Welcome to the September 2025 issue of my newsletter, “News from the Crypt,” and please visit Carter’s Crypt, devoted to my horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance work, especially focusing on vampires and shapeshifting beasties. If you have a particular fondness for vampires, check out the chronology of my series in the link labeled “Vanishing Breed Vampire Universe.”
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
To subscribe to this monthly newsletter, please e-mail me at MLCVamp@aol.com, and I will add you to the list.
For other web links of possible interest, please scroll to the end.
My YA ghost novella “Her Death Was Doubtful,” an installment in the “Haunting of Pinedale High” shared-world series from the Wild Rose Press, will be published on September 29.
Eleventh-grader Mia Petrelli’s worst problem is her forthcoming oral report on Hamlet, until a ghost wearing a bloodstained skirt confronts her. The phantom begs for help to find her lost baby. Mia has seen spirits before, but none so alarming as this one. Persistently haunted by the dead girl, she has little choice but to investigate the ghost’s past. With the support of her long-time friend Ethan Abbott, Mia strives to uncover the truth so the ghost can rest. Just as Mia’s friendship with Ethan begins to grow deeper, she discovers a buried secret in his family that threatens their budding romance. To work through the snags in their own relationship, together they must help two troubled spirits achieve peace.
A teaser of the opening scene appears below.
My light paranormal romance novella “Summertide Echoes” received a lovely 5-star review from N. N. Light’s Book Heaven. They say, “The author writes with emotion and lush world-building. Once you start, you won’t want to leave these characters.”
This month’s interview presents Darin TaDream, who writes romance in a variety of subgenres.
*****
Interview with Darin TaDream:
What inspired you to become a writer?
Never in my youth would I have dreamed of writing since I disliked reading. But with my wife being an avid reader, to the point of feeling neglected, I chose to embrace reading. She introduced me to books on my favorite TV show, Star Trek. 135 books later, I joined her in her stories, listening, then reading out loud to each other. When one story in particular had a letdown of an ending and I made a snide comment about the publisher’s choice of authors.
Yep, I said if they published that person’s story, they would publish anybody. Ahh, right I put my foot in my mouth. With a look and a laugh, she pushed that foot down my throat. So, I had to try.
Creating my first story I found I enjoy the creative process of writing, so since 1998 I’ve been writing. After volumes of rejection from not understanding the query, submission, agent acquisition bureaucracy I found the growing self-publishing capability. I decided to self-publish my third work first.
What genres do you work in?
Romance, adult, and young adult, contemporary, from sweet recovery to explicit erotic with widely diverse characters including an LGBTQIA character revelation, imparting the life differences of those declaring themselves LGBTQ to those who live with being intersexed.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
I wing it… being in a manufacturing career that works on cyclic timing, often allowing time for creative thoughts (daydreaming). With each new creative Idea, then the work begins on how to integrate that scene into the story.
What have been the major influences on your work (favorite authors or whatever)?
I can’t say that there has been a major influence, often I notice a lack of attention to a
topic or characters. LGBTQ was being over covered so, RUN THE TABLE: ACCEPTANCE involves an intersex character. Started in 2000, I felt there was a lack of African-American central characters, so, with a son (stepson technically) being interracial, well, CHANCE UPON WILMARTIN needed to be written.
Did you base the background of RUN THE TABLE: ACCEPTANCE on personal experience with Professional Billiards or on research? If the latter, do you have any hints for authors wanting to write about a field outside their own experience?
Let’s say it was family experience that was the background. My oldest brother (7 years older, now deceased) ran a pool hall and made the amateur tours. But yet I still had a lot of research to do. Corresponding with the governing agencies of sports, no matter how obscure the sport, is a place to check for me. Again, my brother’s connections in this case. It was the medical confirmation research that will honestly open a reader’s eyes and mind to the category of intersex individuals. FACT: Intersex individuals are more common than those with natural red hair, fair complexion, and freckles.
FOR MY HEART AND MIND features the movie industry and the beauty pageant subculture (wow!). What research sources did you use for this novel?
Once again, the governing councils of the national beauty pageants have historians, and record archives, for that part of the story. For the movie industry, just watch TV, other movies and shows, documentaries and behind the scenes exposes.
Fun Fact: To even my surprise, FOR MY HEART AND MIND turned out to be a prequel to my debut novel …CAN COME TRUE that mentions the completion of the movie being started.
