Welcome to the November 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 Halloween, and happy American Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it!
One of my publishers, the Wild Rose Press, now has a page where readers can sign up to find out about new releases:
N. N. Light’s Book Heaven featured my nonfiction book DIFFERENT BLOOD: THE VAMPIRE AS ALIEN in their Trick or Treat promo event:
Do you crave a deep dive into one intriguing stream of vampire science fiction? Or do you just want a resource with an amazing number and variety of vampiric novels and stories to check out? Either way, this is the book for you, written to appeal to researchers, fans, and/or avid readers who combine both.
NIGHT TO DAWN magazine accepted my story “The Case of the Vampire Groupie” for their issue 52. It features my recurring characters Dr. Roger Darvell, a vampire-human hybrid, and his human professional and romantic partner, Dr. Britt Loren. The opening scene appears below.
Here’s an interview with mystery and suspense author J. D. Webb.
*****
Interview with J. D. Webb:
What inspired you to become a writer?
In my high school days, I was known for creating mischief. As punishment for one of my episodes, I was thrown into a creative writing class. Two things I quickly discovered: 1. I love to write and 2. Mischief can be rewarding. I continue to delve into each of these attributes.
What genres do you work in?
Mystery and Suspense/Thrillers. Seems to me that the genres have begun to overlap and merge. Used to be only seven and now over one hundred are identified. As such it makes it harder to define what genre your story fits into. Good lord, I ended a sentence in a preposition. I see more and more authors breaking the so-called rules of writing. I confess. Could this be considered mischief.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
I’m a true pantser. I have an idea of a story, and I type away trying to find out what happens next. My characters usually tell me. I don’t outline, but I do organize and fully develop my main characters. I keep a strict chapter timeline, so I know what I’ve included in each. Eight of my novels have been published and none of them ended the way I had first intended.
What have been the major influences on your work (favorite authors or whatever)?
I voraciously read authors in my genre(s). Lee Child, Mark Greaney, Vince Flynn, Tom Clancy, John Gilstrap, William Kent Krueger, and the list goes on. I read for pleasure and as a learning experience. I analyze how they plot, use dialogue, develop red herrings, etc. I steal from them, their techniques, their pacing, how they put their story together.
How have your previous careers in the Air Force and as a linguist affected your writing (if they did)?
I served as a linguist in Air Force Security Service. I had a full top-secret clearance, and I use some of that experience in my Suspense novels. Not a lot because after sixty years, I’m positive things have changed drastically. I do have contacts I develop for each book. Whether police or military I go to the public relations offices for information I need. Most are super cooperative. For my book Bayou Chase that takes place in Lake Charles LA, I contacted the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s office, and I still have that officer’s phone number. I have never been to Lake Charles.
What kinds of background research do you conduct for your novels?
I research as necessary. If I use a city for location, I make sure the streets are accurate and go the correct direction if they are one-way. If I use a certain weapon I know as much about it as their website details. The book I’m working on has a 250-foot yacht. I know the dimensions, how much fuel it uses, the crew size and what is included in each of the three decks. I printed out the schematic, and it rests in my notebook.
What is your latest or next-forthcoming book?
On Oct 7 my latest story, a noir mystery Shepherd’s Pie, became available. Mike Shepherd is self-described as Chicago’s best P.I. who attempts to capture an escaped fugitive. That man becomes incensed and begins a killing spree targeting Mike’s friends and Mike himself.
What are you working on now?
The sequel to Shepherd’s Pie will be out in early 2027. Working on final galley. Her Name Is Mommy has Mike trying to rescue a tot’s mom from kidnappers despite being told by the authorities to stop. He doesn’t.
I’m 80% done with a sequel to Frequent Flier (released April 2026) titled Frequent Flier – Savannah. Ex-military pilot Matt Pearson and his buddy Paul try to rescue a seventeen-year-old immigrant girl kidnapped by human traffickers who then sold her to an Arabian sheik. (He owns the huge yacht.)
What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
Best advice I ever got was to put your butt in the chair and write. So many things pop up in life to distract us. Carve out time to write. Read and steal from your favorite authors. See how they do it.
What is the URL of your website? What about other internet presence?
My website is J. D. Webb
Facebook and Goodreads are Author JD Webb
Thanks again, Margaret.
