Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Welcome to the August 2024 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.
If by any chance you’ve tried the Dropbox link for THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT (at the end of the newsletter) and had trouble with it, check out the current one, which should work.
My paranormal romance novelette “Chocolate Chip Charm” was featured by N. N. Light’s Book Heaven in their “Christmas in July” promotion:
Just before their church choir’s Christmas party potluck, Stacy learns her former boyfriend, Rob, has broken up with her best friend, whom he was dating. Stacy got over Rob a long time ago, or so she thought. Shouldn’t she try to repair her friends’ fractured relationship? A love potion recipe she finds in her grandmother’s old notebook of magic spells might fix the problem. On the wild chance that it could work, Stacy mixes it into a cookie. But the charm misfires, and now Rob insists he’s been in love with her all along. The spell will wear off in seven days. But does she really want it to? There’s an excerpt below.
This month, we welcome Amy Hahn, author of historical fiction and nonfiction as well as other genres.
*****
Interview with Amy Hahn:
What inspired you to become a writer?
I’ve always been a writer. I can’t remember when I wasn’t. I was a very early reader and wrote stories at a young age. I filled notebooks with stories. I carried those notebooks everywhere. Stories came easy for me. Writing stories was a natural thing for me.
What genres do you work in?
I’ve written paranormal, contemporary and historical. I’ve also authored nonfiction history. And The Duchess Egg Hunt is a cozy romance mystery. I enjoy reading and writing many different genres.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
I keep a notebook where I write down my book ideas. I sometimes write a general summary of the story with short character descriptions. And sometimes I’ll make notes about what I envision happening in each chapter. But I usually know how the story will evolve from beginning to middle to end. Once in a while there’s a twist or surprise I didn’t expect which changes the narrative, but most of the time the plot remains the same as the first time I imagined it.
What have been the major influences on your work (favorite authors or whatever)?
I can’t specifically pinpoint influences on my work. I’ve been writing since childhood and I have story ideas come easily and endlessly (it’s just finding the time to put them to paper!). But often after I read or see something interesting, such as a documentary, an original story related to that topic pops into my head. I do have many favorite authors that have most likely inspired me in some way. In the classics, I love Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Louisa May Alcott, Maud Lovelace and L.M. Montgomery. The beloved characters of Jo March, Betsy Hart and Anne Shirley, all passionate dreamers and writers with independent personalities, certainly offered inspiration. In contemporary, I enjoy Kate Morton, Sarah Addison Allen and Wendy Webb. And I’m a big fan of historical nonfiction by Erik Larson, David McCullough and Nathaniel Philbrick. I’m constantly amazed by the talent it takes to write historic nonfiction that reads like fiction narrative. Incredible.
What sparked your “Jelly Beans and Spring Things” book, THE DUCHESS EGG HUNT? What kind of research did you do for it?
I’ve read a lot of cozy mysteries and I do enjoy them, but I’ve never written one. So, when the “Jelly Beans and Spring Things” series was announced, I decided I wanted to give writing a cozy romantic mystery a try. But it had to have a historic story weaved into it. Contemporary mysteries surrounding a historic artifact, such as a painting or manuscript or photos, are a favorite of mine. And in addition to being a writer and editor, I am also a historian. With this series and its spring theme, I thought about the decorated porcelain eggs Tsar Nicholas Romanov gave his wife and mother every spring. These were extravagant creations. Many were designed with beautiful gems. So, I had an idea of having a story revolve around the lost jeweled eggs given to the four Romanov daughters who were known as Grand Duchesses. These decorative eggs are completely fictional. There is no record of the girls receiving their own eggs. But it sounded like a fun idea for a story. Add a museum curator who specializes in Imperial Russian art (and is especially knowledgeable about the lost eggs), a skeptic detective, an art heist by an elusive art thief, and a mysterious heiress with a family connection to Imperial Russia and a fun and interesting story developed.
MR. JACK FROST has the possibly unique premise of *the* Jack Frost as a romantic hero. What inspired you to choose him for that role?
That was my first book with The Wild Rose Press. It’s been a while since I wrote that one, but I remember wanting to write about winter and how beautiful it can be and that Jack Frost would be the perfect name for the hero, a magical hero, made of out snow, arriving to help the heroine rediscover joy in the holiday season and to be open to new love after experiencing tragedy.
Is the Ice Carousel in your story of that title based on a real-life counterpart somewhere?
That would be wonderful. I’d love to see a carousel made of ice. What a beautiful thing it would be! Even though I don’t know of a carousel carved in ice, there are many ice and snow sculpting contests across the world, including one in my home state of MN. That one takes place during the winter carnival in St. Paul. And the creations are amazing. Images and descriptions of these unique ice creations gave me inspiration for my icy carousel.
What is your latest or next-forthcoming book?
My most current is The Duchess Egg Hunt. I’m not sure what my next published book will be.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on several different manuscripts at the moment. I’m sure many authors do the same. A couple are paranormal romances and another is a historical romance Christmas story. I also have a couple ideas for historical nonfiction, focused on regional MN history, that have been percolating for a while. And I’d like to write historical fiction about a few of my ancestors, and put together a collection of family history essays.
What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
1. Don’t compare yourself to other published authors. Focus on you and your own writing abilities and goals. Do what works best for you. Give energy to that.
2. Don’t stop writing. If you stop, you’ll never realize your dream to be published.
How has your career in journalism and TV affected your fiction writing (if it has)?
Working as a news producer for a television newscast definitely offered great exposure to a variety of interesting people and fascinating stories. I’d say my work as a journalist has certainly impacted me in many ways and there could always be a future book that is heavily influenced by my experience in news. And I believe my journalism education and my work as a professional journalist, writing and crafting news stories, has certainly helped improve my writing and editing skills.
What is the URL of your website? What about other internet presence?
