Archive for October, 2025
Eleventh-grader Mia Petrelli’s worst problem is her forthcoming oral report on Hamlet, until a ghost wearing a bloodstained skirt confronts her. The phantom begs for help to find her lost baby. Mia has seen spirits before, but none so alarming as this one. Persistently haunted by the dead girl, she has little choice but to investigate the ghost’s past. With the support of her long-time friend Ethan Abbott, Mia strives to uncover the truth so the ghost can rest. Just as Mia’s friendship with Ethan begins to grow deeper, she discovers a buried secret in his family that threatens their budding romance. To work through the snags in their own relationship, together they must help two troubled spirits achieve peace.
Order from Amazon and other retailers through the publisher
5-Star Review from N. N. Light’s Book Heaven:
N. N. Light’s Book Heaven
Welcome to the October 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.
Happy Halloween!
My YA ghost novella, “Her Death Was Doubtful,” an installment in the “Haunting of Pinedale High” shared world, was released on September 29.
Eleventh-grader Mia Petrelli’s worst problem is her forthcoming oral report on Hamlet, until a ghost wearing a bloodstained skirt confronts her. The phantom begs for help to find her lost baby. Mia has seen spirits before, but none so alarming as this one. Persistently haunted by the dead girl, she has little choice but to investigate the ghost’s past. With the support of her long-time friend Ethan Abbott, Mia strives to uncover the truth so the ghost can rest. Just as Mia’s friendship with Ethan begins to grow deeper, she discovers a buried secret in his family that threatens their budding romance. To work through the snags in their own relationship, together they must help two troubled spirits achieve peace.
It can be found here:
There’s an excerpt below, which features an encounter in the school cafeteria while Mia and her best friend discuss an upcoming dance.
N. N. Light’s Book Heaven gave it a 5-star review:
N. N. Light’s Book Heaven Review
They say, “The descriptive narration works so well with the world-building to bring readers a delightful spooky read. I loved the way Margaret L Carter wrote in clues relating to Hamlet. It was easy to connect with the characters, especially Mia.”
Please welcome Kim Ligon, author of cozy mysteries and various romance subgenres.
*****
Interview with Kim Ligon:
What inspired you to become a writer?
I’m not certain. I only know when a story comes on my heart, I have to write it down (or type it up) even if I’m the only one who ever reads it. I have been writing since I was eleven years old, but only became a published author when I was able to retire from my day job. Sometimes the story needs to percolate a while before it’s fully formed. I have folders full of snippets—characters, plot lines or situations that I don’t want to lose but aren’t enough for a full story.
What genres do you work in?
Cozy mysteries with a happy-ever-after, Sweet Clean Victorian and Contemporary Romance, Romantic Suspense, Christian Romance
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
When I begin a book I usually have a very rough outline of who the characters will be although sometimes they are nameless in the beginning, the element of suspense or mystery, and how it will end. Usually, I end up with a story that falls within the rough outline but often there are added tangents and sometimes additional characters.
My characters are strong minded. They come to me in my dreams to insist on a name change, object to a plot line or push me through a writer’s block with the right plot twist. I’ve found I get a lot more sleep if I listen to them and follow their advice.
What have been the major influences on your work (favorite authors or whatever)?
I have been a lifelong reader of all types of fiction and non-fiction following my mother’s path. She was seldom seen without a book in hand. I grew up in a large family in a small town and I draw a lot on that experience in my stories. Growing up I loved the five little Peppers and Nancy Drew. My mom was a Harlequin romance reader and I’ve read tons of those. I have read much of my World Book encyclopedia because I wanted to know more about things or how something worked or where something was located. I have traveled all over the United States and Europe keeping journals as I did. All those things meld together to create my characters and stories.
How would you define “cozy mystery”?
One of my reviewers said it was “a story where you get the spice of mayhem and murder without the gore and horror.” I like that description. You may see blood and be frightened for the character’s life, but the descriptions are not graphic.
What kinds of research do you do for your Victorian-era fiction?
I was a history major in college focusing on British history particularly during the Victorian and Edwardian eras so I knew a lot of the history. There is a helpful book called “How To Be A Victorian: A Dawn-To-Dusk Guide to Victorian Life” by Ruth Goodman that takes you through a day as a Victorian. I used Debrett’s Guide to the Peerage to understand titles and how to use them appropriately and for etiquette information. I’m also a big Jane Austen fan and her novels give you good pictures of life during this era. One of my beta readers is an unofficial expert on the period and helped me get some of the etiquette items correct.
Your website mentions that your romances are “laced with faith.” Any tips on incorporating that feature into fiction in a way that doesn’t feel either “preachy” or artificially tacked-on?
Let me tell you how my readers say I lace in faith. From my debut novel, Polly’s List, one reviewer said: “One thing that surprised and pleased me was the integration of the characters’ faith without proselytizing. This is done organically in a way most of us can relate to.” For my second book, Landing On Her Feet, a reader said: “This element (spiritual dimension) further enhances the novel, making it not only a suspenseful tale but also a soul-stirring experience.” In my stories there are prayers for safety and guidance, grace before meals, children’s bedtime prayers and well placed sermon topics as part of the characters’ well rounded development. They are good, if flawed, people who do love their neighbors and try to follow the Golden Rule.
What is your latest or next-forthcoming book?
In May, my fifth book, “Running To Daylight” came out. This is my fourth cozy mystery set in the small town of Lansdale, Wisconsin. There is suspense and slow burn, clean romance ending with a happy-ever-after. Each of my Lansdale stories are standalone novels, but if you’ve read them all you’ll see old friends pop up on the pages of each one.
What are you working on now?
I am working on a fifth Lansdale, Wisconsin cozy mystery tentatively titled “Abby’s Gift” and a Regency period romance with a working title of “A Cheshire Promise”.
What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
Don’t worry about getting everything perfect when you start a story. Get it down on paper or in the computer as soon as you can. Start at the end if that is where you are inspired. I can’t tell you how many times I took fifty pages, printed them out, then rearranged them trashing some things and adding new sections. Ask people who know you well and love you to read your work and be open to their feedback. What makes sense to them and what questions do they have? Then get it to a publisher. Read the submission guidelines carefully and follow them explicitly. If it doesn’t hit on the first one, go to another. BE PERSISTENT!
What is the URL of your website? What about other internet presence?
Spinning Romance is my blogsite
kimjanine@spinningromance.com is my email
Buy Link is the universal buy link for all of my books.
No other social media.
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
STEPHEN KING’S MAINE: A HISTORY AND GUIDE, by Sharon Kitchens. Illustrated by a copious collection of photographs and a few hand-drawn maps, this trade paperback guides the reader through Maine locations (1) where Stephen King has lived and (2) that inspired places in his fiction. The two categories, naturally, overlap. The author begins chronologically, with towns where King lived in his childhood and teens, but moves to a more geographically oriented approach after that time period. Of particular interest to many fans, naturally, will be Lisbon Falls, the probable inspiration for Derry, and Bangor, the acknowledged model for Castle Rock. Each section includes interviews with local residents, sometimes friends or acquaintances of King, often people with unusual occupations and avocations. The table of contents is organized with admirable clarity. There’s an extensive bibliography but, alas, no index. One other feature I’d have liked to see – an alphabetical list of novels and notable short pieces with their real-world Maine counterparts appended. The actual text ends with suggestions for several tour itineraries. It’s fascinating to see how King’s lifelong practice of drawing upon actual experiences and locations lends vivid realism to his fiction, regardless of its supernatural or paranormal premises. If you consider buying this book, note that the content of STEPHEN KING’S MAINE focuses much more on the places and their inhabitants than on his work itself. Still, this guide is absorbing and fun. Most of King’s Constant Readers (to borrow his own terminology) would probably be delighted by it.
Speaking of Stephen King, in September a lavish hardcover picture book of HANSEL AND GRETEL was published with his retelling of the fairy tale to accompany illustrations by the late, great Maurice Sendak. An introduction by King includes an account of how he approached the project, plus his personal tribute to Sendak. The colorful, intricately detailed pictures include some creepy features beyond the obvious ones you’d expect. Close examination of the forest reveals subtle glimpses of eyes and claws. The gingerbread house has a face, which alternates between jolly and menacing. King adheres to the familiar tale in most respects but with small variations. The children’s father becomes a broom maker instead of a woodcutter. The stepmother presents a semi-plausible argument to her weak-willed husband instead of stating outright her intention to leave the kids to die. The witch gets a bit of backstory, shown flying on her broom with captive children for her meals rather than always waiting for them to stumble on her cottage. As a special treat for fans of the Dark Tower saga, King names her – Rhea of the Coos.
THE LORDS OF CREATION, by S. M. Stirling. Although this novel is a sequel to THE SKY PEOPLE and IN THE COURTS OF THE CRIMSON KINGS, set respectively on Venus and Mars, reading them isn’t necessary for appreciation of the third book. Naturally, however, readers familiar with the first two installments will enjoy picking up references to them. This series is set in an alternate universe where space exploration, which started earlier than in our timeline, discovered a Venus and Mars resembling the inhabited planets of pulp science fiction. To get the idea, think of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s A PRINCESS OF MARS and its sequels. Beginning in the prehistoric past, a mysterious, virtually omnipotent alien species, the titular Lords of Creation, terraformed Mars and Venus. They imported animals and humans from various Earth time periods. Thus we have a primitive, swamp-covered Venus with dinosaurs and a desert Mars with an ancient civilization. Inspired by the enigmatic, coldly rational Martians, by the way, this universe’s version of STAR TREK features a logical starship officer who’s a Martian. In THE LORDS OF CREATION, Earth explorers have recently discovered interdimensional gates left behind by the godlike aliens. Chapter headings consisting of paragraphs from the 2004 ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITTANICA help to fill us in on the background of this alternate world. Although the cover blurb hints that the nature of the Lords of Creation and the reason why the gates have suddenly become accessible will be at least partially revealed in this novel, they aren’t. As the story begins, an expedition prepares to enter the Gate in the Atlantic Ocean, which leads to a vast, hollow sphere large enough to hold 500 million Earth-sized planets. It’s illuminated by a sun-equivalent that never exactly sets, and the curvature of the sphere’s interior means it has no true horizon. Protagonist Janice DiFalco holds a PhD in physics as well as a degree in linguistics. The ship that traverses the Gate carries, in addition to Janice and the rest of the WestBloc team, a representative of the EastBloc, Chinese astrophysicist (with additional specialties in archaeology and linguistics) Lee Daiyu. (In this alternate history, the EU has declined into a minor power.) Although it’s an open secret that she’s also there as a spy, she and Janice get along fairly well. Their adventures involve them with a barbarian tribe, a society originating from Enlightenment-era France, and New France’s rival, a society seeded from nineteenth-century England. I enjoyed the worldbuilding and character interactions, especially the growing sort-of friendship between Janice and Lee. Despite their unavoidable mutual distrust because of their ideological differences, they discover many things they have in common as twentieth-century “Round World” people among living anachronisms. They become, as they put it at the end, “friends with qualifications.” The stakes are raised when the Earth explorers find themselves stranded, at least for the present. The plot has plenty of forward momentum to keep the reader’s attention engaged and enough battle scenes to please fans of that aspect of Stirling’s fiction. Although the cover blurb identifies this book as the final volume of a trilogy, I wistfully hope for more — short works even if no future novels. The setting of the Sphere offers almost infinite scope for fascinating ecosystems, cultures, and stories.
TIFFANY ACHING’S GUIDE TO BEING A WITCH, by Rhianna Pratchett and Gabrielle Kent. Upon Terry Pratchett’s death, it was announced that no more Discworld novels would appear (not even completions of unfinished works he might have left). This illustrated hardcover, co-authored by his daughter, is the next best thing. Any devoted fan of Discworld, especially the “Witches” subseries, will want this book. On the other hand, readers unfamiliar with the series might find TIFFANY ACHING’S GUIDE more confusing than entertaining, so this wouldn’t be a suitable entry point for novices. Chapter topics include, among many others, “Becoming a Witch,” “Hierarchy & Sisterhood,” “Witch Attire & Accessories,” “Witch Magic,” “The Power of the Land,” “The Nac Mac Feegle,” “Familiars & Companions,” “A Witch’s Abode” (be very careful with gingerbread cottages), and “On Gods & Other Monsters” (one of my favorite chapters — “Most witches don’t believe in gods” – they exist, of course, but witches know them too well to believe in them). The text is embellished with marginal notes and supplementary essays by characters such as Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax (the leader the witches don’t have), Mrs. Letice Earwig, Miss Tick, Queen Magrat Garlick, et al. As in Terry Pratchett’s best work, a core of serious meaning underlies the humor, especially in the final chapters, “Life & Death” and “On Journeys.” At the end of the book appears a helpful list of characters, animals, places, etc. mentioned in the text (broken down by categories such as witches, wizards, gods and monsters, among others), noting which novels they appear in.
For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
*****
Excerpt from “Her Death Was Doubtful”:
The idea of going to the dance with Ethan appealed to Mia more than she wanted to admit. But suppose she asked him, and he declined? What if the resulting awkwardness ruined their friendship?
“You should buy a new dress and everything. I’ll help you pick one. We could go to the mall in Raleigh. It would be fun.” Keisha possessed fashion savvy far above Mia’s level. Mia was more of a big-box store shopper than a boutique connoisseur. “With your long, black hair, brown eyes, and pale skin, you’d look fantastic in a deep jewel tone. Jade green, probably. How about it?”
“Maybe.” At that moment, the ghost girl from the restroom appeared on the other side of the table. She materialized out of thin air between one second and the next, bloodstained clothes and all. Mia suppressed a gasp as the phantom sat across from her like the specter at the banquet in Macbeth.
“What’s wrong?” Keisha gave her a teasing smile. “Is the idea of dress shopping that scary?”
Mia shook her head. “It’s nothing. Swallowed a crumb the wrong way.”
With an unblinking stare, the ghost moaned, “Where’s my baby?”
“Go away,” Mia silently mouthed, waving as if shooing a fly.
“Help me find my baby.”
The girl looked and sounded so real Mia had trouble convincing herself nobody else could see or hear her. Dredging her fork through her half-finished meal, Mia forced her gaze away from the apparition and stared at her plate.
“You sure you’re okay?” Keisha asked in a more serious tone.
“Sure. I’ll ask Mom if I can buy a new outfit.”
“So that means you’ll ask Ethan to take you to the dance?”
“I’ll think about it.” The ghost stretched to a standing position and floated through the table like wading into a pool, her body visible only from the waist up. Mia flinched.
“And if he doesn’t want to for some crazy reason, you’ll come solo?” Keisha waved a hand in front of Mia’s face. “Earth calling, come in, please.”
“Sorry.” The ghost leaned forward until a chill emanating from her made Mia’s skin prickle. Mia scrambled off the bench. “I need to leave. I don’t feel so good all of a sudden. You can have my cake.”
Keisha twisted around to watch her. “Maybe you should go to the nurse’s office. Want me to come with?”
“No, I just need a drink of water and some air. I’ll be all right in a few minutes.” After grabbing her purse and backpack, she scurried toward the exit.
In the corridor, she leaned against the wall, gulping deep breaths. She pressed one hand against her queasy stomach. So much for hoping the ghost couldn’t leave the site of her death. At least she hadn’t followed Mia out of the cafeteria. Mia hustled down the hall to the girls’ room, where she blotted her flushed face with damp paper towels. A couple of students who walked in cast curious glances at her, but they didn’t say anything. Maybe she looked less freaked than she felt.
When her breathing and heartbeat calmed, she left the restroom and retreated to the library on the second floor. There she settled at a secluded table with her American history textbook to start on the next day’s chapter. The words swam in her blurred vision. Closing her eyes, she laid her head on her folded arms with the book open under them.
After only a few minutes of rest, an icy touch skimmed her bare forearm. With a stifled cry, she whipped her head up and looked wildly around. The ghost girl bent over her, staring into her face.
“Leave me alone,” Mia ordered in a harsh whisper. “I can’t help you. Haunt somebody else.”
“I can’t find my baby.”
Instead of answering, Mia fixed her gaze on the textbook. The ghost’s repetitious pleas faded into an unintelligible murmur and finally stopped. When Mia glanced up, the phantom girl had disappeared.
-end of excerpt-
*****
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, visit the Dropbox page below. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
All issues are now posted on Dropbox, where you should be able to download them at this link:
All Vampire’s Crypt Issues on Dropbox
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links:
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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):
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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