Dark Short Fiction,
Dark Romantic Fiction,
Horror short & flash fiction stories,
And the occasional bottle of wine...
 Welcome to October Frights Celebrating things that go bump in the night. Where autumn leaves are howling and blowing and Jack-o-lanterns are alive and glowing. Come meet some ghosts, goblins and demons For 'tis the spooky season. Horror and Paranormal Authors galore Giveaways, prizes, books and more. From the 1st to 10th of October Grab a talisman, charm or maybe a 4-leaf clover So while visiting new blogs each day You'll keep the witches and warlocks away. Hi everyone. I have two posts and two giveaways of Amazon Gift Cards. One runs from Oct 1-5 and the other from Oct 6-10, which a grand prize at the end, which all the commenters from both posts will get entered. Click on the witch's broom and hitch a ride to the main page of the blog hop. Happy Hauntings! 
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Love Fairy Tales? How about dark Fairy Tales? If you do, you're in for a treat. I'm happy to host Anne Rowan, good friend, author and fellow fan of the macabre, who writes her own original, dark stories from long ago. From creepy forests and kingdoms to witches, magic and enchantments, her tales have it all. Today, Anne takes on a trip into the dark history of the beautiful city of Prague. Take it away, Anne! Like my dear friend Debbie, I am fascinated by monsters, monstrosity, the dark, and the unexplained. I’d seen things I couldn’t fathom and I’d always wondered about the reasons or the choices the beings people considered to be monstrous had encountered that made them so marginalized by the society. I came to the conclusion that they were the very things with which many people in today’s world struggle, such as betrayal, unrequited love, greed, lack of acceptance, and more. This summer I got to learn about some of those reasons during a ghost tour of my favorite city in the world, Prague. If you tune out the loud laughter and out of tone singing of the drunken tourists, you can walk about the ancient cobble-stoned streets and alleys of the Old Town and get lost in the past as the dimly lit lanterns suspended from the old buildings barely illuminate your path. Just think back hundreds of years, to when there was no electricity, and the moon above cast shadows into the narrow street, its cobble stones echoing the panicky footsteps of the desperate merchant who’d just cut off the head of his betrothed because she went with another man. In a nearby courtyard you can hear the cries of a daughter who is trying to pull her drowning mother out of the well into which her father had thrown her because she’d accidentally discovered his buried treasure. The cries petrify you, so you run through an alley and out into the open square, only to encounter the galleys on which the motionless bodies of the accused and executed thieves swing side to side in the wind. Suddenly, you turn because the scent of putrefied blood and flesh fills your nostrils. So you squint your eyes as you can’t believe what you are seeing, but they are indeed there. The wooden stakes along the bridge, each adorned with a severed head of the person who’d tried to overthrow the king. The smell is so revolting you want to hide between the walls of the ancient buildings where the wind dies out into a barely noticeable breeze whose assault on your nose can be reduced if you cup your hand over it. So you do so. You stand for a moment, trying to still you jittery limbs. Breathe, you say to yourself, but as you finish the thought, the sudden echo of flapping wings ascends into the sky, and you look up and laugh at yourself because now it is pigeons that send you jolting backward against the wall. You know you’d had enough, so you turn around to walk back to where you first started, seeking solace with the drunken tourist over whose moronic behavior you had cringed earlier, but now you see them as a comforting knowing that nothing else would frighten you tonight. And as you set off toward the modern day world, the very ground beneath your feet begins to shake and you say to yourself, “I’ve never heard of an earthquake in Prague.” And by the time you realize that it is not an earthquake, you are staring into the eyes of the Golem as he is reaching out the grab you.  Excerpt from Enchanted “Shush!” Dethdemona shooed her daughter off. Then, as if she hadn’t heard Mathelda’s questions, she took the cauldron, set it on the tree stump, and poured into it the liquids from all the vials at once. The brew immediately started to bubble. “Now for the final ingredient…” The witch bent down to pick up the pointy knife. “I should have foreseen why the potion didn’t work,” she said as she approached Rosalynn. Dethdemona lifted the knife to her stepdaughter’s neck. Rosalynn’s blue eyes widened with horror, then shut tightly at the same moment Mathelda’s throat issued a high pitched shriek. Excerpt from The Serpent King’s Sorrow On the first anniversary of her father’s death, Eleanor found herself in the deepest state of hopelessness ever known to mankind. Her insides twisted with agony, for she had failed as a ruler. Her mind gnawed on her soul, for she had not lived up to her word. And her body had surrendered to hunger, for she had been giving most of her meals to the small beggar children in the royal courtyard. In all her sadness, Eleanor crawled under her father’s bed, as she did not think she deserved to lie in it, and waited for Death. He appeared out of nothingness like he had when he came for the king. His grim voice filled the chamber with an echo whose message resonated deep inside the queen’s soul. Buy Link: Free on Kindle Unlimited or ONLY 0.99! http://www.amazon.com/Anne-Rowan/e/B00TM6PKGW/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1441640109&sr=1-1 ABOUT ANNE:
Anne Rowan is an award-winning author of the Once Upon a Time… series of fairy tales that return to authentic storytelling, stark characters, dark settings, and, of course, magic! With her original plot lines, she examines the blurry line between good and evil and takes the readers on a journey of discovering (or questioning) their own morals and ethical values. Rowan holds a B.A. in English Literature and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. She divides her time between the Czech Republic and Southern California, where she lives with her husband, two children, and Poe--the cutest ugly dog in the world. Follow Anne Rowan on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Anne-Rowan/710417919076933 On Instagram: @aneta.cruz_anne.rowan  WELCOME TO CURIOSITIES A monthly feature that spotlights an author and their true, unexplained experience. CURIOSITIES is back! I'm thrilled to have my friend, the lovely LD Rose, here to kick off another year of strange and spooky stories. LD's new book, RELEASING THE DEMONS, is an urban fantasy/paranormal romance. I recently read it and it's a good one. See my review here. LD grew up in a haunted house (I'm jealous) and has a very cool story to share. Take it away, LD... A Haunting in Southeastern Massachusetts by L.D. Rose Hi there! First off, I want to thank Debbie for having me on her blog! I love her Curiosities posts, so I’m honored to be a guest here today. I have a curious tale to share with you all - I grew up in a haunted house as a child. And I thought it was completely normal. My family moved into a little cape in southeastern Massachusetts (in the same city where the infamous Lizzie Borden hacked her parents to death) when I was around five years old. They were quite excited to finally have their own home after immigrating from the Azores, Portugal and apartment hopping since I’d been born. The house wasn’t in the greatest condition, but my dad planned to renovate both the interior and the exterior over the next few years. Too bad he couldn’t get rid of the ghosts! Let me get one thing out in the open first: I’m not super sensitive to the paranormal (certainly not like my sister, who experienced far more in this house than I did). Since my family moved out this house when I was in high school, I’ve literally never experienced another supernatural occurrence. The ghostly presences in this house were so strong even others sensed it. I do think there’s a gradation when it comes to these things, but I’m no expert, so that’s that. It all started with the persistent pacing. I didn’t notice it at first, since my sister and I were kids running around making noise all day, but it was most obvious at night - someone kept walking up and down the stairs. The house was over a hundred years old, and yes it was creaky and constantly settling, but these sounds were just a little too rhythmic. If I was downstairs, I could hear people walking around upstairs when no one was up there. It was constant, back and forth, then it would stop for a period of time. My mom kept pawning it off as an old house, but I wasn’t convinced. Also, the entire upper level of the house was always cold, especially the upstairs bathroom, no matter the time of year. One of my cousins (also only a child at the time) would completely flip out if he was left alone upstairs, screaming about the evil up there. Even though I didn’t think my ghosts were evil, I knew they were real, even if I poked fun at him a little. My sister and I would often hear voices at night. We both shared the same room and there were nights where someone would whisper right along with us. Both of us would shut up immediately, holding our breaths and listening hard. The voices weren’t loud at all, barely audible really, and usually in different languages we couldn’t understand. One night, we heard a baby persistently crying. It terrified my sister so much, she dragged my mom into the room, and yes, even my mother heard it. She checked all the windows, and even though it was the middle of winter, she told us it came from a neighbor’s house down the street. Bullshit! But she looked entirely unsettled before she went back to bed. Our ghostly residents liked to play tricks on us too. Again, this all happened on the upper floor, where the blinds randomly dropped with a terrifying crack. This happened constantly. My mom kept saying it was because the blinds were old, but c’mon, really?! I think not. I used to sit at my computer, listening to a cassette tape on the radio, when suddenly it would shut off. I would hit play again and literally stare at it, waiting. Right before my eyes, the “stop” button was pushed, as if by an invisible hand. I guess my spectral roommates didn’t care for the music! What else? My father (a believer) later told me he once heard a tremendous crash downstairs one night, as if someone had knocked over the hutch filled with glasses and porcelain dishes. Terrified, he went downstairs to investigate, thinking someone had broken into the house. To his relief, he found nothing - everything was in its place and all was silent. He was positive he hadn’t imagined it and it still stumps him until this day. And last but certainly not least, when I was ten we adopted an adorable German Shepard named Legend. She was sweet, playful, and loved to run around the house, like any happy dog. However she often leapt over the front gate (a standard chain-linked fence) and would do so if riled up enough. She lived five glorious years before she one day leapt over that fence, chasing a motorcycle, and ended up struck by a car. I was fifteen at the time and devastated. My dad was even more so, because he loved Legend very much. There were a few days of silence after her death but then we started to hear it. Her running. It would always happen randomly at sundown. We’d be sitting downstairs in the basement, watching TV or playing video games, when a loud gallop would suddenly resonate all around the house from outside. The noise was thunderous in the basement, and it sounded just like Legend running circles around the perimeter, the way she used to when she was alive and well. This went on for weeks. My dad was stunned a little scared, but soon it stopped. Oddly enough, my mom never experienced it. My sister also had an incident with ghostly Legend, where she was folding laundry upstairs (where else?) and heard something four-legged racing at her. When she looked up, something pushed her, like a dog’s front paws and she fell back. Of course, there was nothing there, but she ran to me terrified and in tears. At first, I didn’t believe her - none of us had ever been physically touched by anything ghostly in the house. But her tears quickly convinced me otherwise- why would she lie about something like that anyway? So that’s a quick overview of my haunted house experience (although looking back at this post, maybe not so quick, ha!). My sister later saw a psychic medium who told her a young boy of about eight and an elderly woman were our ghostly residents. The elderly woman died in the upstairs bathroom (of course, where else?) but she wasn’t quite sure about the young boy. The medium believed the pacing and the cold patches were thanks to grandma and the blinds/radio stints were thanks to the little boy. My sister said the medium knew all about it, which is a curiosity in itself, but hell, I could believe that. Why not? After living in this house, anything seems possible!  BOOK BLURB: Blaze Knight has been through hell and back, but the nightmares aren't over yet. Five years after Blaze was maimed by Cyrus Chimola, a powerful vampire with a penchant for torture, he’s still trying to pick up the pieces of his shattered life. As a genetically engineered mercenary with the ability to bend fire to his will and to see in infrared, Blaze’s mission is to protect what’s left of humanity. When Chimola and his crew return to the Bronx gunning for Blaze’s blood, Blaze is forced to face the demons of his past. Hell-bent on revenge, he seeks the help of Valerie Medeiros, an NYPD detective who manages to steal his heart and save his life in more ways than one. Motivated by her sister’s gruesome death, Valerie has made it her life’s goal to bury every vampire in the ground where they belong. When she brings in Blaze Knight for suspected murder, she discovers he’s not only innocent, he isn't a man at all—he's a half-vampire hybrid working with a band of brothers for the U.S. military. Valerie has a hard time trusting anything with fangs, yet she quickly falls headlong into Blaze’s life, a life full of darkness and horror she can’t even begin to fathom. The bodies are stacking up, but Valerie can’t seem to let go of this hybrid, a beautiful monster filled with pain, rage, and passion unlike anything she's ever known. In a world where the line between good and evil is blurred, Blaze and Valerie will find danger at every turn, risking everything they’ve come to know and love, including one another. BUY LINKS: Amazon US: http://amzn.com/B013GVCC7I Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B013GVCC7I  BIO:
L.D. Rose is a neurotic physician by day, crazed writer by night, and all around wannabe superhero. She writes paranormal romance and urban fantasy, but she’s been known to delve into horror, sci-fi, and medical suspense on occasion. L.D. Rose is a member of the RWA, FF&P, NEC-RWA and CoLoNY. She currently lives in Rhode Island with her studly hubby, her hyperactive boxer, and her two devious cats. Where to find her: Website: writerldrose.com Facebook: facebook.com/writerldrose Author page: facebook.com/ldroseauthorpage Twitter: twitter.com/ld_rose Goodreads: goodreads.com/ldrose Pinterest: pinterest.com/writerldrose Tumblr: writerdoc.tumblr.com   CONGRATULATIONS - JUDY C !! You've won the signed copy of Forever Flames and the matching jeweled book hook. I'll email you with the details. Thank you to everyone who stopped by my blog and commented. I loved reading your 'soulmate' stories. Welcome to the Labor of Love Bloghop. From sweet to dark, divas of romance work their fingers to the bone for your reading pleasure. Join us and enter the Rafflecoptor for a Kindle loaded with ebooks, and a chance at two gift cards! I'm also including a giveaway of my own! My Labor of Love is my first book, a paranormal romance, titled TWIN FLAMES. This story hung out in my head for years before it ever made it to paper (or computer screen). I've always been fascinated with reincarnation and the concept that we may have many lives here, and we tend to spend those lives with the same people over and over. Twin Flame soul mates have a much deeper connection. Many hard times and obstacles have been overcome time and time again to cement the bond that they have for each other. Some believe they are the literal other half of each other. While they may appear to be strangers to us, our souls recognize them immediately. So begins a battle between logic, love and the paranormal. The research for this book was immense but I enjoyed every minute of it. I wanted it to be as authentic as possible. I interviewed authors that were also past live regression therapists and even spent a lovely afternoon with one woman who was very generous with her time and knowledge. The next step was choosing events in history to write their past lives around. I choose to look for obscure but important things that happened in history. Then the question was how many past lives to include? There needed to be enough to show their strong bond, but not so many that the reader got bored and the story did not move along. In the end, I believe I did what I set out to do and even included a mischievous ghost to the cast of characters. TWIN FLAMES is celebrating it's publishing birthday this month and is on sale for 99 cents on Amazon here.  Blurb: She'd never met him before, or had she? The last thing forty-year old Natalia Santagario expected was to be sitting on a Manhattan barstool, ogling a man she's never met, but swears she knows. He didn't know her at all, or did he? The mysterious dark-haired woman at the end of the bar stops twenty-eight-year old Marc Tremonti in his tracks. His head she's a stranger, but his heart tells him otherwise. Together they embark on a journey that will change their lives forever. Marc's aunt Mariella, an expert in reincarnation, persuades them to relive their past to explain their enigmatic attraction. As they open the doors to their past lives, they discover they have been lovers for hundreds of ives, are connected by an ancient bond and are Twin Flame soul mates. But their reunion in this life is complicated by an almost ex-wife, a temporary bout of amnesia and a mischievous and meddling ghost with it's own agenda. Will their strong connection find a way to bring them together? Or is this the lifetime they must go their separate ways? Now for the best part - the giveaways.!! Enter the Rafflecoptor here to win a super loaded Kindle and a chance for two gift cards. I'm giving away a signed copy of FOREVER FLAMES, a Twin Flames novella with a matching book hook. It continues Marc and Natalia's story form Twin Flames, but is a stand alone novella. Please leave a comment telling me if you've ever met someone (male, female, friend or lover) that you felt you knew immediately and how it made you feel. Good luck and thank you for stopping by and taking part in the the Labor of Love Blogshop! Don't forget to check out all the awesome authors participating the hop, here.  If you'd like to join my mailing list and receive notifications about any posts that are spooky or supernatural, click on the Contact Button on the top menu and send me your email. Thanks!
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Debbie Christiana
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