Author Website
Facebook
Instagram
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
A DAUGHTER OF FAIR VERONA, by Christina Dodd. A historical mystery narrated by the oldest daughter of Romeo and Juliet. Yes, really. Without retconning any elements of Shakespeare’s play except the tragic ending, Dodd postulates that Romeo and Juliet botched their respective suicide attempts and survived to remain married, thereby reconciling their repentant parents. (Not that minor feuds among other families don’t continue in Verona.) Having married in their teens, Romeo and Juliet are still fairly young (by today’s standards if not those of Renaissance Italy) and passionately in love. Their daughter Rosaline, Rosie for short, observing their tempestuous relationship and dealing with her resultant brood of siblings, has no interest in marriage. She disposes of the suitors her parents foist on her by matchmaking them with more suitable girls. Rosie would rather spend her time studying herbs and potions with the elderly Friar Lawrence. Now in her twenties, she thinks she’s home free because she’s practically a confirmed spinster in the view of her contemporaries—until her parents betroth her to a notoriously debauched older nobleman who has already buried more than one wife. To make matters worse, at her engagement ball she falls in love, or at least infatuation, at first sight with a young man from a family hostile to her own. How embarrassing to find herself in the same plight as her impulsive parents in their youth! Then her prospective husband gets murdered. Rosie falls under suspicion, a quandary not improved by her potion expertise, a skill that some people regard as the next thing to witchcraft. To clear her name, she investigates the man’s death and uncovers secrets about what really happened to his earlier wives. The plot thickens into an amateur-detective romp from which the reader never really believes Rosie won’t emerge mainly unscathed. Well, for one thing, she’s the narrator! Fast-moving, clever, and witty, the mystery includes multiple twists and a solution I didn’t see coming. While I like Rosie as a character, I never felt a deep emotional connection to her. I do sympathize with her apparently hopeless crush on the boy from a rival household, though, and feel some curiosity about their eventual fate (not enough to motivate me to buy the sequel, but your mileage may vary). I don’t mind the breezy narrative style, with the language of Romeo and Juliet’s Verona “translated” into modern American colloquialisms. I did wince, however, when Rosie scoffs at the concept of the Earth’s being round, a fact all educated people have known since antiquity. But I suppose I can give the author the benefit of the doubt and accept this detail as part of the humor.
WILDFIRE, by Peter Sartucci. Post-apocalyptic, near-future science fiction, first volume in a trilogy (continued in FIRE BREAK and BACK DRAFT) that will remind S. M. Stirling’s fans of his “Emberverse” series, beginning with DIES THE FIRE. Indeed, Sartucci’s saga is effectively fanfic inspired by Stirling and was written with that author’s full approval. The triggering phenomenon in WILDFIRE, an enigmatic extraterrestrial entity labeled the Visitor that has hovered over Earth uneventfully for some time before the fateful day, differs slightly from the set-up in Stirling’s series, but they lead to the same fundamental premise: In a single instant, the laws of physics change so that no advanced technology functions. No electricity, no explosions, no steam power capable of doing work. As far as the characters and readers ever discover, this change is permanent. While Stirling’s long-running series portrays the growth of a new society over the course of two generations, Sartucci’s trilogy focuses on the first few months after the Rupture (as the triggering event comes to be called). The protagonist, Sam Hyatt, teaches martial arts. He and his wife, Ellie, have two children. They live in Montana, but when the catastrophe hits, they’re in Denver with his team for a regional competition. As soon as they realize things won’t immediately return to normal, they set out with their team, bicycles for transport, whatever portable supplies they can gather, and a few other people they pick up on the way. They head for Ellie’s parents’ rural home, a small Colorado town in a comfortably remote, easily defensible location. Yes, of course they have the necessary skills, knowledge, and resources to survive, plus a relatively safe place to retreat to. A post-apocalyptic story about people without those advantages would be awfully short. Various other viewpoint characters are introduced along the way, some only walk-ons, others destined to become important later. The most significant secondary character outside the Hyatts’ personal circle turns out to be a Catholic priest serving as a hospital chaplain. A paranormal element arises, involving cryptic visions of each other experienced by him and Sam Hyatt. We await their eventual meeting in real life and aren’t disappointed. They’re also visited by mystical epiphanies that hint at the source of the Rupture, although Sartucci’s trilogy (unlike Stirling’s series) never offers specific details of the cause and motive for the event. In addition to the deities who reveal themselves to Sam and the priest, demonic forces have broken into the world. By the third volume, a spiritual battle between good and evil parallels the desperate physical clashes that end the lives of some characters. Alongside the attacks of gangs and organized armies determined to conquer the protagonists’ home, the internal politics of the town generate their own stress and hazards. While the books contain more battle scenes than I would have chosen, the author held my attention throughout, and I seldom had trouble understanding the action. My favorite sections are those where the heroes struggle to cope with the logistics of a suddenly pre-industrial world. Sartucci goes into deep and convincing detail about the problems and solutions. All the characters, both heroes and villains, are portrayed with lifelike vividness, and the good guys engage our full belief and sympathy. Their dangers and triumphs strike me as consistently plausible. The writing flows smoothly, with lucid exposition and lively dialogue. However, the text could have used another proofreading pass, with the repeated misplacement of apostrophes in plural possessives especially glaring. That glitch, though, didn’t prevent me from being captivated by this trilogy and not wanting it to end.
WICKED MARIGOLD, by Caroline Carlson. A fun middle-grade fantasy deconstructing a familiar fairy-tale and fantasy trope, good and bad princesses. All her life, Princess Marigold has heard about her perfect sister, Rosalind, who was kidnapped by the evil wizard Torville before Marigold was born. Rosalind was beautiful, kind, sweet, and virtuous – magically so. Animals loved her, and flowers instantly sprang up in her vicinity. Inquisitive, impulsive Marigold, aside from her cleverness at inventing “contraptions,” is an ordinary girl with a normal tendency to get into trouble. When she’s eleven years old, out of nowhere Rosalind escapes from Torville’s castle and comes home. For Marigold, the lavish festivities highlight her own flaws in contrast to her idealized older sister. When she accidentally-on-purpose dumps a bucket of water on Rosalind, Marigold decides – in accordance with fundamental fairy-tale principles – that if Rosalind is good, she herself must be the wicked one. Marigold runs away to the lair of wizard Torville. He and his imp assistant, Pettifog, after all those years of Rosalind’s incorrigible sweetness, want nothing to do with another princess. When Marigold insists she’s wicked and begs to become Torville’s apprentice, he gives her seven days to prove herself. Failure will result in a dire penalty, probably transformation into a beetle. Torville’s home is a delightful example of everything an evil sorcerer’s lair should be. Rummaging through spell books and scouring the “dank and dismal fortress” for ingredients, Marigold manages to squeak through the trial period. We learn along with her about the contentious atmosphere of the evil wizard community, including Torville’s far from civil relations with his own brother and sister. When Marigold’s best friend, the kitchen boy Collin, shows up in search of her, he informs her of Rosalind’s grand project, a peace conference to change the Cacophonous Kingdoms into the Harmonious Kingdoms. The evil sorcerers, of course, prefer that the realms continue hiring wizards to cast curses on each other. In the midst of the crisis, Marigold’s experimental spell work changes Torville into a blob of glop. She and Pettifog, with Collin’s enthusiastic help, have to conceal this disaster as the political situation grows more and more tangled. The clever contraptions she makes out of found objects contribute to solving the problems almost as much as magic does. The cranky Torville and disdainful, fastidious Pettifog develop into interestingly rounded characters who aren’t nearly so bad as we and Marigold thought at first. Ultimately, she even discovers Rosalind to be a likable person who’s more than one-dimensionally “good.” Is Marigold wicked or not? Even though her heart never shrivels up like Torville’s, can she be wicked in her own way? In the end, she becomes appreciated for who she is rather than forced into the mold of what either a princess or an evil wizard “should be.”