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
ASTARION, by T. Kingfisher. A media tie-in fantasy novel by one of my favorite authors, set in the world of the “Baldur’s Gate” computer game. Although I’ve never played the game, as predicted I had no trouble following the story. Over forty years of playing tabletop Dungeons & Dragons more than adequately prepared me for the setting. In fact, probably any fan of sword-and-sorcery fantasy would understand this novel even without D&D experience. I gather Astarion, the protagonist, is a major character in Baldur’s Gate, but prior knowledge of him isn’t needed to enjoy the book, either. Kingfisher smoothly fills in the reader on essential elements of his past. Formerly a magistrate, Astarion was attacked in revenge for an adverse trial judgment. The vampire lord Cazador “saved” him by transforming him into a vampire spawn. We learn from flashbacks to Astarion’s human past that he wasn’t a bad person when alive, though already cynical and hedonistic. Becoming undead has embittered him without eliminating his sardonically humorous view of the world. Spawn, not being full-fledged vampires, suffer all the limitations of the undead condition but don’t possess all its powers yet and are compelled to obey their makers. As a thrall to Cazador along with several others, Astarion leads a mostly miserable existence, but at least he enjoys some freedom on the nights he goes out to lure victims for his master. The spawn aren’t allowed blood from human victims, for that would elevate them to full vampire status. Instead, they’re restricted to animal prey. Cazador is capricious with his favors and creatively sadistic in punishments. The only thrall who gets much leeway is his pet alchemist. Any spawn with treasured possessions must hide them from the master (difficult in itself, given his power to read their minds over a limited distance), who would confiscate them. The thralls don’t trust each other, with good reason. Astarion has only two almost-friends, the alchemist and an older woman who’s his occasional sexual partner, and even with them trust remains only provisional. The inciting incident of the plot occurs when Cazador announces a contest: Whoever brings him a sample of the most exotic and delicious blood will get changed into a true vampire. Of course, they know he’ll probably invent a reason not to bestow the award on anyone, but they have to try. Astarion decides to seek the blood of a dead god from the shrine of the deity’s obscure underground (in both senses) cult. In the process, he accidentally picks up a paladin imprisoned by the cult along with him. They agree to a reluctant truce. A paladin has a duty to destroy undead, yet they need each other to complete their escape. Astarion convinces Hahn den Suriel the latter won’t be breaking his vows if he resolves to kill the vampire at the first opportunity after they escape from the caverns and their truce ends. To add to the inconvenience of their alliance, not only does Suriel bear powers and magical objects harmful to the undead, he can cast truth spells. The only saving grace is that within the spell’s area of effect the paladin can’t lie, either. And Astarion has great skill at giving evasive replies. Readers of books in the author’s world of the White Rat will be familiar with her talent for portraying paladins. Suriel, a devotee of the order of the Argent Badger, which hardly anybody has ever heard of, is as delightful a specimen as one would expect. The snappy dialogue between him and Astarion injects dark humor into even the direst of plights, as they battle cultists, animated skeletons, and soap mummies (not a typo) in the process of escaping. Naturally, the two become strongly attracted to each other, much against the principles of both. Back at Cazador’s lair, the double-crossing and hostility we’d expect ensue. However, Suriel’s obligatory mission to slay the vampire lord concludes with a twist that surprised me. As Kingfisher mentions in her afterword, writers of media-based fiction labor under strict constraints. They can’t alter the status quo established in canon. Therefore, since this novel takes place before the events of the game, Astarion can’t get a happy ending. Yet Kingfisher manages the difficult feat of not only winding up the quest plot in a satisfying way but allowing Astarion some measure of acceptance as he moves forward into the next phase of his undead existence.
THE GATES OF MIDNIGHT, by Helene Wecker. Third and final volume in a series that began with THE GOLEM AND THE JINNI, a book that enthralled me. Although I’d forgotten many events in its immediate sequel, THE HIDDEN PALACE, Wecker skillfully feeds backstory information throughout the present novel, so I never felt lost. The golem, Chava, created as companion for a young man from a small central European village, set out with him to America, but he died on the voyage. The jinni, Ahmad, turned up in New York when accidentally released from the copper flask in which he’d been imprisoned for centuries. These two creatures, one of earth and one of fire, both trying to pass for human, found each other amid New York’s foreign population. They eventually discovered a sinister connection between them: The wizard who created Chava was the latest reincarnation of the one who trapped Ahmad (who, as a result, still wears an iron wristband that limits his powers). While the vivid depiction of the American immigrant experience in the early twentieth century would be riveting in itself, the fantasy element adds extra layers of fascination. THE GATES OF MIDNIGHT skips around chronologically, which doesn’t cause a problem for the reader, because the author includes dates and locations at the head of each chapter. The main story, interwoven with flashbacks, takes place in 1930. Chava, with a golem’s drive to be of service, tends the garden of her New York home while trying to prepare a refuge for other supernatural beings. Ahmad works as an architect in Chicago. Once a week, they converse by long-distance telephone. Frustrated by the subtle racism that denies him meaningful jobs in his company, Ahmad decides to join Chava in New York. Meanwhile, the wizard he captured and confined in the aforesaid copper flask, buried in the Syrian desert, manages to escape. With magical mind-control, he lures an unsuspecting dupe to dig up the receptacle, then leaps among flask-bearing hosts until he arrives in New York to search for Chava. Aside from the golem and the jinni, the novel includes several other viewpoint characters, including the wizard himself. Kreindel, a Jewish woman friend of Chava’s who, against traditional custom, studies Torah and teaches it to girls at a Jewish orphanage, stumbles upon a dangerous spell. Thomas, a young man with the uncanny gift of making himself unseen, travels from the Middle East to North America and finds work on the incomplete Empire State Building. Once a boy named Matthew, whom Ahmad accompanied across the ocean and turned over to the grandmother five-year-old Matthew had never met, at the age of nine he got his memory wiped by an exorcist his grandmother consulted to cure the jinni “taint” in the boy. When he and Ahmad meet in New York, Thomas feels only fear and hostility toward the strange man who seems to know him. Meanwhile, all of them, along with Chava’s other human friends, unwittingly face the threat of the evil wizard’s scheme. Misunderstandings, interpersonal conflicts, and even estrangement complicate relationships among the potential targets of magical malice. I became emotionally invested in the characters and rejoiced in the epilogue’s satisfying resolutions for most of them, won through danger, trauma, and growth.
MAZYWOOD, by Tananarive Due. The two timelines of this novel, in the present day and the silent film era through the golden age of Hollywood, comprise sequel and prequel, respectively, to a pair of previously published stories, “Incident at Bear Creek Lodge” and “Return to Bear Creek Lodge.” The contemporary protagonist, Black filmmaker Johnny Washington, was the viewpoint character of the two short pieces. His grandmother, an embittered, abusive old woman in those stories, is the protagonist of the vintage Hollywood timeline. The book’s structure intertwines the two narratives. Readers don’t need prior knowledge of Johnny’s childhood visits to Bear Creek Lodge to appreciate the novel, since his brief flashback memories provide all the necessary context. In the immediate post-World-War I period, Mazelle Washington begins her long acting career as a child star in a series of movies similar to the “Little Rascal” films. Mazelle, like those kids, has a cute dog as a co-star. After making a magical wish for a friend, she found him loose in the woods, and he revealed almost preternatural intelligence. Scout the Wonder Dog appears to understand anything she says and obeys her commands but nobody else’s. He makes her a star even though she has only average singing and dancing talents. Unfortunately, like all child actors she begins to age out of the role, and at that time Scout vanishes as mysteriously as he arrived. Without him, offers of work dry up. As an adult, Mazelle resumes acting, now as a stereotypical caricature of a Black maid, “Lazy Mazy,” in a series of comedies. She’s a big hit but yearns for serious roles. Her long-time director strings her along with promises that don’t materialize, while declaring, “You’ll always be Lazy Mazy.” Although she has many friends in the industry, including Black stars such as Hattie McDaniel, she can’t escape that stereotype. With her accumulated wealth, she establishes a ski lodge retreat, called Mazywood until her loathing for her Lazy Mazy past impels her to rename it “Bear Creek Lodge.” Just when she needs him most, Scout reappears, but he no longer looks quite like a dog. An instrument of her pent-up rage, he grows less like a natural animal over the years. He lurks in the woods, known only to Mazelle. In the present, Johnny Washington encounters a severe setback in his film career. Moreover, he and his wife, Tasha, have just learned she’s pregnant, a shock to their pleasant anticipation of an empty nest in a few years. Their two daughters are respectively thirteen and almost college age. He’s planning to rent out his late grandmother’s mountain property as a ski lodge. With his bad memories of the place, he’d as soon never see it again, but Tasha and their daughters love idea of spending a few days there. Tasha contemplates writing a book about Mazelle, and the girls look forward to snowboarding on the slopes. All horror fans know the perils of staying at an isolated house in midwinter. Despite the lack of internet and cell phone service, Johnny’s wife and daughters enjoy the place at first. He has convinced himself the creature that terrified him as a preteen was just a fox tunneling under the snow. So what if his grandmother secretly fed the animal? By then she was probably half crazy, anyway. His confidence in natural explanations is shattered when the family gets attacked by Mazelle’s monster, now large enough to drag Tasha away. Johnny and the girls set out, separately, to track down and rescue her – if she has survived. The long search, chase, and combat sequence maintains genuine suspense as to who will live or die. The characters, though flawed, are sympathetic, even Mazelle. The sections presented from her viewpoint reveal how the girl and young woman with talent and cherished dreams warped into the grandmother Johnny remembers with fear and revulsion. Discovery of the creature’s lair reveals family secrets from the distant past, one of my favorite fictional tropes. The “monster” formerly known as Scout proves to have unexpectedly complex motives. The ending includes a twist that surprised me. A fascinating exploration of generational trauma and the history of Black Hollywood.
OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE, by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Follow-up to THE TALISMAN and BLACK HOUSE by King and the late Peter Straub, this novel completes a trilogy. I’ve always suspected the Talisman in the book of that title and the Dark Tower, intersection of all planes of reality, were the same entity in different forms. BLACK HOUSE, with its Dark Tower connection, reinforced that belief for me. I’m not at all surprised to read in interviews and the afterword to OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE that King has always considered Mid-World in the Dark Tower saga to be the Territories from THE TALISMAN under another name. Now he has explicitly united the two in a work that draws both series to an epic culmination. (Not that I wouldn’t expect Dark Tower connections to continue popping up in King’s future fiction.) Jack Sawyer, a boy in THE TALISMAN and middle-aged in BLACK HOUSE, is now about sixty. He lives in Mid-World because, having been mortally wounded at the end of the previous novel and healed in Mid-World, he can survive for only a few days at a time on “America-side.” While other travelers need portals, such as used by Roland in the Dark Tower books, Jack can still “flip” between dimensions at will but has to be careful in doing it. Fans who haven’t reread THE TALISMAN and/or BLACK HOUSE recently shouldn’t have much trouble catching up, since necessary backstory is unobtrusively interwoven through the story. Jack’s memories of important past events rise to the surface of the narrative in smooth, plausible ways rather than appearing forced. King also uses the device of a memoir the widowed Jack Sawyer wrote for the benefit of his wife during their marriage, but he rereads selected passages in small doses at plausible moments to jolt his own memory along with the audience’s. As for the “Dark Tower” Mid-World setting of the novel, familiarity with the Dark Tower saga isn’t absolutely necessary, but readers of OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE who haven’t read any of the former books would miss interesting resonances. As the novel opens, Jack, occasionally experiencing the presence of his late wife, lives in the major city of Dezi (pronounced “Deez-eye”). It’s ruled by a “governor,” more like a petty dictator, who’s obsessed with collecting pulp fiction paperbacks and miscellaneous kitschy objects from our world. Jack runs errands for him to acquire this stuff. Among the Big Kahuna’s acquisitions are several other people from American-side, all kidnapped by the BK’s chief henchman (eventually revealed as much more than he seems) in 1976 of our timeline. They eventually become Jack’s ka-tet – a fellowship brought together by fate – although they don’t get along all that well among themselves, and he doesn’t particularly like some of them. In the present day, a male-female pair of young thrill-killers on the rampage stumble from the U.S. into Mid-World. In the process of passing through an interdimensional void known as the Gullet, they become possessed by a demonic entity, perhaps the supposedly destroyed Crimson King itself. The homicidal evil proves contagious, spreading to hordes of teenagers and young adults. Jack and his ka-tet of misfits are tasked with trekking to the Gullet, stopping the wanton slaughter, and closing the portal. Along the way, his initially unappealing companions grow on him and us, especially the seeress Mary, a former fortuneteller occasionally gifted with flashes of true precognition. Jack also picks up a billy-bumbler, a vaguely doglike animal with high intelligence and fierce loyalty, reminiscent of the bumbler Oy in the Dark Tower series. While we know time runs differently between our Earth and Mid-World / The Territories, it surprised me to notice how profound this fracture seems. Either that, or Mid-World society has a pretty short collective memory. In BLACK HOUSE, this-world action seems simultaneous with the climax of Roland’s quest for the Dark Tower. From Jack’s relative age, not much more than thirty years could have passed. Yet in Mid-World Roland and his ka-tet have become legendary, almost mythical figures, and some people doubt the Tower ever existed. Many of the less skeptical, though, insist on viewing Jack as a reincarnation of Roland, a status he vehemently rejects. However, “echoes” of correspondence among Roland’s ka-tet, Jack’s band, and features of Earth and Mid-World abound. King’s Constant Readers will notice callbacks to the Dark Tower books and THE TALISMAN, such as Slow Mutants and the humanoid Wolfs (not “wolves”). Brace for horror in the devastated, blood-drenched towns the murderers have passed through, as well as poignant scenes of pain and loss among the heroes. They’re on a mission to save not only Earth and Mid-World but perhaps the entire multiverse. We can’t expect everybody to win through unscathed; after all, this is a Stephen King book. As always, he makes us care about his flawed but courageous characters. I reacted to the epilogue with deep ambivalence. I find it profoundly moving, yet in its way frustrating. Readers with negative emotions about the end of Roland’s quest may feel the same way about the conclusion of this one. (Okay, this is an unusually long mini-review. But the complicated novel itself is almost 700 pages long!)
For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
*****
Excerpt from “The Case of the Vampire Groupie”:
“My newest patient claims she’s a vampire.”
From an armchair opposite his office desk, Roger Darvell gazed at Dr. Britt Loren, his professional and romantic partner, seated on the couch. In the late-afternoon light of September in Maryland that filtered through the closed window blinds, the roseate glow of her aura shone clearly.
With a skeptical arch of his eyebrows, he asked, “Is she?”
“Unlikely. She says she was turned — ‘sired,’ as she puts it — about a month ago.”
Unless the patient was a delusional vampire, then, she certainly wasn’t one of any kind. Vampires weren’t made. Like Roger himself, they were born, members of a very rare humanoid species sharing the world with Homo sapiens. The oddity of the case intrigued him, a stimulating change from their usual routine. Nowadays, insurance constraints meant they spent more time writing prescriptions than conducting old-fashioned psychoanalysis. “Why is she seeking treatment, then? Looking for a cure?”
“Not exactly. She just wants help fighting the urge to drink human blood. She’s been living mainly on animal blood sourced from butchers, plus milk and other liquids.”
Another proof that the patient was an ordinary ephemeral laboring under a delusion. Any vampire deprived of sustenance from live human donors for more than a week or so would risk psychosis. Emotional energy from a sapient source was as essential to their health as the blood itself.
“Still, since I can’t be a hundred percent sure she’s human,” Britt continued, “I asked her permission to call you in. You’ll be able to tell the difference at a glance.”
“It’s barely possible she isn’t an ephemeral with delusions of being a vampire, but a vampire who thinks she’s formerly human.”
Britt nodded. “I thought of that, which is why I want you to confirm my impression. But, again, it doesn’t seem likely. She doesn’t look like one of your kind. Not that my mental template comes from a very large sample size, but still…”
“Of course I want to meet her, either way. When are you seeing her again?”
“Next Wednesday at two. Can you be available?”
Roger stepped to his desktop computer and opened the scheduling software. “As it happens, my patient for that time slot canceled this coming week.” He got the alleged vampire’s name from Britt and entered it on the spreadsheet.
“You know how Janine reacts when we fool with the schedule instead of going through her,” she said.
“Yes, but I trust Janine knows who’s in charge of this practice.”
“Sure. She is. Remember how much trouble we had finding her when our last admin retired?”
“Granted,” Roger said with a wry smile. “I’ll send a very apologetic e-mail alerting her to the change.”
-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
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links:
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Carter Kindle Books
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“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter