Thursday, February 1, 2018

New Book Released Today- February 1, 2018

It's officially hit the Amazon marketplace! (But is not a Kindle book yet.) I won't have copies until around Valentine's Day and will make a few available at Blue Umbrella Books then.

The Hanging Man and Other Stories was released this morning, Thursday, February 1, 2018. It is 292 pages and retails for $14.99. The book is a collection of 17 ghost/supernatural/paranormal stories, 12 of them have never been published before. The other five have previously been published in Disturbing, the book of ghost/supernatural stories I co-authored with Kelly that was released in September 2017.

I began writing stories with supernatural elements in them a long time ago. The Fairlawn Investigation and The Victorian Wayfarer Investigation are about ghost hunters based at a college in Burlington, VT and have some ghostly encounters in them that take place during investigations, but they really aren't ghost stories per se since they're more about the ghost hunters. The Talon series is about a grim reaper and his portal, who, in this case, happens to be an angel which isn't the norm, so they have a very volatile relationship because of that. My Magical Life  and Out have vampires as main characters. My Magical Life, Black King Takes White Queen, and Black Knight, White Rook have witches, warlocks, demons, and magic in them. Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume I-III have a variety of stories in them with characters that include the angel of death, the grim reaper, ghosts, Death, an angel and a demon who live as Vegas magicians in this world, a curious being who lives within the walls of a house, a disturbing family connected to an asylum, etc. Miss Peculiar's Ghost Stories, Volume I contains mostly ghost stories, which I began writing for Ghost Stories LIVE! in October 2016. Disturbing has newly written ghost stories (several read at Ghost Stories LIVE! events), and some older ones from the archives written back when Kelly was in middle and high school. 

The Hanging Man and Other Stories is a repository for ghost stories that are too long for reading aloud at Ghost Stories LIVE! and one sort of satiric/dark humor story I really don't know how to classify (Between). The Hanging Man is the longest story in the anthology...although it originally was meant to be a quick scare. However, it took on a life of its own, stalled in December when the story veered onto a darker path and I didn't want to go there, but I kept being urged to finish it, so ended up following that path in mid-to-late January, finally completing what I'd started.

And then I couldn't find what I wanted for a cover (first thought was a rustic, turn of the century barn, but I couldn't find one with the right look), so I ended up drawing a hanging man myself in a sort of Edward Gorey style, only I left the skull-shaped face blank, which is creepier than giving it a face straight out of my own imagination which would have probably just been weird. 

The WhipCity Wordsmiths (as a group, not individually-although you're all included) authors/writers group is mentioned in the dedication.

I picked mauve, black, white, and gray for the cover colors- the traditional colors of Victorian mourning.

2 comments:

  1. Started your book today. First story very interesting, I tend to be a Bibliophile. Second Story Harry Houdini a.k.a. Eric Weiss very interesting as well, you know he and A.Connan Doyle had a huge fight after Houdini proved Doyle's favorite Medium was a compleat Charleton. Doyle never forgave him. He also left clear instructions to his wife on how and what he would use to contact her after his death. For years she waited for the contact that never came.

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