THE SPELLSHOP, by Sarah Beth Durst. Marketed as a “cozy fantasy,” this novel reminds me of another specimen of that subgenre, Travis Baldree’s LEGENDS & LATTES (reviewed in the April newsletter, No. 223). In both books, the female protagonist settles in a small town where she opens a store offering wares otherwise unavailable to the locals and forms unexpected friendships. Baldree’s retired orc mercenary Viv, however, has meticulously planned her peaceful retirement, while Durst’s protagonist is fleeing a violent revolution. Kiela, on the staff of the Great Library of Alyssium, lives in a suite in the library and hardly ever speaks to another human being, a lifestyle she’s perfectly happy with. She doesn’t actively dislike people, but she likes books more. When revolutionaries attempting to overthrow the emperor start burning the city, including (to her shock and horror) the library, she collects all the rare spellbooks she can transport and escapes from the city. Private possession of these tomes is forbidden, but she has to “steal” them or abandon them to probable destruction. She has one companion, her assistant Caz, a sapient, talking spider plant, a unique being who’s the most delightful secondary character I’ve encountered in a fantasy novel in a long time. In search of a refuge remote and obscure enough that imperial agents won’t follow her there, she travels to her island-based home town. Her late parents left for the big city when Kiela was a child and had no interest in returning, so she no longer has social ties there. She does own a house, though, which can provide a home for her and Caz if it hasn’t fallen into ruin or been coopted by squatters. Fortunately, the cottage and its grounds need a lot of work but are livable. Most of the villagers remember her mother and therefore tentatively accept Kiela, including a nosy and intrusively over-helpful—from her viewpoint—male neighbor, Larran, a caretaker of merhorses. To survive, she has to interact with people, however reluctantly. She decides to make jam from a family recipe to sell to the local baker as well as individual customers, a process that requires her to learn the technique from scratch. Her new acquaintances include a variety of nonhuman persons as well as humans from a wide spectrum of backgrounds and colors (including some unknown in our world, such as blue). All the species and races intermingle freely, with no trace of prejudice. Suspicion falls only on outsiders. Meanwhile, Kiela notices how impoverished the town has become. Learning the cause, the failure of imperial wizards to visit and replenish the island’s magic as they used to, she realizes her cache of forbidden spellbooks offers the potential for restoring fertility, prosperity, and protection from magical storms. If, that is, she can learn to use the spells. After all, she’s a librarian, not a sorcerer. Also, when she does manage to cast a few spells by trial and error, she has to pass off the resulting potions as “old family remedies,” since it’s illegal for laypersons to perform magic. Her jam shop not only supplies tasty treats but also serves as a front for the titular spellshop. Naturally, her safe haven can’t remain so indefinitely. Fallout from the rebellion and the threat of imperial investigators find their way to the island despite its insignificance. Although Kiela ends up forming strong ties with the locals, especially Larran, she remains a confirmed introvert, with whom I can heartily identify. Regardless of how deeply she comes to care for her new neighbors, she can endure only so much company at a stretch. This novel contains irresistible humor, pathos, and fantasy worldbuilding, as well as suspense. All the characters have their individual quirks, including Caz the spider plant, with his hyper-cautious, Eeyore-like outlook on life, and the new companion he bonds with, an accidentally created sentient cactus. It’s not much of a spoiler to reveal that Kiela and her newfound friends overcome the threats and that she eventually feels she has truly come home. The fun lies in discovering how she reaches that point. This is another book that I didn’t want to see end and will certainly reread.
For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
*****
Excerpt from “Chocolate Chip Charm”:
The following night around eight, when Stacy had just inserted one of her favorite animated Christmas specials into the DVD player, the doorbell rang. She opened the door to find Rob standing on the stoop. Well, so much for the spell-cancellation ritual. He instantly burst into song. For a minute or two, she watched, stunned, as he sang about strolling through snowy lanes and getting married by a snowman, who surely couldn’t legally perform such a ceremony under existing state law.
The front door on the other side of the duplex opened. Mrs. Hermann, the female half of the elderly couple who lived there, stepped onto the porch in a quilted, rose-pink bathrobe. After a stern glance at Stacy, she glared at Rob.
“Sorry,” Stacy blurted in a feeble squeak. After her neighbor retreated inside with a slam of the door, Stacy folded her arms, summoning up a frown although an impulse to laugh bubbled inside her. “Quiet! Do you want to get me evicted?”
“That couldn’t happen, could it?”
“No, not really, but I get along fine with the Hermanns, and I want to keep it that way.”
Before she could recover her equilibrium, he stepped inside the open door and closed it behind him. He peered over her shoulder at the cartoon paused on the TV screen. “Remember how we used to sing along with the music and recite the dialogue with Boris Karloff?”
“How could I forget? Cocoa and popcorn on the couch in my parents’ basement, making snarky remarks at the dialogue in all the Christmas classics.”
He said with a sly grin, “Yeah, when you weren’t trying not to cry over them. I’ve missed that in the past four years. I’d love to watch Christmas movies with you again, not to mention all the other stuff we used to do together.” In his right hand, he displayed a bouquet of green leaves and white berries she hadn’t noticed before. “Meanwhile, I come bearing mistletoe.”
Holding the sprig above his head, he wrapped his free arm around her waist. When his lips tentatively nibbled hers, she didn’t dodge as she knew she should. Instead, she let herself savor the shivers of pleasure that coursed through her. She broke contact only when he tried to deepen the kiss.
“We can’t do this. You were going with Doreen up until a few days ago.”
“That doesn’t matter. She knew all along that I’d never gotten over you.”
Stacy wiggled out of his loose embrace. If only she could believe that claim, but of course it was a magically induced delusion. “I don’t want to talk about it. You have to leave.”
He sighed. “If that’s what you really want.”
“I do.” She forced herself to speak in a firm tone that wouldn’t expose the assertion as a lie.
“Okay, but I’ll see you again tomorrow.” He opened the door and stepped out.
The instant it closed behind him, she locked the latch and deadbolt so she’d be less tempted to call him back.
-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
Welcome to the July 2024 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.
