Archive for October, 2026
Welcome to the October 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.
In September, my ghost novella “Her Death Was Doubtful” was featured in N. N. Light’s Middle Grade and YA promo event:
Her Death Was Doubtful Spotlight
Have you heard of vampire pumpkins? My story “Night of the Living Gourd,” in NIGHT TO DAWN No. 50, introduces one into a modern suburb. There’s an excerpt below. You can buy the magazine here:
Please welcome mystery and romantic suspense author M. S. Spencer:
*****
Interview with M. S. Spencer:
What inspired you to become a writer?
I have been writing since my chubby 4-year-old fingers could hold a piece of sidewalk chalk. Like any sane tweenie I wrote reams of self-indulgent, metaphor-heavy poems while racked out on my bed staring out the window. I confess I still indulge in a little iambic composition to this day. I grew more ambitious as an adult and hammered out a novel which my loving husband threw out by mistake, then ground out another one which was mercifully taken out of my hands and edited into the splendid novel it is today. Once you get that first acceptance call, you are validated. After that, you’re not just a writer; you’re an author. As of September 30, I’m the proud creator of 19 books.
What genres do you work in?
I write murder mystery and romantic suspense. Some might call my mysteries “cozy” but to me that conjures up the doughnut lady or the knitting circle who solve crimes while crocheting baby blankets or frosting Berliners. Mine are more like Agatha Christie’s stories—puzzles to be solved by remarkably tenacious and perspicacious amateur sleuths. The romantic element is strong but not dominant. What can I say? I like happy endings.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
I start with a story line of a few paragraphs which is almost totally scrapped by the third chapter. After that comes a first draft, which is more or less a detailed outline of about 30,000 words. Once the bare bones are set I can fill out the characters and add lots of red herrings and straw men. Since they are complicated mysteries, I literally memorize the story in order to recognize glitches and inconsistencies. The book isn’t usually ready for submission until the ninth or tenth draft.
What have been the major influences on your work (favorite authors or whatever)?
When I was young I read everything. Everything, that is, except novels with girls’ names in the title, which I spurned as wussy. That included Little Women and even Nancy Drew. I read all the classics (because I figured they were classics for a reason), and every dog, horse, outdoors, pirate adventure I could find. I also devoured biographies. The authors that had the most influence on me were English—Austen, Hardy, the Waughs, the Brontës, Iris Murdoch—plus Thomas Mann, Rilke, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Euripides. Of course the great mystery writers—Marsh, Christie, Sayers—had a huge influence.
Your mysteries are set in numerous different locations. What kinds of research do you conduct for them?
I don’t use settings with which I’m unfamiliar. Most of my books are set in Maine, the DC area, and Florida. The most autobiographical of my stories follows my adventures in Europe and the Middle East. Still, I augment my memories with major research to ensure accuracy. Being a librarian helps.
Please tell us about your poetry. What inspired the continuing character of Zelda?
I didn’t know you saw my poetry! Very gratifying. I’ve been writing poetry all my life but a few years ago I took up with Zelda who is not an alter ego. She is a fascinating, irritating, frightening, impressive and impressionable, over-sized pixie who definitely keeps me on my toes. Let others decide where she comes from.
What will readers find in your blog?
I use the blog as a newsletter. You will find media kits for all my books; my calendar and links to all my interviews and guest posts; news about my writing; and information on where to find the books. I don’t often write an actual blog.
What is your latest or next-forthcoming book?
Fair Winds and Foul Play: An Amity Landing Mystery, released September 30. Here’s the blurb:
What do a government official, a loony environmentalist, and a batty old lady have in common?
Zoe’s run-in with the newcomer in Albion Cottage is hardly promising, but his gunmetal gray eyes and air of mystery stick with her. Why is he hiding? Who is he? His prickly attitude grates on the neighborly—well, to be honest, nosey—folks of the village of Amity Landing, but when he confesses to Zoe that he is the witness to a gruesome murder, she jumps at the chance to help the handsome stranger.
Two more corpses make their appearance in quick succession, but their connection to the first body is murky at best. Is it simply a series of unfortunate incidents? Has Amity Landing become a hotbed of homicide or is there a pattern to the madness? Do more have to die before Zoe and the stranger can fit the puzzle pieces together?
And here are the buy links (you can use either the universal link or the others; once the book is published Books2Read adds any new links).
Books2Read (universal link)
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
The Wild Rose Press
Apple
Google
What are you working on now?
This is fun! I’m working on a mystery set on Anna Maria Island (south-central Florida, Gulf Coast). It starts in the aftermath of the two hurricanes of 2024. The heroine and hero check out a severely damaged house and discover a young girl suffering from amnesia. She clutches a diamond brooch in her hand, which the hero recognizes as from the Napoleonic crown jewels recently stolen from the Louvre in Paris.
What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
Edit, edit, edit till your brain bleeds. Correct inconsistencies, watch out for favorite phrases or words. It’s not how many words you write; it’s how well those words are put together.
