinedale Central High School who is constantly tormented by a bully in the school. He doesn’t have friends at school, until he meets Jessica, a ghost who has been haunting the school for over a century with no way to leave. Jessica convinces Sam to stand up to his bully, advice that proves disastrous when Sam is inadvertently killed in the confrontation.
From that moment, Sam becomes a ghost in Pinedale Central high school. Sam is unable to be seen or heard, not by the living or even by other ghosts. That is, until a brand-new guidance counselor for the school can see and hear him.
Mr. Copeland is a former special forces soldier who has retired from military service and has come to Pinedale to begin his job as a counselor. Soon after discovering Sam, the two form a bond created out of Copeland’s determination to help Sam find his way to the afterlife. Their efforts, however, have consequences…some good, some not so good, and one that could put the lives of everyone in the school at risk.
What have been the major influences on your work (favorite authors or whatever)?
I don’t have specific authors who influence me, but rather specific books, specific works. The one book which had a huge influence on me was Stephen Baxter’s “The Time Ships.” It was a sequel to one of my favorite stories, HG Wells’ “The Time Machine.” What stuck out most to me about “The Time Ships” was that each chapter was relatively short and they each ended on a cliffhanger that excited me to read the next chapter and find out what would happen. I use this technique whenever possible in my own writing.
Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series was also a huge influence on me. As a kid I loved those books mainly because, beyond the humor, it was an intelligently crafted story with clever anecdotes throughout. Mostly, it was an original concept which made me think, and that’s what I like to bring to my readers.
Outside of books, my biggest influences in my current writing career are my students. I always try to think in terms of characters they’d relate to and embrace when creating these stories as they are a microcosm of all my potential readers out there.
One unique example of my students influencing my writing is that Sam, the main character of Ghost Therapy, is based on one of my students. He is young man who has difficulties with reading. I gave him a copy of Ghost Therapy knowing he would relate to the character; after all, he had a huge influence on Sam. Each day, he would read a few pages with his teacher who would help him break down the words he struggled with. It took almost the entire year, but he finished the book (it was the second book we worked with him on as he had one of a lower grade level the previous year) and he genuinely enjoyed the story. This is a huge statement for a young man who avoided reading at all costs because a page filled with words was too overwhelming for him. When we tested him at the end of the year, his reading levels had jumped up by two and a half grades in one year. That came from reading.
It’s Summer vacation now, but I look forward to letting him know when he comes back to school that the story he read, with a main character he influenced, has won the National Excellence in Storytelling for 2025.
What are you working on now?
I am in the middle of a new and unique YA story called “The Sub.” It’s a futuristic sci-fi adventure revolving around a group of teens who are thrust into an unusual and overwhelming situation they can’t possibly be ready for. This story, like The Witches of Vegas, takes a new and unique take on time travel and paradoxes that also promises to have characters that will emotionally invest their readers. I don’t have a set date as to when it will come out, but it will definitely be worth watching out for. But, until then, I invite all your readers to enjoy The Witches of Vegas series and The Haunting of Pinedale High series starting with Ghost Therapy.
What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
My advice is to get ready for a long, frustrating, and exhausting process, and that’s after the book is written. Whether you’re looking for a traditional publisher or you want to self-publish, you have a lot of work ahead of you. But nothing worth doing is ever easy. When you finally see your book in print, when you look at your cover for the first time, all that hard work is well worth it.
One thing to keep in mind: when your book finally becomes real, that is not the goal…that’s the starting line. It doesn’t mean you won your race, it means you are now entering the race, a race that never ends because there are always people out there that haven’t read your book yet and you want them to know about it.
My second piece of advice: keep reading. The more you read, the better of a writer you become. Good luck, and enjoy the ride.