Below is an excerpt from “The Thing on the Driveway,” a humorous Lovecraftian romance in a new anthology titled NECRONOMI-ROMCOM (Where Mythos Meets Cute). Onyx is heroine Eve’s cat. The sparkling, disappearing spiders invaded her garage earlier in the story. The translucent, serpent-like thing of the title belongs to her reclusive, scholarly neighbor. You can buy the book in either Kindle or paperback format. Here’s the link to the “Light” volume, which includes my story; there is also a “Dark” volume.
This month, I’m hosting a return visit from multi-genre author Marla A. White.
*****
Interview with Marla A. White:
Please tell us about your latest forthcoming book.
“Framed for Murder” is the story of ex-cop turned B&B owner Mel O’Rourke being pulled into a murder investigation to save her old nemesis from being convicted of one of the few crimes she didn’t commit.
Mel’s story started in “The Starlight Mint Surprise Murder” where, after a fall during a rooftop chase ends her police career, she must start a new chapter of her life. With the help of her family, she re-opens The Babbling Brook bed-and-breakfast and has to learn on the fly how to run an inn and solve a murder.
“Framed” picks up shortly after that with the arrival of cat burglar Poppy Phillips, the woman Mel was chasing when she fell. She should be pissed, but there’s something about the charming Brit that makes it hard to hold a grudge. Until she finds out the real reason for her visit is that she’s wanted for a murder she didn’t commit. Poppy may be a lot of things, but a killer isn’t one of them, and Mel can’t stand the thought of an innocent person going to jail so she agrees to help.
Their partnership isn’t without conflict, especially when the allegedly former thief meddles in Mel’s potential romance with café owner Jackson Thibodeaux, as well as whatever her relationship is with Deputy Sheriff Gregg Marks. Still, Mel is sure Poppy’s heart is in the right place, a theory put to the test when dark secrets about the Brit come to light.
What I love about this book though, is that it’s not just about finding the killer. It’s about second chances as nearly every character is looking for some sort of renewal or redemption.
Is your town of Pine Cove based on any real location? Do you have a map and “bible” for the town? Do you plan to write future stories in this setting?
It’s loosely based on Idyllwild, CA, but with a few modifications. The bridge that causes poor acrophobic Mel such issues, for instance, doesn’t exist. Neither does Jackson’s café, though it modeled off a delicious existing bakery/breakfast place.
I don’t have a map per se as I’ve been fortunate enough to visit the real place one or two times a year. I do keep a file with a document describing each business that I bring up in a book to be sure to keep them all straight as the series goes on.
My hope is that this is the first of an ongoing series so stay tuned!
How do you research police procedures for your mysteries?
When writing “Cause for Elimination” where some of the characters were actual cops, I was more mindful of getting it right. Part of the joy of writing a cozy mystery is that your detective is an amateur. They won’t necessarily know the rules either, which frees me from having to do a lot of research. Being an ex-patrol officer, Mel is aware of correct procedures, but knows she’s breaking all of them just by investigating anyway.
Still, I hope the police never have a reason to look at my search history. Things like “what does a bear attack look like” and “where do you stab someone to puncture a lung” could start to look pretty suspicious!
What kinds of material can readers find on your blog?
My blog is sadly sparse at the moment, but I vow to do better, readers! I really admire writers like you, Margaret, who find the time to do it all – write, blog, marketing. I got so caught up in writing one day a few weeks ago I forgot all about a lunch with a friend until they texted me, “I’m here”.
Mostly at the moment it’s character interviews with the folks from “Cause for Elimination”, personal anecdotes and my first guest blogger’s book spotlight. I’m getting there!
What are you working on now?
I’ve written the first draft of the next Pine Cove Mystery- title TBD. I’m going to let it breathe for a minute while I work with a dear friend and romance author CJ Bahr on our hockey romance series. It’s my first step outside of my usual lane and it’s been a lot of fun. We’ll be publishing under the name Alisa Jean and already have two completed.
This fall I’m looking forward to releasing the third book in my contemporary fantasy series, The Keeper Chronicles. “The Angel in the Window” brings Gabriel and Lucifer together in a battle to save Michael and Raphael from a social media obsessed, soccer mom, crazy demon. If they fail, the balance of good and evil is shot, leaving the fate of the world up for grabs.
Website: Marla A. White
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
YOU LIKE IT DARKER, by Stephen King. A new story collection to catch readers up on pieces published in miscellaneous venues since the last compilation came out. In my view, King’s short stories don’t hit the mark as consistently as his longer work. It’s very rare for him to produce a novel or novella that doesn’t enthrall me. Fortunately, in addition to short stories YOU LIKE IT DARKER includes five long tales, all first-rate or nearly so. “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream” almost qualifies as a brief novel. Danny dreams of a murder victim’s corpse, a vision so vivid he feels impelled to seek out the location from his dream, where he discovers the truth of it. After he reports the body to the police with an anonymous phone call, they soon track him down. The detective on the case, convinced Danny committed the crime, ruthlessly harries him. Danny’s plight fully engages the reader’s sympathy—“No good deed goes unpunished”—as the already neurotic detective spirals down a rabbit hole of obsession even after the real murderer confesses. “Rattlesnakes,” set in Florida, stars the aging, widowed father from CUJO. That novel, although grippingly suspenseful (after mostly getting over with the dreary set-up about the parents’ dysfunctional marriage), disappointed me because it contains no overt supernatural content and only one sympathetic character, the little boy who dies. This story almost makes up for that disappointment. The protagonist meets a woman in her sixties constantly pushing an empty twin stroller in which, according to her, her two small boys are riding. After her sudden death, the stroller and its not-so-imaginary riders start haunting the protagonist. Like Danny, he falls under unjustified suspicion from a police investigator. The narrator of “Two Talented Bastids,” in King’s iconic Maine setting, learns the paranormal secret behind the phenomenal success of his father, a famous author, and his father’s best friend. The narrator of “The Dreamers,” a Vietnam veteran, gets drawn into a mad scientist’s dangerous experiments involving, of course, dreams. The protagonist of “The Answer Man” meets the enigmatic title character three times in his life. At a roadside stand that appears at unpredictable moments, the Answer Man offers replies to questions, for a price after the first free sample. While he won’t give advice—no “Should I. . . ?” questions allowed—he promises truthful responses to others. The protagonist finds that although the answers are technically accurate, they don’t always mean what he assumes. Among the short tales, my favorite is “Laurie,” a sweet story set in the same fictional Florida locale as “Rattlesnakes,” about another widower, whose sister forces a puppy on him. I’d read it online twice already and am delighted to possess it in tangible form. “Weird Willie,” despite its craftsmanship and undeniable creepiness, left me dissatisfied (an attitude doubtless colored by my first reading of it in a magazine issue I bought for what struck me as too high a price). It’s essentially a reworking of “Gramma,” one of my old favorites, but without the Lovecraftian allusions and with uniformly unlikable characters, including the title protagonist, a boy who bonds over his distasteful hobbies with his equally eccentric grandfather. “The Turbulence Expert,” first published in anthology of airplane-related stories, rests on the provocative premise that the title character and his colleagues prevent plane crashes simply through their status as passengers on the otherwise doomed flight, a stressful job indeed. The rest of the volume is worth reading even though I didn’t find all the tales equally absorbing. King’s afterword supplies insight into the backgrounds of some of the stories.
MIND GAMES, by Nora Roberts. Thea, the protagonist of this romantic suspense novel, inherits clairvoyance and telepathy through her female forebears. She learns early to keep this gift to herself for the most part, since new acquaintances to whom she reveals it tend to scorn her as either a liar or a “freak.” When she’s twelve, on the first night of the annual two-week summer visit she and her ten-year-old brother spend with their grandmother in the mountains of Kentucky, she suffers a terrifying vision of her home in northern Virginia. She and her grandmother share the trauma of watching a serial-killer thief break in and murder Thea’s parents. Thanks to the author’s intimate portrayal of Thea’s thoughts and emotions, this intense section of the story brought me to tears. Because the local sheriff, like most long-time residents of the community, knows about and trusts the family’s psychic power, he passes along the information to the appropriate authorities, and the killer gets captured within days. The murderer, Riggs, sentenced to life without parole in a supermax prison, serves most of his time in solitary confinement. Unfortunately, Thea’s vision of him on the night of her parents’ death forges a psychic link between them. After she unwisely invades his mind to gloat over his imprisonment, he repeatedly forces himself into her dreams. With her grandmother’s help, she raises barriers against him that work most of the time—but not always—and the effort causes painful repercussions, including headaches. The only consolation is that he’s in worse condition. Meanwhile, Thea goes on to have a fulfilling life with her brother and grandmother. While the malevolent presence of Riggs lingers in the background, he doesn’t dominate her consciousness. Most of the story follows her from age twelve into the prime of adulthood, with only scattered references to the villain. Spanning so many years in fewer than 200 pages requires a large proportion of “telling” rather than “showing.” Nevertheless, the author manages to keep the reader’s interest engaged at every stage of Thea’s growth from a bereaved preteen to a self-confident woman with a successful career in video game design. As usual, Roberts excels in portraying a small-town atmosphere, with a close-knit community and delicious homemade food, lots of food. Also dogs. The romantic element doesn’t enter until almost halfway through the book, when a single father with a four-year-old son moves into a house he’s inherited within easy walking distance of Thea’s and her grandmother’s homes. I won’t elaborate on the man, his identity being one of the novel’s major surprises. The charming little boy instantly bonds with Thea and her dog. Although Riggs begins to attack her in her dreams more frequently and aggressively around this time, she enhances her own psychic power and trains herself to combat him with computer-game-like strategies. The novel’s “black moment” has no direct connection to Riggs but occurs when Thea accidentally reveals her paranormal ability to her lover. Such harsh words are exchanged that reconciliation is realistically difficult. After that, Thea’s final confrontation with Riggs comes across as almost a foregone conclusion. I had qualms that he might escape in some farfetched way and attack her in the flesh. Fortunately, the combat remains mental, in keeping with the rest of the story.
WILDWOOD DANCING, by Juliet Marillier. This 2007 fantasy combines the fairy tales of the Twelve Dancing Princesses and the Frog Prince in a medieval Transylvanian setting. There are only five girls, ranging in age from five to sixteen, not literal princesses but daughters of a prosperous merchant in a small town. The narrator, Jena, the second oldest, keeps a unique, sapient frog, Gogu, who communicates with her telepathically, as more of a best friend than a pet. Uninterested in romance and marriage, she helps her father with bookkeeping and looks forward to managing the business when he can’t do it any longer. Nine years before the opening of the novel, the girls discovered a portal to the faerie realm in their private suite. Once a month on the night of the Full Moon, they cross over into the Other Kingdom and ride enchanted boats across a lake to socialize and dance with the fair folk. On their first visit in the present time of the story, they encounter guests from a vampiric species known as the Night People. While they know the elven Queen won’t allow the newcomers to harm anyone under her protection—as long as they stay within the designated safe zone—Jena and her eldest sister exercise justifiable caution. One of the other sisters, however, meets and becomes attracted to an enigmatic young man in the Night People’s retinue who may be either one of them or a human fosterling. Back home, the mundane dimension of the girls’ life changes irrevocably when their father falls ill and has to make an extended stay in the nearest large city for treatment. Soon afterward, their uncle dies. His son, Cezar, aggressively claims the head-of-family role in the absence of Jena’s father. Cezar has changed drastically from the companion of her childhood. She remembers little of a terrifying incident when she and Cezar nearly drowned, accepting Cezar’s account of the accident. His older brother’s body was never recovered, and Cezar’s alteration seemed to start then. He developed an intense fear and detestation of the elven folk, which has grown into outright hatred. He wants them exterminated. He’s also determined to take over Jena’s father’s business and marry one of the sisters. Their down-to-earth problems, becoming steadily more desperate as Cezar’s grasp tightens, intertwine with the supernatural plot as Jena tries to protect her impulsive younger sister from the Night People. How can they hide their monthly excursions from Cezar, who becomes increasingly suspicious? What if their father’s illness worsens and he never returns home? Eventually the secret Cezar has concealed ever since his brother disappeared comes out. Fraught relationships among the girls and various inhabitants of the faerie realm build to a crisis. Gogu’s true nature is revealed. Both the characterization and the setting are enthralling. The reader may even pity Cezar when the reason for his detestable behavior becomes clear. We ultimately get the happy ending we expect, but untangling the snarled threads of many years is far from simple. The book includes a glossary with pronunciation guides, and the author’s afterword discusses the history and folklore of Transylvania.
For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
*****
Excerpt from “The Thing on the Driveway”:
Caterwauling from Onyx broke the chain of her ruminations.
She rushed into the living room to find him arching his back like a Halloween cat. His normally sleek fur, solid ebony without a sprinkle of white anywhere, bristled, and his emerald-green eyes made the pose still more impressive.
Three of the glittering spiders scuttled over the carpet. Or maybe two or possibly four. They didn’t hold still long enough for her to focus on them. Onyx pounced on one, which vanished just before his paws would have crushed it. It materialized across the room, unless another identical arachnid had appeared there instead.
Spiders don’t disappear and reappear. Got to be an optical illusion.
On the other hand, could she have been studying intensely enough to cause eyestrain that severe?
Setting aside the question as irrelevant for the moment, she hurried into the kitchen for bug killer spray. When she returned to the living room, Onyx was still leaping at the pests, yowling in obvious frustration when he missed. She squirted the spider nearest her, which vanished. If that really happened, it’s a great evolutionary adaptation.
Just as she directed a random spray at another of the creepy-crawlies, the cat flap in the front door bulged open. The sinuous shape of the translucent, rainbow-hued snake oozed through the gap. A toothless mouth stretched to engulf one of the spiders.
“Get out of here! Shoo!” Having a swarm of spiders vacuumed up might be a plus, but letting a giant whatever-it-was into the house definitely fell on the negative side. Eve shot a blast from the can in the pseudo-serpent’s general direction, with no discernible effect since she couldn’t bring herself to get any closer to it.
-end of excerpt-
*****
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“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter
Welcome to the June 2024 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.
N. N. Light’s Book Heaven included my steamy paranormal romance novella “Calling Back Love” in their May “Salute the Military” Bookish Event:
N. N. Light: Calling Back Love
My late-Victorian Christmas story A GHOST IN THE GREEN BESTIARY, part of the “Christmas in a Castle” series from the Wild Rose Press, now has a release date: September 23, 2024. Spending the Christmas season at her aunt and uncle’s country manor for the first time since her father’s death, Lucy both yearns for and dreads reuniting with Walter, to whom she’d almost become engaged. In her present financial straits, Lucy feels she’s no longer a proper match for a wealthy gentleman’s heir. How can she let Walter down gently without destroying the friendship she still treasures?
On the night before Christmas Eve, Walter tells a tale of a long-ago daughter of the household who eloped with her forbidden lover, a simple farmer. After his violent death in the mansion’s topiary garden, his spirit supposedly lingered. When Lucy’s little brother claims to glimpse the ghost among the animal-shaped bushes, she joins Walter in investigating the apparition—forcing them to face their shared past and the challenges of the future.
This month’s excerpt comes from a quasi-Lovecraftian paranormal romance novel, SEALING THE DARK PORTAL, set in late spring and early summer. Almost nothing Rina remembers about her life is true. Rather than the ordinary librarian she believes herself to be, she’s actually a sorceress who fled from another world to ours when creatures from an alien dimension devastated her home and killed her family. Now they’ve pursued her to our world, summoned by a sorcerer who plans to open a portal and invite monstrous entities from the void between dimensions to overrun this planet.
In the selection below, Rina has just returned from grocery shopping, and a persistent stray cat that has recently been hanging around defends her from a bizarre attack.
In this issue, instead of an interview, we have an overview of the Baron Blasko vampire mystery series by A. E. Howe, written by Adriana Pena, a contributor to my former fanzine THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT. (Scroll to the end of the newsletter for links to information about the zine and where to download issues.)
Here’s Adriana’s self-introduction:
I am a retired computer programmer and part time local pundit — writing about politics and society, as well as philosophical musings. My life experience and extensive reading have made me the writer that I am today. I was – and still am – a Dark Shadows fan, and, of course, a fan writer. I have written a 51-volume continuation of Dark Shadows (The Collinsport Chronicles) under the name of Maryland Rose. Also wrote several stories where I crossed Kindred the Embraced with Highlander. Which means that I have written quite a bit about vampires – as well as reading a lot about them. I found this series by browsing on the Internet and it sounded interesting. It certainly is. So please, read it and enjoy.
*****
Review by Adriana Pena:
The Baron Blasko mysteries
The Baron Dragomir Blasko has been flying under the radar since 2018. Though the trope of “vampire detective” is well known, Blasko has not been recognized by those who like vampire stories. They are missing a real treat.
The author, A. E. Howe, is known as the writer of mysteries that take place in Florida, with a good sense of place and with three dimensional characters that readers care about. The Baron Blasko mysteries are his foray into vampire fiction, and they too have a good sense of place and three dimensional characters we care about, including Blasko himself.
The story begins with what seems a retelling of “Dracula” with a modern sophisticated character going to the wilds of Transylvania, and meeting superstitious peasants, with a story about a monster that ravaged their villages about a hundred years ago. This protagonist, Josephine Nicolson – is aware of this, because she has read about the monster’s depredations from her grandfather’s writings – but she thinks that the peasants might have magnified some disease or wild animal – a sensible enough explanation. She is not impressed by what she thinks are superstitions.
Circumstances lead her to find refuge in a dilapidated fortress, and it is here that the vampire, Baron Blasko, attacks her.
And then it all changes…
Somehow Blasko and Josephine have become bonded. They cannot hurt each other (except with words) and cannot be separated. So Josephine has to choose, either stay with Blasko in his dilapidated castle or to take him back to her town in Alabama. Guess what she chooses?
Blasko for all of his anger is quite reasonable. He accepts her conditions – which includes not attacking the townspeople but instead drink the bottled blood that she will get for him. So, off they go to Alabama. Josephine swears her maid to secrecy about what they are bringing back from their travels. Blasko is then introduced as the “cousin from Romania”
And now the real story can start.
Blasko in his new home develops a passion for reading detective stories, and then wants to put in practice what he learns. Obligingly their small town provides him with unsolved murders to investigate.
Each book is a murder mystery, solved by Blasko and Josephine, and the writer keeps you guessing to the end. The first one is a regular mystery, but the subsequent ones involve supernatural happenings: Lovecraftian monsters and a werewolf.
Fantastic elements aside, the books show a realistic view of a Depression era town in Alabama (though the author softens the racial attitudes quite a bit, to keep readers from hating several characters). The characters run true to life and so does the setting – The author even takes a dig at American exceptionalism: At one point Josephine says something like “in the US we do not have serfs” only to have Blasko muse about the conditions of black workers – – “they might as well be serfs”.
The author has some original takes on vampirism – Blasko does not turn into a bat, he just keeps a bat as a pet after he rescues it and nurses it back to health. He reflects in mirrors, but he avoids them, because when he looks at them, he sees a rotting corpse (no one else does see that). He needs to be in contact with his earth, and also with gold.
He can live on bottled blood, but it is not enough, so that every now and then he has to attack someone. He is careful when he does that, making sure not to touch the carotid, and leaving his victims alive (he also chooses someone who “deserves” it, and he can leave a hypnotic compulsion to leave their wicked ways). He is the alibi for a murder suspect, but of course he cannot tell the authorities that the suspect was being attacked for his blood and in no shape to commit any crime afterwards.
He needs a henchman, so he chooses the town drunk and uses his hypnotic powers to force sobriety on him – with the man eventually getting a job and a place to stay. He then gives him several tasks.
He is certainly arrogant and ruthless -– because he comes from the Balkans, a place where, as Churchill said, produces more history than they can locally consume. War was a constant in his growing up, and ruthlessness was what kept you alive. He comments that in the world they were living in, when he was turned into a vampire, it could be said that he was given a great gift that allowed him to protect those he cared for. He even remembers when his home was overrun and, being a child then, he had to hide to avoid being slaughtered.
He could not help being arrogant. He was a voivode, a military leader and magistrate, and he always had people to command, and due to his condition, no equals to deal with. He has a sense of duty towards his people and seeks to be fair. He can be compassionate without being maudlin. And he has withdrawn into himself and deals with very few people that he protects in exchange for allowing themselves to be bled.
We may think that he is quite depressed at this stage, and maybe this is why he jumps at Josephine’s invitation.
His relationship with Josephine changes through the books (the covers show this progression – from barely concealed hostility to mutual irritation, to collaboration, to love). She is in many ways his counterpart. Her fortune has remained intact through the Depression. As the major stockholder of the bank, (a bank where everybody has outstanding loans), she is as much an aristocrat in her domain as Blasko was in his, and like him, she shoulders the responsibility of those in need of assistance. She begins to appreciate what Blasko does, and how in the end his influence in the town is a good one, and yet she remains wary of him. It is only in the third book that she has a revelation that changes the way she looks at him, and from then on she thinks of him as Dragomir instead of the baron.
Blasko is less of a vampire than a person afflicted with a condition, and while he handles himself well, he is not comfortable with what he is. He feels shame when he attacks somebody and remembers with embarrassment how early on in his career when confronted with a murder victim, instead of reacting empathetically as he should, his hunger led him to lap on the spilled blood. He has created another vampire, and the experience did not end well, so he is quite unwilling to repeat it (maybe that other vampire will show up).
The other characters are well drawn. The town drunk turned henchman could be a stock character, but we get to know him, and recognize him as another war victim, haunted by the things he witnessed in the butchery that was World War I. Similarly, the black maid of Josephine – sworn to secrecy about Blasko’s secrets — comes first as the stereotypical Scripture quoting poorly educated woman who keeps muttering about that the Baron would kill them all as they sleep. But we get to know what strains a black woman has to endure in the Depression era South, and when she has to be grateful to Blasko she warms up to him saying that she mistook his strange ways for Devil’s ways and is quite willing to discuss relationships with Josephine on an equal’s basis. Then there is Carter, Josephine’s cousin, the scholar from Miskatonic University, who first tries to kill Blasko, and then has to ask him for help when he beings to grow tentacles (Blasko tells him that he deserves pain but not being turned into a squid).
At the end of the fourth book, Dragomir and Josephine are in love, but Dragomir is aware of the pain that awaits them in the future, and that the only way to avoid it is to transform Josephine, and that he is unwilling to do. He wonders if the Necronomicon has any answers for him. And we have to wait for the fifth book to see if there are any answers.
The writers is now thinking of the fifth book, and we should encourage him to write it.
The books are
The Baron Blasko mysteries
FANGS
KNIVES
CLAWS
TENTACLES
By A. E. Howe
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
RING SHOUT, by P. Djeli Clark. This short (slightly over 180 pages), fast-moving novel takes place in an alternate 1922 America where the classic silent film BIRTH OF A NATION (1915) had a greater impact than in our reality. As a result of its racist glorification of the “Lost Cause,” the revived Ku Klux Klan attracted a wider membership and became even more of a threat than in our timeline. Moreover, the forces of evil play a more direct role in the dark side of this world’s history. Some Klansmen get possessed by (or converted into) demons conjured by a literal wizard in a ceremony held shortly after the original release of the movie. The Black protagonist, Maryse, and her fellow demon-hunters call ordinary, human KKK members “Klans” and their demonic allies “Ku Kluxes.” In the opening scene, Maryse, a sharpshooter named Sadie, and a female Great War veteran nicknamed Chef (who had posed as a man to join the army) slaughter a band of Ku Kluxes. After this introduction to the heroines and their demonic adversaries, Maryse’s recollections fill in the setting’s warped history for the reader. She narrates in present tense, a device that doesn’t bug me as much as usual because her Black dialect softens the effect. Although a bit heavy on violent action for my taste, the novel also has plenty of atmosphere and character development. Maryse and her comrades visit a “juke joint” owned by her lover. They consult a Gullah woman with occult gifts. A science-minded friend of theirs dissects body parts of dead Ku Kluxes. In dream encounters that are more than ordinary dreams, Maryse receives cryptic messages from three women who may be the Fates or Black mythic analogues of them. A white man powerful in both the political and magical sense tries to seduce Maryse to the dark side for revenge on those who murdered her family in her childhood. She repeatedly revisits that horror in visions of herself as a terrified girl hiding from the assailants. The villain plots to use a revival screening of BIRTH OF A NATION to open a portal between Earth and a hell dimension. A provisional victory for the heroes doesn’t preclude tragic losses. The “shout” in the title refers to group chants whose origins go back to slavery times and beyond. Tales of “Bruh Rabbit” provide additional depth to Maryses’s cultural background. I especially like the device of having the story punctuated by brief excerpts from interviews with aging Gullah people conducted by one of the book’s secondary characters, a white female researcher.
THE WONDER STATE, by Sara Flannery Murphy. This novel invites comparison to Stephen King’s IT. Of course, fiction about adult characters reuniting with childhood friends in their home town isn’t uncommon. THE WONDER STATE, however, also shares with IT the trope of the one person who never left urgently summoning everyone else to return. Her message consists of only the words, “You promised.” But Murphy’s book isn’t horror, although the story includes dark elements. It’s mainly portal fantasy, except that the sought-after portal remains elusive through most of the novel. Instead of a small town in Maine, THE WONDER STATE takes place in the small town of Eternal Springs, Arkansas, in the Ozark region. I’ve never come across a premise like this one before: An eccentric architect, Theodora Trader, designed and built a group of houses with magical qualities, each one different. Brandi (the character who stayed), Jay (female, her best friend), and their companions searched for Theodora’s houses – at Brandi’s urging – and eventually found all except the final goal, the portal to another world. For instance, in the Truth House nobody can tell a lie. A promise made in one of the other houses can’t be broken. Yet another slows time for people as long as they stay in it, days or weeks inside corresponding to only hours in the outside world. Brandi, living in near-poverty with the boyfriend of her absent mother as a surrogate stepfather, after discovering the existence of the enchanted houses draws Jay and a select group of misfit friends into her quest. Disaster ensues, as one would expect, and in young adulthood all except Brandi go their separate ways. She struggles with addiction and apparently straightens out but then disappears soon after sending her appeal to Jay and the others. Realistically, although they answer the call, they don’t want to be there; all have their own lives and plan to stay only a few days. Naturally, the town’s mystery entangles them again. Like King’s IT, this novel alternates scenes from the present and the past, each chapter with a date heading. Past scenes are told in past tense and current events in present tense, a technique tolerable for me because it helps the reader keep track of which time period we’re in. One aspect of the plot baffles me – Jay’s motivation for yearning to pass through the alleged interdimensional portal. It’s understandable that Brandi, who has led such a difficult life, would feel that way; she may plausibly think any world must be better than this one. Jay, though, has no reason to be desperate enough to plunge into an unknown realm, without any assurance she could even get back. For all she knows, the portal house might open into a hell dimension rather than somewhere like Narnia. Nevertheless, the magic is fascinating, the character relationships convincingly complex, secrets and betrayals emotionally fraught, and Jay’s bond with Brandi warm and deep.
I’M AFRAID YOU’VE GOT DRAGONS, by Peter S. Beagle. At first glance, the whimsical tone of the title of this latest novel by the author of THE LAST UNICORN seems to be reflected in the book’s plot. What if dragons weren’t huge, majestic, terrifying beasts, but household pests the size of small lizards (at least as far as the characters know at the beginning)? The protagonist, Robert (a name he’s chosen for himself in preference to his long, Latinate, rather pretentious actual given name) doesn’t hunt dragons with armor and sword; he cleans them out of walls by the dozens or hundreds like mice or cockroaches. Of course, what he and his friends know at the start isn’t the whole truth, and things soon get much more complicated. The LOCUS review compares the early scenes to THE PRINCESS BRIDE, in my opinion applicable only to Princess Cerise’s hordes of suitors who throng her father’s Great Hall in classic fairy-tale style. She politely listens to each, none of whom appeals to her. That farcical situation changes when Prince Reginald wanders into the kingdom more or less by accident, not even seeking a bride. Cerise falls in love with him at first sight, while he goes along with the courtship in a spirit of amiable cooperation more than grand passion. As for Robert, after the humorous opening scene as he wakes up amid his pet dragons (whose existence he keeps secret from everybody outside his family, to maintain his reputation as successor to his late father’s dragon-exterminating business) we soon learn the depth of his distaste for his vocation. While gathering up the reptilian “pests” for delivery to the dragon market, he can hardly keep from crying. When Cerise insists her parents’ shabby castle needs to be made presentable for Prince Reginald, the only task there’s time for is clearing out the dragon infestation. After Reginald hears rumors of larger dragons a manageable distance into the wilderness, he decides to slay one in order to impress his royal father, a warrior celebrated for battle prowess in his younger days who’s now outspokenly disappointed in his son and heir. Reginald turns for guidance to Robert, the closest thing to a dragon-slayer he knows. Robert agrees to cooperate in exchange for a secret deal with Reginald’s impeccably correct, fiercely intelligent manservant to help him (Robert) become a valet for a prince or nobleman, a career he thinks he’ll enjoy far more than his inherited one. The three of them set out in search of a suitable dragon, accompanied by Cerise, who refuses to stay behind. The expedition becomes more than a knightly adventure when they discover a devastated village. Robert suspects a “King” dragon, a species thought to be extinct if not entirely mythical. Worse, the marauding dragon seems to be under the control of a wizard. The past exploits of Reginald’s father come back to haunt the party, while Robert learns secrets about himself. A bond grows between him and Cerise, and he reevaluates his ambition to become a valet. Destruction, loss, and death loom. Characters change, grow, and gain self-knowledge. Like THE LAST UNICORN, this novel segues seamlessly from bright to dark and finally to hope, with a strong conclusion that foreshadows happiness.
For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
*****
Excerpt from SEALING THE DARK PORTAL:
Just as Rina slammed the trunk shut, the ground shuddered. She braced herself on the car and let out a yelp. Her stomach quivered. For a second she imagined she was back in the nightmare.
No. She was still in her front yard on a sunny afternoon in Maryland. She stalked to the front stoop and sagged against the wall next to the door. The earth vibrated again. Halfway between the house and the street, a cloud of smoke appeared. The smell of acetone emanated from it.
Swallowing a lump of fear, she set down the grocery bag and fumbled in her purse for the house key, which she jammed into the lock. The cloud, wispy and pale gray at first, thickened, compacted, and darkened. It swirled like a miniature tornado. The funnel shape sprouted pseudopods, four, then six, then seven or eight, absorbing and extruding them at random. A swelling at the top resembled a head only when tusks and crimson eyes materialized on it.
Why doesn’t anybody else notice this? She scrabbled at the doorknob. Her fingers kept slipping. The thing undulated toward her, limbs stretching and retracting, multiple eyes flashing and vanishing. In daylight the creature looked nothing like a dog. Either she was losing her mind, or a monster was attacking her.
The cat sprang on it with his claws extended. As he leaped, his body melted, stretched, and re-formed. It expanded to the size of a pony, while the fur turned sleek instead of fluffy and the claws and fangs enlarged along with the rest of the animal. The plume of his tail lengthened, smoothed out, and lashed like a whip.
Rina stood paralyzed, forgetting the need to escape. A cougar. The cat turned into a cougar. If she wasn’t going crazy, this must be a new nightmare.
Yowling, the tawny mountain lion raked the smoke monster with his claws. The beast’s leg shredded but instantly re-knitted itself. The creature’s talons and jaws ripped at the giant cat, who twisted and dodged fast enough to suffer only glancing scratches instead of lethal wounds. He bit and scratched, tearing holes in the thing’s protean body, but he couldn’t seem to inflict permanent damage. Spitting and hissing, he lunged and retreated over and over. Even in her confusion, Rina could tell he got weaker with every clash.
The smoke monster contracted into a cyclone again. One limb struck out and slammed into the cougar’s flank. The blow knocked him onto the lawn. He lay there stunned.
The cone of darkness whirled toward Rina. Pressure built in her ears. Her head throbbed. Without thinking, overwhelmed by panic, she raised both hands to ward off the thing. “Get away from me!”
Bolts of electricity shot from her fingers. Involuntary sounds welled up in her throat and spewed from her mouth: “Hevatanu, halako, anasoba!” The thing crackled and shriveled. She thrust her hands toward it again, and again sparks radiated from them. The creature emitted a shriek that made her ears ring and vanished.
Panting, Rina leaned on the wall. What just happened? And why aren’t the neighbors running out here? She stared at her shaking hands and flexed her fingers.
A keening meow diverted her attention. Instead of the cougar, the cat lay on the ground in his normal shape. She forced her legs to carry her over to him. His eyes met hers for a second, then closed. She picked up the limp form and staggered inside.
-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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You can contact me at: MLCVamp@aol.com
“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter