Bloody #Valentine #Horror Event - Dearly beloved by Clarissa Johal #paranormal #flashfiction

Join Us today for the

2016 Bloody Valentine Horror Event
Free reads: flash fiction, book excerpts, tales of broken hearts, historic tidbits of love gone wrong, videos, photos...but no mushy stuff.

Hosted by author A. F. Stewert

Featured authors scheduled to appear are:

Clarissa Johal
Ash Krafton
Nick Paschall
Miracle Austin
John Linwood Grant
Debbie Christiana
Steve Vernon
Cinsearae S.

***

Photo courtesy of freeparking :-| via Flickr
This story is fiction and does not reflect 
these people in any way

Dearly beloved
by Clarissa Johal

The ghost stood at the top of the stairwell and gazed down at her body. She worried the ring on her finger, which even in death seemed to cut into her skin. My body is like a crumpled thing. Who knew it could be twisted into such an awful shape? The man who was crouched beside her body wept loudly.

 "How could this be? My dearest wife!"

 “She suffered from hysteria,” the doctor said. “You mustn’t blame yourself—”

"Leave me be! I wish to be alone with her." He turned away to hide his grief.

The doctor nodded. “We shall wait in the parlor.”

"My darling." The man took her lifeless hand and held it to his heart. "I will no longer hear the music of your voice, or feel the silky touch of your fingers, or smell the perfume of your skin."

Hearing his words, the ghost descended down the stairwell until her long skirts could have brushed his cheek. She passed a hand through his shoulder. 

"I feel the chill of death." The man shivered and dropped her hand abruptly. "It is as if your shade were here with me." He stood and backed away from the body.

The ghost of the woman traced her fingers along his chest. She looked up at him and stood on her tiptoes as if to steal a final kiss. Her whisper was like a final sigh. “My beloved.” The woman plunged her hands into the man's chest.

The man's jaw went slack. A soundless scream was ripped from his lungs. Gasping for breath, he fell onto the floor, writhing. 

The ghost crouched beside him, her expression twisted in fury. She squeezed his heart until it stopped. With a strangled cry, the man went limp. Glassy and frozen, his eyes were fixated upon her as they’d never been in life.

Satisfied, the ghost of the woman stood. She turned and ascended the staircase. Reaching the top, she glanced over her shoulder at the two bodies crumpled on the floor. One was her own and the other belonged to her husband. The same man who had pushed her down the stairwell, hours before.

Thoughtful Thursday - Giving it Away for #Free? You May Want to Rethink That

Who doesn't love free? You can peruse Twitter at any given time of day and see a stream of #free reads offered by authors who are trying to make a living. Some give away #1 in a series to entice readers, some give away prizes with the idea that free prizes = new readers, and some make all their books free just for the exposure.



There's a price however. Too much #free devalues our work. It gets lost in a plethora of free and lowers expectations. Authors can't make a living. Personally, it takes me a year to write a book--that's working 12 hours a day and oftentimes 6 days a week, so you can see how "free" becomes problematic.

Kristen Lamb discusses more in detail here:

A Culture Addicted to FREE---How FREE is Poisoning the Internet & Killing the Creatives
 via @KristenLambTX

#Paranormal Wednesday-The #Ghost Beside the Oak Tree

As promised last week, I thought I'd share another ghost story with you. Grab a cup of coffee, settle down, and read on...

The ghost of a man stands by the oak tree in our backyard. The tree is one of my favorites. Before we bought the house, it suffered a lightning strike and the trunk was scarred permanently. The tree endured and grows strong today. The attached ghost appears in the fall, and then only when the light outside is a certain shade of gold.

The first time I saw him, I thought he was a living person who had strayed into our yard. He was wearing a tan three-piece suit and a bowler hat, which was a bit odd, but not completely so. I stepped outside to ask if he was lost, but by the time I made it down the steps of our deck, he was gone. The second time I saw him, I realized he was ghost. Sometimes it takes me awhile. Same clothes, but now I could see details. The chain from a pocket watch, thick, brown hair, a waxed mustache, a twinkle of amusement in his eye. This time, I stood on the deck and waited to see what he would do. He lingered for several moments and then faded away. I hesitated to mention him to my family until my daughter (who was four at the time) brought him up. It seemed she had seen him too--standing in the same spot and wearing the same clothes.

Last year, I saw him inside our house, which took me by surprise. Up until then, I had only seen him standing beside the oak tree. I watched him walk across our kitchen and through the wall. He pops in and out of the house now, almost as if he were curious. My feeling is that he lived in the 1920's and was involved in something illegal. That's all I get. Maybe someday he'll let me know a little more. But for now, I'm left wondering why he stands beside the oak tree.

 *Oddly enough, while I was writing this post, our neighbor's tree was hit by lightning and exploded all over both our yards. Lightning may not strike the same place twice, but it got awful close.

#MeatlessMonday - Curried Parsnip Soup #vegetarian

Here's a great recipe for a cold winter's evening. Parsnips are high in vitamins and minerals, especially potassium. They also contain antioxidants and both soluble and insoluble dietary fiber. Enjoy!

Photo courtesy of Alpha via Flickr

Curried Parsnip Soup

1-1/2 oz butter
1 medium onion, sliced
1-1/2 lbs parsnips, peeled and finely diced
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
2-1/2 pints vegetable stock
5 fl oz cream
Salt and pepper to taste
paprika to garnish


1. Heat the butter in a large pan, and saute the onion and parsnip together for about 3 minutes.
2. Stir in the curry powder and cumin and saute for another 2 minutes.
3. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer (covered) for about 45 minutes, until the vegetables are tender.
4. Cool slightly. Use a draining spoon to place the vegetables in a blender, add a little stock and puree until smooth.
5. Return to the pan. Adjust seasoning and add the cream. Reheat to serving temperature but do not boil. Serve sprinkled with paprika.

Guest Author Spotlight - Junior Inquisitor by Lincoln S. Farish #darkfantasy #horror @lincolnfarish

Junior Inquisitor 

Lincoln S. Farish

Blurb:

Brother Sebastian is halfway up a mountain in Vermont, hell-bent on interrogating an old woman in ashack, when he gets the order to abandon his quest for personal vengeance. He has to find a missing Inquisitor, or, more likely, his remains. He’s reluctant, to say the least. Not only will he have to stop chasing the best potential lead he’s had in years, this job—his first solo mission—will mean setting foot in the grubby black hole of Providence, Rhode Island. And, somehow, it only gets worse…

If he’d known he would end up ass deep in witches, werewolves, and ogres, and that this mission would jeopardize not only his sanity but also his immortal soul, he never would’ve answered the damn phone.

Excerpt:

With deliberate movements, I again went from shadow to shadow, creeping away from my car and the shop. Even moving with care, I was sweating from fear and excitement, my heart still pumping rapidly. My brain was screaming, Run away, and I really wanted to listen to it. I wanted to just start running as fast as I could down the street. It would feel good for a few minutes, until I was caught.

I wiped my face before the stinging sweat blinded me. Last thing I needed was to twist my ankle on a pothole or unseen brick. I made it several more blocks in a generally south and east direction before I heard a car coming down the street toward me. I could just make it out—a panel van, the kind the cable company uses. This late at night, a vehicle like that was not going to be good for me. I ducked into a little stand of trees growing between two twelve-foot industrial fences and started running.

Maybe they didn’t see me, or maybe it was just some burglars looking for a house to rob.

The van’s engine revved, headed to where I’d been before my dash into the trees. Brakes, old and tired, squealed behind me. I tried to go faster, but the trees were thick, the light bad, and there was a lot of undergrowth and litter on the ground. At a full run, I would faceplant into a tree or step in a hole. The best I could manage was a slow trot. The hollow metallic bang of a vehicle door being thrown open crashed into the night. The howling came next.

***

Buy links:

Amazon 

Smashwords 

Website

Online contact:

Author Website
Twitter @lincolnfarish
Author Facebook

Thoughtful Thursday: You Don't Need to Write Like Shakespeare to Leave a Book Review

Authors LIVE for book reviews. I don't think our readers know how important they are to us. Reviews get our books noticed. They keep our spirits afloat on those dark days when we feel like quitting. They're just...nice. So why do authors struggle to get them? Especially indie or small press authors. Our books sell, people seem to like them. Why doesn't that translate to hundreds of awesome book reviews? I asked a pool of readers and got the same answer. They didn't feel clever enough to write a review.

Huh???

That surprised me.. Authors don't need much, I swear. A couple of stars. A short, "I liked this book because..." It doesn't need to be an essay. Something like this:

"I liked this book because it was scary and kept me up at night."
"I liked this book because I couldn't put it down, I had to see how it ended."
"I liked this book because the characters were awesome."
"I liked this book because it had a pretty cover."

See? Painless. And it takes less than a minute. So, go on. Review a book you liked. You'll make an author's day.

If you're so inclined, here's the link to my Author Page on Amazon. If you've read any of my books, please leave a review! You'd make my day. 

#Paranormal Wednesday-The Ghost Upstairs

Grab a cup of coffee and snuggle down, because in lieu of a book excerpt or a bit of paranormal news, I'm going to tell you a ghost story.

There’s a little girl that lives in our house. Well, "lives" is probably the wrong word, because she’s a ghost. She was here when we moved in and, I suspect, before the house was built. I sometimes see her in the hallway or in one of the bedrooms. One morning, I opened the door and she stood on the other side, welcoming me with a big smile. She wears an old-fashioned dress that goes down to her ankles. It has a high collar with small buttons at the back of the neck. My daughters say the girl has red hair, but I see it as blonde. A large, blue bow sits on top of her head.

I have a feeling her remains are buried underneath our house or on the property. Someplace they shouldn't be; there are no markers of any kind. I’m reasonably sure the child isn't connected to the man who stands beside our oak tree. I keep trying to speak to him but he disappears as soon as I walk outside. Suffice to say, the man and the little girl don't seem to share the same time-period.

When our daughter was 4-years-old, she use to complain the ghost girl woke her up by turning her lights on. We ended up moving our daughter to the spare bedroom so she could sleep better. The ghost girl reacted by turning the lights on in our bedroom. When I asked her to stop, the lights in both bedrooms turned on and off repeatedly, as if the child thought my request amusing. Eventually, I gave up asking and she stopped. Now, she chooses to moves things. Coins, pencils, seashells. I pretend not to notice.

I've tried to help her cross over but have a feeling it’s been too long. It's almost like she wants to be part of the family. I’m fine with that. We've settled into a living arrangement and accepted the fact she's here to stay. I've had worse house-mates.

Next week, I'll tell you about the man who stands beside our oak tree. A puzzle indeed.