What is your latest or next-forthcoming book?
FOR MY HEART AND MIND is my latest release with the audiobook version still in work.
What are you working on now?
Currently in progress is UNDER THE NEW MEXICO MOON; an astronomy intern chooses to prove an anomaly is more than a glitch in the computer system. With permission from a UFO network, she reopens an abandoned missile silo turn observatory. Hearing scurrying from within the dome she fears what could be infesting the facility she desperately needs to use. At the same time a lagamorphologist hopes to make a name for himself and save the Zoo he works for from what lies inside. How they build into romance is still unknown.
What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
Be (read my penname again) and …CAN COME TRUE.
What is the URL of your website? What about other internet presence?
I’m on a few of the popular social media sites every now and then, I’m not that impressed with online interaction. Questions and comments are welcomed at fans.darin@outlook.com while my basic website is:
DarinTaDream
Thank you for this opportunity to be part of your Crypt.
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
GOING HOME IN THE DARK, by Dean Koontz. Like Stephen King’s IT and numerous other subsequent dark fantasy novels, Koontz’s latest work of science-fiction horror features an ensemble cast of youthful friends returning to their hometown in adulthood to confront unfinished business with a supernatural or paranormal evil. Like King’s characters, Koontz’s have also forgotten the past horrors they faced. Their situation differs, though, in that their memories were purposely erased. Furthermore, over the course of the story the “four amigos” have those memories deliberately restored, little by little. Thus the reader learns what happened back then at the same pace as the characters remember. They recall Maple Grove as an idyllic small town like the setting of a 1950s family sitcom. Even the street names reinforce that impression, labeled after characters and places such as Mayberry, Winkler, Cunningham, Harriet Nelson, etc. Yet the four friends are haunted by a vague sense of having forgotten some terrible event. All of them, perhaps as a byproduct of that suppressed trauma, have grown up sort of neurotic, although – typical of Koontz’s protagonists – they’ve remained goodhearted people. Also, each has achieved creative success in a different field, Rebecca as an actress, Spencer a visual artist who paints his canvases in a fugue state, Bobby an author, and Ernie a composer of country songs. The story begins when three of the four amigos receive the news that Ernie, the only one who stayed behind in Maple Grove, has inexplicably lapsed into a coma. During his friends’ visit to the hospital, Ernie apparently dies. Intuitively sensing that he’s not dead but in suspended animation, they sneak his inert body out of the intensive care ward. There follows a madcap series of adventures, simultaneously suspenseful and farcical, as they try to hide his body, evade the shadowy menace threatening them, and solve the mystery of the horrors in their past. The ultimate revelation of who or what lies behind those horrors struck me as satisfyingly unusual. Koontz narrates the story from an omniscient viewpoint. Furthermore, he plays with metafictional elements I haven’t seen in any of his previous works. The narrator addresses the reader directly, sometimes in mini-essays of several paragraphs, about authorial decisions on issues large and small such as pacing, foreshadowing, dialogue tags, and even whether to describe food (he doesn’t). In recent years his similes and other figures of speech have grown progressively more elaborate and idiosyncratic. In this book, they’ve become extravagantly over-the-top. Moreover, although he engages our sympathy for the good guys, a slight feeling of detachment pervades the narrative. While he does ride his customary right-wing hobby horses, the exaggeratedly sardonic tone makes the rants more bearable than I usually find them. Strangely, this book doesn’t include a dog. Nor, thankfully, does it feature his usual cartoonish sociopathic genius bent on destroying the world from no rational motive. The antagonist, whose nature I’m leaving vague because anything more specific would spoil the climactic revelation, does want to destroy 90 percent of the human species. The two minions we meet, though, aren’t geniuses, much less fabulously wealthy and/or powerful supervillains. Given the metafictional passages, the sardonic tone, the moments of dark comedy, and the wildly extravagant flights of prose, I strongly suspect Koontz of deliberately writing a parody of his own typical conspiracy-heavy SF thrillers. This isn’t a book readers new to Koontz should start with; however, long-time fans will probably find it intriguing.
