HALLOWEEN GIVEAWAY for Bandits Hollow, My Spooky Time Travel Romance!

Bandits Hollow is here for only .99 cents!

Just in time for Halloween—my spooky, time travel romance Bandits Hollow! This magical novella can be read in any order in the Robbin' Hearts Series and details the secrets behind Evangeline Tinker's love life (many of you know her as Granny Tinker from my bestselling novel Robin in the Hood). In this novella, renowned fortune teller Evangeline learns that the love her life, Virgil Hollow, has traversed through time to find her, and she's petrified of the consequences due to his epic hold upon her heart. But add a touch of magic, and the sparks between them are bound to ignite.... (to read an excerpt from this novella, go to my "Sneak Peek" page or click here). 

So what am I giving away for Halloween?

For all those who sign up for my newsletter in October,

you will be entered to WIN one of 3 PSYCHIC READINGS 

for HALLOWEEN and a GRAND PRIZE of an 

AMAZON GIFT CARD card for $30!

Directions to Enter:

If you haven't already done so, please sign up for my newsletter by entering your email address in the newsletter sign-up box on the right side column of my website (don't worry— I never spam!). That's all there is to it—I'll notify the 3 winners of psychic readings by random drawing on October 31st along with the winner of the Amazon gift card for $30!

Can true love rekindle despite the weight of centuries? 

Find out in the timeless love story Bandits Hollow,

which will make you believe once again in eternal love...

To purchase Bandits Hollow on Kindle in the US, click here

To purchase Bandits Hollow on Kindle in the UK, click here

To purchase Bandits Hollow on Kindle in Canada, click here

Photo credit note: All images on my blog are either my own or were gleaned from pictures in the public domains of popular social networks like tumblr, facebook or pinterest. If you own the copyright to any of these images & do NOT want them used publicly, please contact me & I will take them down immediately! : )

Real Ghost Photo!

Okay, I'll admit it—I'd become a little obsessed by the spooky, abandoned farmhouse I always pass on my way to drop my children off at school each morning. Sure, I've seen plenty of decrepid, nineteenth-century homes in my rural area before, but something about this particular house always spoke to me. The warped & broken wood siding, smoky tint to the windows (regardless of season or time of day) and sad, utterly paintlesss exterior seemed to indicate a story that had long been forgotten, yet was aching to be told. Finally, when I received an email from a friend asking if the Autumn leaves had peaked in my area, I decided to stop by the old farmhouse to take a photo of the glorious maple tree beside it. Dark clouds had gathered behind the house, setting off the spectacular gold leaves, so "snap!" went my cell phone shutter, and I swiftly sent off the picture to my friend. I didn't think anymore about it until that evening when my husband stumbled across the photo in our joint email account. "Honey," he said, "where did you get this? Did you see the ghost in the window?" At once, the hair stood up on the back of my neck. Sure enough, in the upper far right window of the farmhouse there appears to be a person staring outside, smiling at me:

HONEST TO GOD—I swear that person was not in my view when I took that photo! All I could see at the time was a cardboard box that was leaning up against the glass! Just to make certain I'm not crazy, I went back to the house after the weekend to take another look. As you can see from the second photo, all that is visible in the upper far right window is the cardboard box:

How did that ghostly image surface on the first photo? To me, the person appears happy that I am taking notice! Naturally, I became curious about this old house and its former occupants, so I drove across the street to ask the neighbor if he knew anything about it. At first he just smiled at me and shook his head. "Crazy lady," he nodded, as if it were common knowledge. "Crazy Sally lived there, and she let the house go to ruin."

For some reason, I assumed he meant this Sally had been old & infirmed and had surely died by now. But when I asked the neighbor about her, he said "No, she was only 40, and she up and left all of a sudden for no reason two years ago! Everybody does—everybody leaves that house. It's been slated to be torched by the fire department for a burn-to-learn for ages, but somehow the paperwork always falls through. It's as if something wants that house to be left alone."

Had the ghosts of this old farmhouse driven Sally crazy to push her out? Or had they been the only ones to care for her in her fragile state, to keep her company when no one else would? These are answers I will never know. The only thing I can say for certain is that my spooky first photo of the farmhouse is completely unretouched (digitally or otherwise)—making it appear that there is far more to this rural abandoned house than meets the naked eye...  

Got Ghosts? I sure do!

Got Ghosts?
     I sure do!

Little did I know when I bought my 1830 farmhouse (originally built by Quakers) that I was acquiring a few spooks as well.

Luckily for me, I love everything magical—but moving into this farmhouse brought me my first direct encounter with a ghostly presence. Because of the age of the home, I was naturally curious about its long history with people both living and dead, so I asked the previous owner if she'd ever experienced paranormal activity. She immediately fell quiet for a moment, shuffled her feet, and finally fessed up. "Only once in fifteen years," she replied, "when my niece came to visit and slept in the guest room. At night we heard her wake up screaming, saying there was a Quaker man standing over her bed with a puzzled look in his eyes as if to say, 'And YOU are?' He wasn't threatening at all—just a bit perplexed. We've never had another incident."

Much relieved, I thought to myself "Allrighty, we're good then! Only once is a pretty good track record—I doubt I'll ever experience anything." Until about six months later when I was in my bed about to go to sleep, I felt a presence enter my room. It was as though the air had become as thick as jello—not stuffy, more like heavy—and then I heard a very clear man's voice say aloud, "NOW... YOU FINALLY HEAR ME." The voice was smug—vindicated even—and it shocked my socks off. How did I react? The same way I would with any unwanted person, living or in spirit, who appears to be negatively seeking my attention: I IGNORED HIM. Yes, it was hard, because I was truly frightened, but I played possum by closing my eyes and rolling over to pretend I was asleep.

Did my tactic work? Well, sort of. I never heard the direct voice again, but fairly soon after I became acquainted with the "Bewitching Hour" phenomenon. I've heard it referred to as the "Angel Hour" & "Devil Hour" as well—apparently 3 am is that dark, early morning time when spirits of all kinds are supposed to be the most active (ghosts, angels & demons, etc.). Some say it's because Christ "gave up the ghost" on the cross at that hour. But honestly, I think it's because most of us are deep in the throes of REM sleep and are more "receptive" to paranormal activity with our "logical" minds at rest. Whatever the case, suddenly I found myself being startled awake at 3 am each night for about two weeks due to poltergeist activity. You know, the alarm going off loudly at 3 am (that I had set for 7!), or lights inexplicably flashing on and off, and most eerie of all, the television abruptly booming at full volume on a channel I'd never watched before! Like the auditory incident, at first I just rolled my eyes, turned off the switches, and tried to ignore the whole thing (isn't that best way to get rid of annoying people?). But the television moment truly unnerved me. So this time, I walked downstairs and stared at the program that was featured to see if I could discern any clues as to what this spook wanted.

What I saw I'll never forget: it was a rare documentary on the bombing of Essen, Germany during WWII—the very same city my father had decimated as a Squadron Leader in the Army Air Corps in that war. Very few people study up on Essen (it doesn't receive the attention of the fire bombing of Dresden in Germany or Kristallnacht in Austria), and that moment shook me to the core. My father had passed away recently, but before he died, I'd mustered the courage to ask him to tell me the truth about that war—all of those things he'd kept bottled up inside for more than fifty years because of the tragedy and horror. And he did talk, right inside my old farmhouse—he finally voiced the terrible trials he'd lived through, and I felt as though a weight had been finally lifted from his shoulders.

Was it the spirit of my father who had turned on the television to perhaps thank me or let me know he was near? Or was it another phantom who'd heard our conversation and simply wanted to acknowledge the value of that cathartic discussion? I'll never really know. All I could do in that moment was say aloud to the spirits in my house: "Thank you. I'm hearing and receiving this message, and I'm grateful." Oddly enough, after that night I never experienced such disturbing poltergeist activity again.

 So what I've learned in my encounter with the supernatural is that maybe restless spirits are really no different than the rest of us. We all want to be acknowledged—to simply be heard—and often times that's all that's required to put our hearts at ease and give us peace. And even though I'm glad I'm not losing sleep at 3 am anymore, a part of me feels honored that it happened, that the spirits perhaps saw me as a compassionate conduit before they gained release and went on their way. And of course, there's always that curious part of me who loves magical moments and secretly wishes it just might happen again—only during more reasonable daylight hours next time! ; )








TWIXT
If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy my critically acclaimed novel Twixt, a magical romance that takes place over Halloween (available on Kindle & in paperback).

_____________________________________