Check out my website: Mark Rosendorf
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
A FAR BETTER THING, by H. G. Parry. In A TALE OF TWO CITIES, why does Sydney Carton, the assistant to Charles Darnay’s defense lawyer, look uncannily similar to Darnay? Mere coincidence? Not in Parry’s book, a retelling of Dickens’s novel narrated by Sydney Carton. Darnay is a fairy changeling, substituted for Carton in infancy. Like all children abducted by the fairies, at puberty Carton faced the choice of either transformation into one of the fae or a lifetime as a human servant to the fairies. Having chosen the latter, he lives in the mortal world and carries out assignments for his fae masters (for example, stealing bones from graveyards) whenever ordered to by his contact, a fairy he calls Shadow. He shuns close connections with other people, dulling his emotions with habitual drunkenness. Human servants usually aren’t told the reasons for the tasks imposed on them. They aren’t allowed to learn the true names bestowed on them at their human births, nor are they ever supposed to meet their changelings. Carton knows coming face-to-face with his fairy doppelganger in the courtroom can’t be a random accident. Even stranger, Lucie Manette (Darnay’s future wife) proves to be the changeling counterpart of Carton’s beloved childhood friend Ivy, who died in an alleged accident in the fae realm before reaching the age of decision. His first impulse upon meeting Darnay is to hate him, even though the situation isn’t the fault of the changeling, who has no idea of his true nature. Yet Carton develops true friendships with Darnay, Lucie, and Dr. Manette. Even fully aware that Lucie isn’t Ivy, Carton grows to care deeply for the changeling woman. He also becomes close to an eccentric stage magician who augments his act with genuine magic and ardently desires to enter the fairy realm, a wish Carton regards as madness. He longs for revenge against the beings who stole his life and made him a slave – in vain, until he clashes with a fairy he calls Bartholomew (female, oddly, as far as can be discerned). Bartholomew hatches a plot to open forbidden gates between the realms, overthrow the fairy king, and invade the mortal world. Carton cherishes ambitions to destroy both Shadow and Batholomew, but killing fairies is almost impossible. All these supernatural machinations comprise the main plot, while the story of A TALE OF TWO CITIES as we know it unfolds mostly in the background. Parry’s clever interweaving of the mundane and magical plotlines forms a riveting tale. Carton ends up forced to bargain with Shadow, despite the dire risks of making deals with fairies. It’s fascinating to watch him embrace his humanity as his fate irrevocably progresses toward the climax we know to expect from the original classic novel. We never find out, by the way, the fairies’ exact motive for the changeling custom. If they steal human babies to replenish their own dwindling ranks and/or to gain mortal servants for tasks in the human world, why not just take the children? Why bother to leave changelings? Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of increasing the fairies’ population? Maybe in the context of Sydney Carton’s own viewpoint, though, this omission makes sense. After all, the fae seldom if ever bother to explain their actions and demands to mortals. That behavior is just one aspect of their terrifyingly enigmatic nature.
THE WINDS OF FATE, by S. M. Stirling. The second volume in Stirling’s “Make the Darkness Light” series about time travel to the Roman Empire in the middle of the second century. In case you’ve read L. Sprague de Camp’s classic LEST DARKNESS FALL, the homage in Stirling’s title will be obvious. In my opinion, however, his fictional development of the premise is better. Like the protagonist of LEST DARKNESS FALL, Stirling’s twenty-first-century characters introduce technological and social innovations to Roman society in an attempt to alter history for the better. They have more knowledge and resources to work with, though. Appreciating THE WINDS OF FATE requires having read the first book, TO TURN THE TIDE; they comprise parts of one continuing story. (Needless to say, I recommend that any fan of time-travel fiction do so.) The set-up: Professor Arthur Vandenberg, now known as Artorius, and four of his graduate students were tricked into participating in a desperate temporal experiment. At the beginning of TO TURN THE TIDE, they and a literal ton of useful baggage were sent to Roman-ruled central Europe in the 160s, seconds ahead of Vienna’s destruction by a fusion bomb in the near-future twenty-first century. (The inventor of the time machine didn’t survive the one-way trip.) Of course, that means all the events of the series after they arrive in the past belong to an alternate history. In that novel, they had the good fortune to be found by a highly intelligent, scrupulously honest Jewish merchant and later to win the patronage of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, plus the friendship of Galen, the greatest physician of classical antiquity. The travelers, under the guise of refugees from a technologically advanced country called America far across the Atlantic, destroyed by a cataclysmic war – more or less the truth – began to introduce what Artorius calls “Type A” innovations. They can be built or implemented, e.g. stirrups, agricultural improvements, gunpowder, vaccination, and anti-disease sanitation measures, among many others, with technology already available in the second century; the Romans need only to be taught the concepts. By THE WINDS OF FATE, set six to eight years after the Americans’ arrival, they’ve begun to advance to “Type B” inventions, requiring new kinds of tools to make the tools. Meanwhile, with gunpowder weapons the Roman Empire has conquered barbarian lands that took many years and much bloodshed to subdue in the original timeline, and a devastating smallpox epidemic has been averted through vaccination. Now they’re directing the godlike weapons against the other great empire of that era, the Parthians. Hidebound traditionalists in the Roman Senate disapprove of the “new things” and the influence of the upstart from nowhere who has the Emperor’s favor. Most people, however, welcome the advances with awe. But a graver danger is brewing on the other side of the world. The Chinese Communist regime also dispatched travelers at the same time, trained and prepared, with their leader bent in the long run on global domination. Now the two groups have become aware of each other, with an inevitable clash set up for the forthcoming next installment in the series. I like the Chinese viewpoint character, a historical linguist added to the team as a last-minute replacement. I was glad to find that feeling justified as the plot unfolds. The five American characters are individualized and likable, even the young man who’s somewhat empathy-challenged. Two of them marry each other, and the other three form marriages or marriage-like unions with people they’ve met since their arrival. The narrative makes it clear the travelers haven’t callously forgotten the horrific would-have-been future from which they were involuntarily rescued, but in the ensuing years they’ve become adjusted to their new situation, even if they still sometimes have to remind themselves it’s actually real. The story’s main emphasis, though, focuses on the monumental changes they’ve introduced to the Roman world, with more to come. Caution: To fully enjoy this book, you have to like reading detailed exposition on technological and sociological topics. I love a well-written expository lump, and Stirling is a consummately lucid explainer. Therefore, the multiple, lengthy passages of explanation, whether in dialogue between characters or in straightforward exposition thinly disguised as internal monologue, delighted me. On the other hand, the major battle against the Parthians went on way too long for me, although I know many Stirling fans glory in that kind of thing. The author’s afterword also provides an overview of his approach to the time-travel premise and the changes made by his characters.
HOW TO FIND A NAMELESS FAE, by A. J. Lancaster. A re-imagining of “Rumpelstiltskin” with aspects of “Beauty and the Beast.” The protagonist, Princess Gisele, was destined to fulfill her mother’s pact with the mysterious creature who spun straw into gold. In Gisele’s infancy her parents carefully kept her separated from her younger twin brother, heir to the throne, for fear the “beast” would take him by mistake. However, neither of them was claimed. Now, at the age of forty, Gisele continues to wait in vain for the claimant to show up. Over the years, the curse that’s a byproduct of the magical bargain has grown more extreme. Nobody can stand to be near her for long, and her presence changes gold to wood or straw. With the latter effect spreading, to the potential ruin of her parents’ kingdom, she decides to take matters into her own hands by crossing into the faerie realm in search of the “evil sorcerer” who holds her debt. Instead, she finds a curmudgeonly but handsome, youthful-looking male fae with red hair and feline eyes, ears, fangs, and tail. Their acquaintance starts badly when she stabs him with a poisoned dagger, offering the antidote only if he releases her from the bargain. To her dismay, he can’t do that without recovering his true name. The tale her family believes, he explains, is based on a misunderstanding. He never required Gisele’s mother to guess his name; he entrusted it to her as a means of protection from his archenemy. The firstborn child part of the deal was a mere formality, required by the nature of faerie magic. He expected to clear up the matter within a year. When things went wrong, he became a recluse. He’s mildly surprised to learn of Gisele’s plight, having lost track of the time that has passed in the mortal realm. Besides, he had no idea his failure to claim her burdened her with a curse. In effect, the nemesis who has overshadowed her entire life basically forgot about her. Gisele must put aside her outrage and cooperate with him in the quest for his lost name in order to free herself. She discovers she has no choice, being now so intimately bound to the sorcerer she can’t even leave his warded property without him. Since he interacts with other people so seldom, he hasn’t bothered to adopt a use-name, so she calls him her Malediction, “Mal” for short. By the way, can’t he just arbitrarily choose a new name? No, true names don’t work that way. She makes a game of running through alphabetical lists of names in remote hope of stumbling on the right one by accident, while they delve into his voluminous library in search of a solution. Gradually and believably, the relationship between Gisele and Mal evolves from hostility to alliance, then friendship, then sensual attraction exacerbated by erotically fraught shared dreams. Gisele finds herself less eager to escape their magical bond and return home, wondering whether the deepening attachment between them will survive the bond’s dissolution. Meanwhile, she becomes friendly with a few odd – people – who visit the borders of Mal’s land. Aside from Gisele and Mal with their intense emotions and lively dialogue, the most engaging characters are his sentient house, constantly rearranging its interior and contents according to the inhabitants’ needs or its own whims, and a supercilious talking cat (communicating telepathically, not aloud). The astonishing revelation of where Mal’s true name is hidden leads to a devastating battle with his enemy. A surprising but credibly foreshadowed eucatastrophe produces a heartwarming conclusion. To my delight, the denouement satisfyingly ties up loose threads rather than rushing directly from the plot’s climax to the final page. Although completely happy with the ending, I became so enthralled with Gisele and Mal I felt half sorry to reach that last page.
THE ENCHANTED GREENHOUSE, by Sarah Beth Durst. While this cozy fantasy is part prequel to and part spinoff from THE SPELLSHOP, the two books can be read independently. Aside from the setting, they’re connected by the sentient spider plant, a major secondary character in THE SPELLSHOP, whose creation triggers the events at the beginning of THE ENCHANTED GREENHOUSE. The two heroines, both librarians, reverse-mirror each other in personality. The protagonist of THE SPELLSHOP is an introvert perfectly content to live in her corner of the library without speaking to anyone except the spider plant for weeks at a time. Upon returning to her home island, she shrinks from meeting people and tries in vain to discourage her obtrusively friendly nearest neighbor. Terlu in THE ENCHANTED GREENHOUSE, on the other hand, expected that as a librarian she would meet scholars and other patrons every day, helping them find the perfect books for their needs. Instead, she works in unwelcome isolation. In her loneliness, she casts a spell to bestow sentience on the spider plant, violating the harsh law against magical activity by non-sorcerers, just to have someone to talk to. She ends up alone on an island with a handsome but antisocial gardener who communicates mainly by grunts and shrugs. The story begins with the trial that condemns her to transformation into a wooden statue as an example to other would-be lawbreakers. Six years later, she reverts to human form, awakening amid a snow-covered landscape on the aforesaid island. The only inhabitant, Yarrow, the caretaker for a complex of enchanted greenhouses, petitioned the capital of the Empire for a sorcerer to stop the gradual degradation of the magic that keeps the greenhouses functional. Instead, he received Terlu along with instructions on how to break her punitive spell. From him, she learns the sorcerer who ruled the island died some time ago, and ever since, greenhouses have failed at regular intervals. Glass cracks, and the spells that maintain their internal environments stop working. The structures house a fascinating variety of plant life, both magical and mundane, in a wide array of micro-climates. Terlu also meets miniature dragons, a winged cat, a talking rosebush, and a roomful of other sentient, ambulatory plants (after she wakes them). One feature of this world I especially like is its diverse population of multiple human races, humanoids, and human-animal hybrids (although in this book we don’t see much of them until the island gets re-settled at the end). Terlu, for instance, has lavender skin, and nobody thinks anything of it. It’s also a delightful novelty to see a “pleasingly plump” heroine with a face resembling a cheerful chipmunk’s. The initially grumpy, withdrawn Yarrow nevertheless helps her as much as possible and invites her to stay in his own cottage, even though he clearly thinks she talks too much. As they work together researching the books and notes left by the dead sorcerer, who became increasingly paranoid with age, to figure out the cause and cure for the failing magic, Yarrow unbends toward Terlu. They become friends who soon share, naturally, numerous moments of awkward romantic attraction. Their growing bond is endearing and believable. It’s also credible that Terlu fears the potential consequences of meddling with magic at a far more serious level than her original transgression. She’s torn between her dread of being discovered by imperial investigators and her longing to save the greenhouses and their precious plants. Of course, we know what she’ll choose, but the suspense is genuine, as is the difficulty of finding out what went wrong and how to fix it. Meanwhile, Yarrow struggles to face his fraught relationship with his extended family who left him alone on the island – even if the sorcerer gave them little choice – while Terlu questions whether she dares to let her own family know she’s alive. All those factors, along with the heartwarming conclusion, made this another story that I hated to see end.
For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
*****
Excerpt from “Summertide Echoes”:
Joyce took one stride toward the edge of the porch and peered into the darkness. “Bruno? Bruno, are you here? Come, boy!” Thunder peeled. She glanced at the sky. “What’s with the dramatic sound effects?”
A sidelong look showed her Mark in the glow of the porch light, rigidly staring as if he did think she’d lost her marbles. She called the dog’s name again. This is pointless. Why would a dead pet’s ghost, if that’s what it is, come when I call? About to give up, she glimpsed a four-legged shape, surrounded by a faint glimmer, frisking up the front path. “Bruno?”
The dog climbed the steps to her, his tail wagging. Hesitantly she touched his ruffed neck, and again her hand passed through him. She felt as if she’d reached into a freezer.
Mark got to his feet. “Are you saying this actually is Bruno?”
She swallowed hard. “Try for yourself.”
He stepped to her side and started to pet the dog. When Mark’s arm sank into the furry bulk, he snatched it back, staggering. “Oh, my God. Maybe I’m asleep now.” His voice quavered.
“Not unless we’re sharing the same dream.” She clutched his arm when the dog silently sniffed both of them in turn.
“We’re seeing Bruno’s ghost?” He spoke in a monotone, as if stunned by a blow to the head.
“Unless it’s a mindless psychic trace, like I suggested.”
He brushed his fingers over the insubstantial figure. “This is a whole different level from seeing my sister in a dream.”
Lightning flashed again, and the Saint Bernard vanished.
Mark covered his eyes for a second, then said, “That happened, right? If you saw him, too, it must have, because you’re the practical one.”
Joyce shivered at a gust of wind. “Well, he’s gone now. Let’s go inside.”
“Seconded. It’s getting chilly.”
Another thunderclap sounded. His arm wrapped around her waist, and she leaned against him, trembling.
An unexpected wave of pleasure swept over her. She inhaled his aftershave, the same lime fragrance he’d worn ever since he first started shaving. His heartbeat hammered in her ear, and her own pulse sped up. She pulled away, blushing, scooped up the empty bowls, and scurried into the house.
“How about I start a fire?” he said as he followed her in.
“Great idea.” While he stepped outside again to fetch wood, she lit four thick, pine-scented candles, two for the kitchen table and two for the coffee table. Although the generator should automatically kick on if the power grid failed, it couldn’t hurt to prepare backup light sources. She drew deep breaths to calm herself while until he entered with an armful of logs. Sitting on the couch, she watched Mark ignite the kindling with wads of newspaper. She relished his display of masculine competence, not to mention the flexing of his arm muscles as he arranged the wood on the andirons over the embryonic flames. Sure, she could have accomplished the same task herself, but why not enjoy the show? Purely aesthetic appreciation, she told herself.
Just as the blaze began to catch properly, another burst of lightning strobed in the dark. A crash of thunder followed seconds later. The next moment, the sky unleashed a torrent of rain outside the living room window. She walked over to stare through the pane. Aside from her own dim reflection on the glass, she couldn’t see anything except a sheet of rain, like a giant waterfall.
As she turned toward Mark, who’d just stood up from the hearth, the lamps on the end tables blinked off. She froze, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness relieved only by the fire and a pair of candles. Seconds later, the lights sputtered, then shone steadily again.
He released a long sigh. “Great, the generator’s doing its job.”
Picking up her phone from the coffee table, she navigated to the weather app, mildly surprised to get a signal. “This storm is supposed to hang around until almost midnight. You can’t drive anywhere in that.” She gestured at the window. “You’d better stay over.” At the realization of what that remark might imply, she hastily added, “You can crash in your usual room. I’ve already put my stuff in the other one.”
“Okay, makes sense. In that case, we might as well finish the wine.”
After an uncertain pause, she said, “Sure, why not?” That amount on top of a full meal wouldn’t be intoxicating enough to provoke her to do anything dumb. She fetched the bottle and glasses from the kitchen. They sat on the couch facing the fire, and he poured each of them a fresh drink.
“Seeing Bruno and reaching right through him was—incredible,” he said. “If you hadn’t confirmed that, I wouldn’t have believed it was real.”
-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):
This is my Facebook author page. Please visit!
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
Please “Like” my author Facebook page (cited above) to see reminders when each monthly newsletter is uploaded. I’ve also noticed that I’m more likely to be shown posts from liked or friended sources in my Facebook feed when I’ve “Liked” some of their individual posts, so you might want to do that, too. Thanks!
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