THE GRIMOIRE GRAMMAR SCHOOL PARENT TEACHER ASSOCIATION, by Caitlin Rozakis. The title and cover of this novel suggest a lighthearted, humorous fantasy, and the quote on the front calls it “hilarious.” Those hints are a bit misleading, though. The book starts out funny, true, but it takes a seriously dark turn before the end. Still, granted, touches of humor appear throughout, especially in the headings that precede each chapter, consisting of messages from the school to parents. These epigraphs highlight the vein of incongruity running throughout the story between typical, often nitpicky elementary school preoccupations and the paranormal nature of the pupils and staff. The notifications normally arrive by text, although the alternative of “mental summons” is offered. Among other topics, they cover allergens (e.g., nuts, garlic, and silver), sensitivity to ethnic slurs against various supernatural minorities, avoiding holiday costumes that promote offensive stereotypes, and a rule against harming mortals during the Talent Show (even if they’re mindwiped afterward). Protagonist Vivian’s five-year-old daughter, Aria, has become a werewolf from the bite of a maddened rogue. The revered head of the local pack, accepting responsibility, arranges for Aria’s enrollment as a kindergarten student in an exclusive school for supernatural creatures. Lacking control over her shapeshifting and prone to throwing up as a side effect of wolfing-out, Aria has a lot to learn. So do Vivian and Daniel, her husband, forced to move from their old home to one near the school and abruptly thrust into a secret world whose existence they hadn’t suspected. Even though a vampire teaches the kindergarten class, Grimoire Grammar School seems their only chance at a normal life for Aria (for a certain value of normal), since they’ve been informed any other alternative available to a formerly mortal shifter child is worse. Vivian gets off to a shaky start when she brings brownies to the school potluck picnic. The problem isn’t that werewolves can’t eat chocolate – they know to avoid it – but that, as the only ordinary human mother present, she has contributed such a mundane dessert. Happily, Moira, another kindergarten parent, reaches out to Vivian, the first person to offer her anything like friendship since their family’s relocation. In the awkward moment when Aria involuntarily changes into a wolf cub on the playground, Vivian reflects that at least nobody runs away screaming; they just bestow pitying looks. The first serious setback involves the annual Talent Show. To their dismay, Vivian and Daniel learn the children’s performances determine whether they’ll move up to first grade or get expelled from the school. Although Aria makes a few friends among her classmates, there’s no denying her late start as a werewolf constitutes a handicap. A disaster at the Talent Show forces it to close early, and things get more chaotic from there. Some parents fixate on the idea that an ambiguous prophecy dredged up from the past refers to Aria. Vivian can’t tell whom to trust. Meanwhile, Daniel, who initially alternated between amusement at the school’s oddities and skepticism about enrolling Aria there in the first place, grows progressively more unhappy with the situation. His and Vivian’s relationship becomes strained, especially when she starts studying magic. Anybody, even if not born with magical talent, can learn at least simple spells, and she’s determined to fit in for Aria’s sake. He begins to spend evenings away from home for vague reasons. Dire, potentially life-threatening events occur. Vivian’s initial impressions of some people turn out to be mistaken, and she bonds with unexpected allies and friends over the rapidly worsening crisis. At first, I found it hard to believe in her obsession with fitting in among the “right” people. Good grief, why would anybody care? Later, though, it becomes clear that this character trait isn’t a sign of shallowness, but rather a lifelong trauma caused by a toxic relationship with her mother. The estrangement between Vivian and Daniel also feels genuine, as do their anxiety about Aria and the possible danger threatening the children, parents, and staff at Grimoire Grammar School. Any parent of a kid starting school in a strange town could empathize with Vivian, regardless of this school’s unique challenges.