What is the URL of your website? What about other internet presence? (If there are a huge number of possible links, please limit them to five or so.)
Blog
Facebook
Twitter
BookDNA
GoodReads
BookBub
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
HORROR TROPES (And What They Tell Us), by Rick Wood. The author has written numerous novels, edited several anthologies, and produced other nonfiction books about writing and the horror genre. This one should more accurately be called “Horror Film Tropes.” Books are mentioned very rarely, only as sources for a few movies. Better yet, the title should be something like “Horror Tropes in Contemporary Films,” but I suppose that would be a bit cumbersome. The vast majority of movies cited were produced in the twenty-first century, although the eighties and nineties aren’t neglected, some works from the seventies are included, and a very few from the fifties and sixties appear. The foundational classic and vintage productions of Universal and Hammer studios aren’t mentioned at all. Also, from my viewpoint the author concentrates too heavily on the slasher subgenre. I expected more analysis than he provides, although there’s some – that’s where “what they tell us” comes in – and he’s clearly an expert in the field. In fairness, he’s writing for a popular rather than academic audience. If you seek an exhaustive listing of almost every possible horror film trope and motif, thematically classified by chapter, here’s the book for you. I do wonder, though, why the well-known motifs of “kill your gays” and “women in refrigerators” are omitted. For me, the main drawbacks of the book are lack of a table of contents and, worse, lack of an index. It needs an index of tropes and a separate one for movie titles. The reader can browse for pleasure but has no way to perform a targeted search. I recommend the book for entertainment and for discovering new movies to track down and watch. Don’t count on it as a reliable reference work, though. In one chapter, Wood consistently writes “sanctity” where he means “sanctuary”; at another point he refers to Shirley Jackson’s classic novel THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE as “The House on Haunted Hill”; and those aren’t the only errors I noticed. So if you want to cite any of his titles or dates, check against a different source in case those contain typos, too.
LITTLE MONSTERS, by Maire Roche. This has to be the most unusual retelling of LITTLE WOMEN I’ve read. Granted, others have transmuted the classic novel into dark fantasy, e.g., LITTLE VAMPIRE WOMEN and LITTLE WOMEN AND WEREWOLVES, but those stick pretty close to the plotline of Louisa May Alcott’s work, along the lines of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES and SENSE AND SENSIBILITY AND SEA MONSTERS. Roche’s adaptation, although set in Massachusetts like the original (specifically Salem), takes place in the present day. While the principal characters have the names and personalities of their classic counterparts, the plot doesn’t duplicate that of LITTLE WOMEN. The March sisters have lost their parents and lived in a succession of foster homes. Marmee, their current foster mother, works long hours but treats the sisters kindly. Protagonist Meg, as the oldest, takes responsibility for her sisters and tries to ensure the four of them cause as little trouble as possible. If they remain helpful and well-behaved and don’t ask for anything – including money for Halloween costumes or even regular clothes – maybe they won’t lose the best home they’ve had. She does her best to supply their nonessential wants by part-time work for the affluent family of Jo’s (male) best friend, Laurie. Staying out of trouble can’t be guaranteed, since Beth has cute bat wings, Amy is a part-mermaid shapeshifter, and Meg and Jo sprout fur, fangs, and claws under stress. As Meg eventually learns, Salem is one of a few “seam” cities, places that attract supernatural events and “monstrous” people. At the beginning of the story, though, she knows only that she and her sisters must hide their abnormal traits. While aware that she leaves the house at night, she can’t remember where she goes or what she does. Could she be the monster killing chickens and even attacking people? As neighbors and schoolmates become more suspicious of her, she becomes increasingly isolated, even from her sisters. She’s afraid to ask Marmee for help. Meg’s feeling of betrayal when she discovers their foster mother hides an apparently sinister secret makes things worse. Even the obligatory “rich mean girl” antagonist and her status-obsessed parents turn out to be much more than they seem. Meg’s increasing desperation as she clings to the belief that her family’s welfare depends completely on her makes her a deeply sympathetic character. Many of us, “monstrous” or not, can identify with the theme of feeling like an outsider and misfit. The denouement enlightens Meg as well as the reader about the hidden truth of Salem and its inhabitants.
DEMONS AND DIPLOMACY, by Megan Frampton. Reminiscent of series by such authors as Patricia Briggs, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Jim Butcher, in this alternate-history fantasy novel numerous species formerly thought to be imaginary and/or legendary have become publicly known in the recent Great Revelation. The set-up also brings to mind Kim Newman’s superb alternate history ANNO-DRACULA; in both works, Queen Victoria is a vampire. Unlike Newman’s version, however, Frampton’s Victoria is a ruthless monarch rather than a thrall to an undead lord. Prince Albert, a dhampir, appears definitely subordinate to her rather than essentially co-ruler as in real-life history. As far as I can tell, in DEMONS AND DIPLOMACY vampires belong to a different species rather than being former humans. The term “species” is consistently used for them, and there’s no mention of vampiric transformation. Their kind, though, play little onstage role in the story, Victoria being the only one the protagonist interacts with, and only in a few scenes. As the title suggests, the plot centers on demons. It’s set in the context of Prince Albert’s Great Exhibition. The ruler of Hell, the actual Devil, makes a royal visit to meet the Queen and spend a month in England before the opening of the Exhibition. Narrator Cora Hastings works as the government’s species ombudsman, who mediates disputes among members of various supernatural species, as well as between them and the human majority. She faces the monumental task of orchestrating the satanic visit to keep the Devil in a good enough mood that he won’t inflict his wrath on anyone or anything. Cora acts as liaison to His Satanic Majesty’s entourage, represented by Marcellus, Marquis of Hell, highest ranking of the Devil’s many offspring. Frampton’s Victoria and Albert bear little resemblance to their historical counterparts; in my opinion, they might as well be different people with the same names. (Granted, though, maybe we don’t see enough of them to judge.) While avoiding disastrous interdimensional incidents, coping with religious zealots who vehemently protest allowing demons in the human world, and investigating assassination attempts, Cora and Marcellus become closer than she’s comfortable with. After all, he’s a demon, however charming, with a moral code – or lack thereof – incompatible with human values. Anyway, no matter how friendly they become, after a month or so he’ll be returning to Hell. I can believe in Cora’s falling in lust with him. But love? That moral mismatch would seem insurmountable, a problem that continues to bug me even after a happy ending that strikes me as a bit too facile. Moreover, Cora never develops, for me, much depth of character. Her friendship with her two housemates, a fairy and a succubus, feels more believable than her attachment to Marcellus. As for the constant references to her obsession with tea, maybe they’re intended as comic relief, but to me they just make her seem annoyingly frivolous. The topic might work better as a character-defining trait if she spent onstage time fussing over the proper way to brew the genial beverage (as Elizabeth Peters’s heroine Amelia Peabody calls it) or discussing the merits of different varieties. As it is, although I know practically nothing about tea, much less the British nuances related to it, I could have written those frequent throwaway allusions myself. Nevertheless, the worldbuilding is fun, even if the mystery and suspense don’t rise to Agatha Christie levels of complexity. I especially like the excerpts from “An Incomplete Guide to Navigating Supernatural Species in the Post-Revelation World” that precede each chapter, delivering expository tidbits in an entertaining, colloquial style. A glossary of such species follows the text of the novel. The book’s subtitle implies that it’s the beginning of a series. A fun, fast-paced but not frenetic read, enjoyable despite the above-mentioned imperfections.
For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
*****
Excerpt from “Night of the Living Gourd”:
“Mom, there’s a dead squirrel on the porch.”
At Dan’s yell, Lynn, in the kitchen, glanced up from rifling through his previous night’s trick-or-treat bounty in search of chocolate. Halloween having fallen on Friday, he’d collected a larger haul than usual and would hardly miss any candy she sneaked for herself.
When she emerged onto the front porch, she found her son pointing at a furry, flattened corpse. From behind the screen door, Wagner, their dachshund, barked furiously.
The carved pumpkin, which she’d posed on the topmost of the three front steps, now sat on the edge of the porch. “Hey, who moved the jack-o-lantern? And how did the squirrel’s blood get on it?”
Dan poked at the carcass. “Maybe the pumpkin tried to eat it.”
“Don’t touch that. And don’t be silly.” Wasn’t seven too old for such a flight of fantasy?
His thirteen-year-old sister, Ashley, ambled onto the porch, munching on a granola bar while nudging Wagner out of the way. The dog, apparently having gotten his second wind, launched into another barking fit. “What happened?” She raked the fingers of her free hand through her auburn, sleep-tousled hair.
“No idea,” Lynn said. “Unless it’s a Halloween prank by one of your friends.”
“Really, Mom.” Ashley heaved a sigh expressive of long-suffering exasperation. “What kind of friends do you think I have?”
“Okay, I concede the point for now. Anybody volunteer to get rid of the dead squirrel?” With faint hope, Lynn glanced at each of her children in turn.
“Eww.” Ashley retreated into the house.
“Dan?”
“You said not to touch it. Can I go watch my cartoons?” Not waiting for an answer, he hurried inside, too.
Lynn resignedly scuffed through a layer of autumn leaves to the garage for a shovel to scoop up the corpse. If Craig were home, she could count on him for the unpleasant chore. Unfortunately, his ship was deployed to the Mediterranean and wouldn’t return until December. “Glamorous life of a Navy wife,” she muttered as she dumped the dead squirrel in the garbage can.
What could have killed it? None of the neighbors let their dogs run free. A fox, maybe? Remembering Dan’s remark, she laughed aloud. “Vicious pumpkin attack, right.”
Hours later, when she took Wagner out for his afternoon stroll around the block, he lunged to the end of the leash, barking as he charged the jack-o-lantern.
“What’s gotten into you today?” She tugged him down the front steps. Once on the sidewalk, he seemed to forget about his newfound feud with the pumpkin.
-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