A WITCH’S GUIDE TO MAGICAL INNKEEPING, by Sangu Mandanna. A cozy fantasy with the requisite “found family,” quirky characters human and otherwise, and a quaint, vividly realized setting. The thirty-year-old witch protagonist, Sera Swan, runs her great-aunt Jasmine’s B&B, the Batty Hole, enchanted by a powerful spell Sera cast in her teens. Other permanent residents include Sera’s preteen nephew, Theo, who also possesses magic; Matilda, a middle-aged woman eccentrically devoted to the growing of vegetables that don’t normally thrive in England; Sir Nicholas, a knight in armor who performs at the local Medieval Fair but lives his role full-time; Clemmie, a fox who’s actually a witch under a curse (and constantly complains about her lack of opposable thumbs); and a skeletal undead rooster Sera accidentally reanimated. Magic runs in families but isn’t necessarily inherited by every member of a bloodline. With the general public unaware of the existence of magic, the inn’s transient guests have no idea why they randomly find their way to this warmly welcoming place exactly when they need it. Sera, born with a dazzlingly strong gift, spent her early youth as the apprentice of the most powerful magician in the Guild. Only later in life does she fully realize how determined he was to prevent her talent from surpassing his own. When Sera was fifteen, Jasmine, the beloved great-aunt who takes the place of her disengaged parents, unexpectedly died. Sera raised her from death, losing most of her own magic in the process. The Guild expelled her for that transgression. Now, at thirty, she continues the seemingly hopeless quest for a spell to regain her lost power. She can perform minor enchantments such as heating the house, but only slowly and with difficulty. Two nearly simultaneous events trigger the main plot: She gets possession of a restoration spell in an ancient language unknown to her. Soon thereafter, Luke, a historian and scholar of magic, stumbles upon the Batty Hole (or so he thinks, unaware of the inn’s supernatural magnetism) with his autistic little sister, Posy. Because of their mundane parents’ fear of magic and Posy’s inability to understand she needs to conceal her talent from the outside world, the two of them had been living at Guild headquarters – where her magic was accepted but not her autism. Realizing his tiny apartment wouldn’t work for her either, Luke hopes to find a new home. He first plans to stay at the inn only one night, then only a week or two. He adamantly refuses to get involved with Sera’s problem. Sure, he translates the restoration spell for her, but that’s all he’ll do – really. Of course, that resolution doesn’t last. The translated spell proves hardly less cryptic, requiring apparently impossible ingredients. Posy loves the inn, and Luke, who gets reluctantly drawn into its life, finds himself helping Sera while fighting their mutual attraction. Triumphs and disappointments, narrow escapes, magical conflicts, and a climactic clash with Sera’s old mentor follow. The endearing qualities of the major characters combined with their flaws and vulnerabilities give this novel a special appeal. Theo, like Posy and Luke, has suffered quiet rejection from his parents because of his magic. Luke has learned to hide and even suppress his emotions; the adjective most often applied to him is “arctic.” Matilda thinks she’s too old to find love. Jasmine, throughout her life, has absorbed the idea that her clubfoot makes her unattractive and unworthy. And Sera considers her basic identity bound up with her magical disability. Also, the cast of characters exhibits a delightful range of diversity, both ethnic (Sera, for instance, has Icelandic and Indian parents) and gender/sexual (at least two same-sex couples), not to mention mundane versus magical, neurotypical versus neurodivergent, and human versus not-quite.
HEMLOCK & SILVER, by T. Kingfisher. This author never disappoints, and I especially love her adaptations of fairy tales and classic literature. HEMLOCK & SILVER (sic) is based on “Snow White,” with elements of Alice’s trip through the looking glass. It gives us a possibly evil queen, a poisoned princess, enchanted sleep (apparently, anyway), apples, creepy mirrors, portal fantasy, a doppelganger dimension, and a talking cat. The opening sentence is irresistible: “I had just taken poison when the king arrived to inform me that he had murdered his wife.” Narrator/protagonist Anja experiments on herself with carefully measured doses of poisons to study their attributes and discover antidotes. She also uses roosters as experimental subjects, since chicken breeders often have a surplus of them. And she keeps a snake, which she describes as more of a colleague than a pet, for the useful qualities of its venom. The king’s unheralded arrival in her solitary workshop throws her into confusion; after all, she isn’t nobility, only a prosperous merchant’s daughter. The monarch killed his wife when he caught her in the act of cutting out their daughter’s heart. Now his surviving daughter, twelve-year-old Snow, suffers from a mysterious chronic illness. Grief and depression? Some kind of food or drink sickening her? Or poison? Having heard of Anja’s expertise in the latter field, the king asks her to tackle the problem because she has no court entanglements. A royal request, however affably presented, amounts to a command, so Anja packs up, snake and rooster in tow, to travel to the palace despite her trepidation. How will the king react if she fails to solve the case? Suppose Snow really is being poisoned and Anja becomes a target, if the culprit sees through her guise of being the princess’s new natural history tutor? Whom can she trust? It quickly becomes clear that Snow isn’t deliberately making herself sick, yet Anja believes she knows more than she’s admitting. The girl’s volatile adolescent moods complicate the situation. Anja methodically sets up procedures for ruling out possible causes, employing the scientific method she excels at and enjoys. On the other hand, she finds attending court dinners an ordeal. Dealing with people has always been hard for her, especially since her usual conversation focuses on poisonous and venomous plants and animals along with other bizarre natural phenomena that fascinate her. According to the Healer who’d been her beloved mentor, most members of their profession regard cases as people with problems; Anja, although she’s sincerely driven to find cures, sees a case as a problem with a person inconveniently attached. When she discovers the strange mirrors made of sand from the late queen’s native country, Anja is baffled. She doesn’t believe in magic. Therefore, she addresses the conundrum of the mirrors and the other world inside them with the same experimental rigor she applies to poisons. She gets help from one of the local bodyguards assigned to her and a one-eyed, talking cat who has no patience with answering tedious human questions. The solution to the mystery and the connection between the mirror realm and Snow’s illness will astonish most readers as thoroughly as it does Anja. Although still unwilling to believe in magic, she keeps an open mind. Between her lack of confidence outside the boundaries of her profession and her bodyguard’s taciturn manner, it takes her a while to begin to recognize their mutual attraction. Its gradual development from friendship to passion is charmingly awkward. The supercilious, enigmatic feline is also a constant delight. (According to the afterword, by the way, he’s based on the author’s own one-eyed cat.) As typical of Kingfisher’s first-person narrators, Anja is an entertaining character whose combined intelligence and vulnerability can’t fail to engage the reader’s sympathy.
For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
*****
Excerpt from “Her Death Was Doubtful”:
As usual, the girls’ restroom in the east wing of the school’s second floor was deserted. Mia staggered to the nearest sink, swallowing over and over to quell the churning in her stomach. Her hands shaking, she splashed water on her face until the queasiness faded. She didn’t want to show up at the after-school meeting of the game club looking like a total wreck.
If she couldn’t stand in front of the junior-year AP English class to deliver a two-minute summary of her chosen topic from Hamlet without an attack of nausea, how would she get through the entire oral report later? Why hadn’t Mr. McCall assigned just the written essay, which wouldn’t cause her any problem? Why did he have to require a speech, too?
A moan interrupted her thoughts. Had somebody come in while she wallowed in a pit of anxiety? “Who’s there?” She whirled around.
A girl stood in the middle of the room with her arms stretched out as if begging. “Help me!” What Mia’s grandmother would call “pleasingly plump,” with round cheeks and short, curly blond hair, the stranger wore a baggy sweatshirt over a calf-length, denim skirt.
Bloodstains spattered the skirt. “Help me,” she cried again. “Please, I can’t find my baby.”
Mia gasped and backed away. “OMG, what happened to you? Wait here. I’ll get somebody.” She glanced in the mirror and didn’t see the girl’s reflection. Where did she go? When Mia looked around, the girl was still there. Okay, no mystery. She didn’t happen to stand in the right position to show up in the mirror. Nothing to worry about. Finding an adult to deal with this crisis was the important thing at the moment.
Fortunately, Mia had noticed Hank, the senior custodian, working in the hall a couple of minutes earlier. Rushing from the restroom, she found him pushing a broom just outside the door.
“Whoa, hold up, what’s wrong?”
She gasped out, “There’s a girl in there. I think she’s hurt.”
“Take it easy. Let’s have a look.” He leaned the broom against the wall and opened the door.
Steadied by his calm voice, she walked inside ahead of him. No trace of the girl. “She was just here. She must be in a stall.” Although a glance showed all the doors ajar, Mia checked each one. Empty. “I don’t understand. She couldn’t have gotten past me into the hall. I really saw her, honest.”
Hank said, “I believe you—Mia, right?”
She nodded, “Mia Petrelli. You don’t think I’m lying? Or I imagined the whole thing?”
“Of course not. I’ve seen her myself a few times over the years.” He exited the restroom with Mia trailing behind him.
“Years? What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you heard stories about the school being haunted?” His matter-of-fact tone didn’t sound as if he was making fun of her.
“Sure, but I thought they were just urban legends. You’re saying the girl I saw is a ghost?”
“Yep, and not the only one by a long shot. Don’t worry, they’re mainly harmless.”
-end of excerpt-
*****
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“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter