Author Archive
Welcome to the August 2020 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.” For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, e-mail me to request the desired issue, and I’ll send you a free PDF of it. My e-mail address is at the end of this newsletter. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links (gradually being updated as the Amber Quill and Ellora’s Cave works are being republished):
For anyone who would like to read previous issues of this newsletter, now that the Yahoo group is useless for that purpose, they’re posted on my website here (starting from January 2018):
This is my Facebook author page. Please visit!
Facebook
Here’s my page in Barnes and Noble’s Nook store:
Barnes and Noble
Here’s the list of my Kindle books on Amazon. (The final page, however, includes some Ellora’s Cave anthologies in which I don’t have stories):
Carter Kindle Books
Here’s a shortcut URL to my author page on Amazon:
Amazon
My Goodreads page:
Goodreads
My first novel, werewolf urban fantasy (with romantic elements) SHADOW OF THE BEAST, has been re-released!
Part of the opening scene is below. Jenny returns home one evening when her twin brother is supposed to be babysitting for their little sister.
This month features an interview with multi-subgenre romance author Amber Daulton.
*****
Interview with Amber Daulton:
What inspired you to begin writing?
I read my first romance book when I was 12 after I snuck a Harlequin paperback out of my mom’s bedroom. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I wanted to create my own story about two people having an adventure and falling in love. I wrote with pencil in a spiral-bound notebook and finished that 200-plus page story in about six months.
I published my first book when I was 26, and Lyrical Embrace is now my eleventh book to date. I have about ten more manuscripts on my computer waiting to see the light of day.
What genres do you work in?
I write in a variety of romantic sub-genres, including: contemporary, romantic suspense, historical, western, NA, erotic romance, time travel, and paranormal. Some stories can fit in multiple genres while others fit in only one or two, so I like to keep my options open and my muse flowing to wherever it takes me.
Most romance books nowadays are more than simple love stories. All sorts of plot devices are used, such as: action, danger, mystery, emotional upheaval, and physical trauma, to name a few. If you take away the “falling in love” aspect from a romantic suspense, for example, then you have a suspense/action/thriller story. The romance genre is so widespread that I’ve heard of men reading and enjoying various books without realizing those books are classified as romance.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
I’m a plotter, and I like to outline chapter by chapter. I use pen, paper, and colored pencils, but sometimes I plot in a Word doc. I try to follow my notes exactly, but more often than not, the characters take control and steer my story in another direction. Then I have to get into arguments with my H/h, or even the secondary characters, and force them back into the outline. More often than not, they refuse to get back in line and I have to write what they want.
Heh, it’s a give and a take relationship.
What have been the major influences on your writing (favorite authors, life experiences, or whatever)?
I think my biggest influence on my writing is my imagination. Several books I’ve written have come from my dreams, and I fill in all the missing pieces and fix plot holes when I’m plotting the story.
When I first started writing back in the late ’90s and 2000s (as a teenager), I was reading books published in the 1980s. The writing styles accepted back then are frowned upon now, but that was how I taught myself to write. I guess you could say it influenced me. I didn’t realize passive voice and head hopping was no longer deemed “correct,” so now I’m crazy strict in writing active and using proper scene breaks when switching character POV.
How did you become involved in the Deerbourne Inn series? How does a “multi-author collaboration of novellas” work, and what are the pros and cons of participating in such a project?
Every few years The Wild Rose Press announces a multi-author series and invites all their authors to join. After I heard about the call, I emailed the series coordinator for details and downloaded a few info files. The submission call lasts about two years—ending in December 2020—so if anyone wants to submit a proposal, do it soon.
All the participating authors are required to write a novella set in the fictional town of Willow Springs, Vermont, and the heat levels range from sweet, sensual, to erotic. Some stories take place in the 1800s (around the town’s founding), and others are set in modern day. The series stock characters include most of the town’s inhabitants, and those secondary characters jump from story to story, so you never know who will show up.
Lyrical Embrace—my first contribution to the Deerbourne Inn series—is about a young woman who is trying to find herself after getting out of a bad relationship. I’m sure a lot of women could relate to her.
The biggest challenge in writing Lyrical Embrace and its soon-to-be-published sequel, Harmony’s Embrace, was hammering out the details with the coordinators and with the other authors writing for the series. Everyone has their own ideas, so we had to work together and tweak descriptions or names to make sure everything flows from one story to the next. The only thing I would do differently next time is to be more direct when asking questions in the series forum.
Please tell us about your time-travel series. Science-fiction time travel or fantasy/magic?
Timeless Honor is book 3 in the Mirrors of Time anthology series in which five authors wrote a story. I enjoyed writing about magic and portals so much that I wrote a second story, Timeless Beginnings, which serves as a prequel for Timeless Honor but is separate from the anthology. Both of my sensual Timeless books are standalones.
In Timeless Honor, Jaye Ramsey goes on vacation with her friends to Bolivia in order to prove to her eccentric grandmother that time travel doesn’t exist. There she finds a time portal in the Salar de Uyuni (the salt flats) and winds up in Georgian England. Never did she expect to fall in love with her grandmother’s brooding first husband, Lord Lucas Kenway, who was accused of killing his wife on their wedding night.
In Timeless Beginnings, Leonora Harris flees her newly wedded husband’s home and loses her way in the woods. After she falls through a portal, she wakes up in 1960s Bolivia. Luckily for her, she meets undercover CIA agent Rodger Ramsey and embraces her new life as a modern woman.
What is your latest-released or soon-forthcoming work?
Arresting Jeremiah, the second installment in the Arresting Onyx series, is in the galley stage with The Wild Rose Press. It picks up where book one, Arresting Mason, ends and should be out in late 2020 or early 2021 (both books are standalones).
The story follows hardnosed parole officer Jim Borden and his obsession Calista Barlow as they stick their noses where they don’t belong and fall deep into the trouble with the criminal organization known as Onyx.
This sexy, dirty-talking romantic suspense series spans five full-length novels and two novellas (I’m currently writing the novellas) with a standalone HEA for each rough-and-tumble hero and their spunky heroines.
What are you working on now?
My plate is definitely full!
Harmony’s Embrace is the follow-up novella to Lyrical Embrace, and it tells the story of how Birley Haynes reunites with his high school sweetheart, Harmony Holdich. I love holiday-themed books, so this MS takes place at Christmastime. It’s currently on submission with my editor.
The first novella in the Arresting Onyx series is book 2.5 and follows a minor character from book one and another minor character from book two. I don’t want to give away too much information right now, but I will say this story promises to be a wild ride.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Make friends with other authors and readers via social media. Don’t be shy. Start a blog even if you aren’t published yet, so you can join blog tours. A tour is a great way to get a free ebook as long as you write a review and post it on your blog. The author’s readers will then come to your blog to read the review. They’ll know YOUR name, and that’s what you want—to get your name out there.
Just keep trying. I know it sounds cliché, but there’s nothing else to do. If you don’t try, you won’t succeed. Period. Keep your hopes up, take rejection letters in stride, and if a publisher or editor gives you feedback on why he/she rejected your work, listen to their feedback. They know what they’re talking about.
What’s the URL of your website? Your blog? Where else can we find you on the web?
About the Author
Amber Daulton is the author of the romantic-suspense series Arresting Onyx and several standalone novellas. Her books are published through The Wild Rose Press, Books to Go Now, and Daulton Publishing, and are available in ebook, print on demand, audio, and foreign language formats.
She lives in North Carolina with her husband and demanding cats.
Blog – Blog
Website – Website
Amazon Author Page – Amazon
Facebook Author Page – Facebook
Twitter – Twitter
Street Team – Street Team
Pinterest – Pinterest
Goodreads – Goodreads
Instagram – Instagram
Book Bub – Book Bub
LinkedIn – LinkedIn
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
THE MISQUOTABLE C. S. LEWIS, by William O’Flaherty. Some famous authors are particularly prone to having statements misattributed to them (e.g., Mark Twain). Several times I’ve come across remarks on the internet labeled as quotations from C. S. Lewis and thought, “That doesn’t sound a bit like him.” Either the language or the subject matter sounds too modern for someone who died in 1963, the opinion expressed is one he wouldn’t support, or both. O’Flaherty, owner of the EssentialCSLewis.com website, undertakes the monumental task of compiling online quotations misattributed to Lewis and tracking down the true origins of the lines, if possible, as well as the probable sources of the errors. The four chapters list material under the categories “Not Lewis,” “Almost Lewis” (inexact paraphrases of his actual words), “Not Quite Lewis” (real quotations misapplied out of context), and a short catchall chapter of “Multiple Category Quotations.” This lively and informative book is uniquely valuable for distinguishing real Lewis content from false, however innocent or well-intentioned. The subtitle, “What He Didn’t Say, What He Actually Said, and Why It Matters,” clearly summarizes the author’s theme, that accuracy does matter. Now, when I encounter a faux Lewis quote in the future and want to protest that he never wrote that, I’ll have documentation to back up the claim.
APOCALYPTIC, edited by S. C. Butler and Joshua Palmatier. An anthology of fourteen original stories about the end of the world or, more often, of human civilization. My favorite piece, “Coafield’s Catalog of Available Apocalypse Events,” by Seanan McGuire, isn’t exactly a story, because it has no narrative arc. It comprises a humorous A to Z list of alternatives offered to customers who have “decided to end the human race and possibly the world,” promoted by what appears to be a sort of disaster-scenario catering service. Z, of course, stands for Zombies. The one true end-of-everything story, “Little Armageddons,” by Stephen Blackmore, features a pair of scientists running computer simulation scenarios that all predict the end of the world on a certain date, but from a wildly varying range of causes. In Thomas Vaughn’s quirky “Gut Truck,” the driver of an AI-equipped vehicle dedicated to picking up roadkill gets into trouble when the nano cells in a human corpse accidentally reprogram the truck’s brain. The most moving story, for me, is “Last Letters,” by Leah Ning, about what happens to a girl whose mother disappears on a foraging expedition, leaving the protagonist to fend for herself with only the guidance of the messages left by her mother. The two zombie or quasi-zombie contributions, “Solo Cooking for the Recently Revived,” by Aimee Picchi, and “A Tale of Two Apocalypses,” by Eleftherios Keramydas, are told from the viewpoints of characters recovering from or being infected by the plague. Not surprisingly, quite a few of the tales end unhappily, but others include enough glimmers of hope to keep the anthology from being totally depressing.
SPILLOVER, by David Quammen. This 2012 book explores in depth the phenomenon of zoonoses, disease that pass from animal to human populations, often mutating along the way. Quammen concentrates mostly on the modern era and deals largely but not entirely with viruses. The first chapter tells the story of Hendra, a disease I’d never heard of, discovered in Australia in the 1990s. Other sections discuss malaria, SARS, Ebola, herpes B, Lyme disease, and of course AIDS, among others. The author narrates in detail the progress of medical detectives’ quests for the vectors and reservoir hosts of various deadly infectious agents. He alternates interviews, historical events, and personal anecdotes with general explanations of how infection and epidemiology work, in an entertaining, lucid style. The chapter on AIDS came as a revelation to me, tracing the origin of the disease as we know it back to a single chimp-to-human transmission around 1908, much earlier than previously believed. From there, Quammen follows the progress of the infection from an obscure, localized scourge to its breakout as a worldwide epidemic in the 1980s. My only reservation about the author’s technique comes in this chapter, where he devotes an inordinate number of pages to imaginative accounts of the lives of two hypothetical early human spreaders of the disease. Since the rest of the book appears as cautiously grounded in fact as he could manage, those passages don’t seem to fit. More than once, he refers to scientists’ apprehension of the potential Next Big One—the viral pandemic (probably a coronavirus) that will burst upon the global scene when we’re least prepared. Now that the Next Big One has arrived, this eight-year-old book feels eerily prophetic.
OR WHAT YOU WILL, by Jo Walton. All of Walton’s books or series are different from each other, and this new novel, too, is unique, although it does share an Italian Renaissance background with LENT. The nameless, protean (but always masculine) narrator of OR WHAT YOU WILL is a fictional construct living in the brain of Sylvia, a novelist with terminal cancer, who’s enjoying a final trip to Florence. Or does the narrator have a life of his own rather than being a creation of her mind? Whether or not he existed before she became aware of him in her childhood, his life, as well as his incarnation on the written page, now depends on hers. He went dormant during her young adulthood but revived to rescue her from her stifling, abusive first marriage. Throughout her career, he has been many characters. In the present, the frame narrative portrays his attempt to save her and himself by transporting her into one of her own invented worlds. Naturally, she considers this goal impossible. In the setting of the story nested within the frame, Illyria, a utopian realm centered upon the city of Thalia, a fantasy version of Florence, Sylvia has placed a sequel to Shakespeare’s TWELFTH NIGHT. Orsino and Olivia are married to their respective loves from the play. In this world, Orsino is the son of Miranda from THE TEMPEST, who is a magician. Long ago, Illyria made a pact with the gods for their realm to remain at the peak of the Renaissance, with Progress, in the sense of advanced technology, forever barred. Furthermore, people don’t die unless they will to do so or are killed by unexpected violence. Religion consists of a strange yet graceful blend between Catholic Christianity and classical polytheism. Into this world, Sylvia’s tale introduces two young people from Florence of our Earth’s 1847. The plot of the nested story is rather simple and straightforward: Caliban, Miranda’s first husband, erupts into Thalia from his subterranean lair to demand the release of his son, Geryon, blinded and imprisoned in a tower after Orsino wrested the dukedom from him. Orsino and his family must decide how to respond. Character interaction, worldbuilding, and philosophical discourse are more important than the nominal plot. The courteous but never completely reconciled disagreements among the viewpoints of the Illyrians, the visitors from 1847, the narrator, and Sylvia herself provide the thematic core of the novel. Will Sylvia attain an immortality beyond metaphorical survival through her art? Walton offers a fascinating metafictional work grounded in rich sensory detail and Sylvia’s realistically rendered emotional life.
*****
Excerpt from SHADOW OF THE BEAST:
The door creaked as she eased it open. She jumped at the sound.
“Dan? Paula? Where is everybody?” They couldn’t be asleep. Her flaky brother couldn’t have coaxed a twelve-year-old to crash for the night this early. Jenny fumbled for the light switch.
The pole lamp next to the door came on. “Dan, if you’re playing some stupid trick, I’ll kill you.”
No answer.
Her throat tightened. Come on, don’t lose it yet. Maybe he took Paula out someplace and forgot to leave the lights on. He was spacy enough to do that, the way he’d been acting lately. She dropped her things on the nearest end table.
They would’ve left a note. Gone out for burgers, back soon. Jenny scanned the living room, rummaged through the magazines on the coffee table. No sign of a note.
Then she heard—something—from the den, at the other end of the house.
Something—a low, drawn-out rumble of sound. A growl.
Quietly as she could, Jenny slipped off her loafers and tiptoed through the dining room, sidling around the perimeter of the hardwood floor to avoid the squeaky boards in the middle. She edged past the swinging door into the kitchen, her pulse throbbing in her temples.
Her groping hand fell upon the wall phone. What are you waiting for, call 911! She imagined sirens, flashing red lights, a pair of husky policemen barging in. And at the same moment, Dan and Paula strolling up the sidewalk with a video and bag of popcorn.
It’s nothing to get freaked about. A stray dog in the back yard, that’s all.
Leaning against the refrigerator, she felt along the top for the flashlight. She held her breath to listen closer.
Yes—snarls rising to a crescendo. More than one.
Not out back. Inside the house.
Wind rattled the sliding glass door in the den, the one that opened onto the patio.
Shifting the flashlight to her left hand, she dug in a drawer for a butcher knife. Clutching the hilt in an overhand grip, she crept toward the closed door between kitchen and den. Sweat slicked her palms.
She tucked the flashlight under her arm to turn the doorknob. The mingled growls and snarls from the den grew still louder.
A foul smell wrinkled her nose. For a minute she couldn’t place it.
Then it came to her—decayed leaves, wet fur, rank odors. Something that belonged to the night, out there. Not in here. Her leg muscles trembled.
She jerked the door open and clicked on the flashlight.
The glint of red eyes.
She whipped the beam from side to side.
Two pairs of eyes.
The scene hit her in fragments, like scattered puzzle pieces. The familiar shabby furniture. A cushion and afghan from the couch heaped on the floor. A lamp smashed on the floor. The patio door, open.
And in front of it, a huge, shaggy animal. In the quivering flashlight beam, it looked—deformed. A second beast crouched over another heap. Jenny trained the light in that direction.
On the braid rug Paula lay huddled face down, her powder-blue pajamas splotched with dark stains. The growling receded in Jenny’s ears to a uniform roar, like static.
The thing stepped over Paula and slinked toward Jenny. A gleam of pink-tinged spittle drooled from its jaws. Screaming, she dropped the knife and flashlight.
Nausea swelled in her throat. A gray fog thickening in front of her eyes. Flashes of red.
Then, nothing.
-end of excerpt-
*****
My Publishers:
Writers Exchange E-Publishing: Writers Exchange
Harlequin: Harlequin
Whiskey Creek: Whiskey Creek
Wild Rose Press: Wild Rose Press
You can contact me at: MLCVamp@aol.com
“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter
Welcome to the July 2020 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.” For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, e-mail me to request the desired issue, and I’ll send you a free PDF of it. My e-mail address is at the end of this newsletter. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links (gradually being updated as the Amber Quill and Ellora’s Cave works are being republished):
For anyone who would like to read previous issues of this newsletter, now that the Yahoo group is useless for that purpose, they’re posted on my website here (starting from January 2018):
This is my Facebook author page. Please visit!
Facebook
Here’s my page in Barnes and Noble’s Nook store:
Barnes and Noble
Here’s the list of my Kindle books on Amazon. (The final page, however, includes some Ellora’s Cave anthologies in which I don’t have stories):
Carter Kindle Books
Here’s a shortcut URL to my author page on Amazon:
Amazon
My Goodreads page:
Goodreads
Here’s wishing a festive Independence Day for all my American readers!
I’m thrilled to announce that the Wild Rose Press has accepted my paranormal romance novella “Kitsune Enchantment,” a sequel to “Yokai Magic” (but able to stand on its own). Shannon, a writer of graphic novels, would love a closer relationship with her reclusive artist partner, Ryo, but unknown to her, he’s a fox shapeshifter being stalked by a bungling amateur sorcerer.
An excerpt from the opening scene appears below.
TWILIGHT’S CHANGELINGS, the e-book omnibus of DARK CHANGELING and CHILD OF TWILIGHT, is now available through Draft2Digital from several vendors in addition to Amazon:
And here are the URLs for DEMON’S FALL and VAMPIRE’S TRIBUTE, since I think I listed the wrong ones in last month’s newsletter:
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUB’S GUIDE TO SLAYING VAMPIRES, by Grady Hendrix. STEEL MAGNOLIAS crossed with ‘SALEM’S LOT! Protagonist Patricia Campbell lives in an upscale suburban community near Charleston, South Carolina, with her workaholic husband, his senile mother (“Miss Mary”), and their daughter and son, who grow from children to teenagers over the span of the novel. It’s divided into two principal sections, set in 1993 and 1996, with a prologue and epilogue in 1988 and early 1997. I didn’t mind the shift from 1988 to 1993, although such a long gap seems unnecessary, but I found the time-skip between 1993 and 1996 jarring. For a few pages it felt like having to start the book all over and regain lost momentum. Other than that complaint, its construction and engaging style felt nearly perfect. I remember only one small lapse I would have corrected if proofreading the text, a very unusual reaction for me. Patricia’s viewpoint drew me in so deeply that I didn’t even get impatient waiting for the vampire to show up. Her husband treats her like a nonentity, taken for granted as provider of housekeeping services, which he dismisses as easy and unimportant (although essential). Her children become more difficult, naturally, as they get older, and the boy’s preoccupation with Nazi Germany shows no signs of fading. There’s no question of putting her mother-in-law in a “home,” regardless of the burden on Patricia. She finds solace with a small group of friends who read and discuss true crime books. The strangeness begins one night when she comes across an eccentric, crabby neighbor eating a raccoon. When interrupted, the woman bites off one of Patricia’s ears. The woman’s nephew, James Harris, intervenes. Soon thereafter, the aunt dies, and Patricia tries to make a condolence call on the nephew. Finding him apparently dead, she attempts CPR (she’s a former nurse), only for him to spring up, shocked at having his nap cut short. The demented Miss Mary claims to know him from many decades in the past, calling him by a different name. She later dies in a grotesquely gory way. When Patricia begins to suspect the newcomer’s true nature, nobody believes her, even though she has toned down the accusation to a charge of dealing drugs to children (rather than trying to describe what she really witnessed). Mrs. Greene, Black former caretaker for Miss Mary, realizes James is dangerous, but nobody listens to her, any more than to a “mere housewife” with an obvious true-crime obsession. The most gut-wrenching horror of the novel is the way Patricia’s husband and most of her friends dismiss her reported facts and treat her like a deranged attention-seeker, to the point that she half doubts her own perceptions. The reader knows what’s going on, of course, but James wins over Patricia’s son and ingratiates himself with all the neighborhood families, especially the men, who welcome his financial investment advice. James turns out to belong to a different species, maybe its sole survivor, since he gives no indication of knowing anyone else of his kind. Although sunlight pains him, it doesn’t destroy him. He seems practically unkillable, as demonstrated in the gruesome climax when the women unite to dispose of him at last. The story portrays a long, tortuous process of overcoming not only the other women’s understandable disbelief in the paranormal and their suspicions of Patricia’s mental instability, but the barriers of class and race. I have only two quibbles with the novel, one relatively minor and one larger: Why does James hide the body of one victim in his own house? Is this blunder supposed to demonstrate his arrogance, his complacent assumption that nobody would consider investigating him? More importantly, the women’s lifestyles and the dynamics of their marriages feel more like products of the 1950s than the 90s. A book no vampire fan should miss, although it’s often painful to read.
FINAL CUTS, edited by Ellen Datlow. Datlow previously edited a reprint anthology of horror stories about movies, THE CUTTING ROOM. Now she has released a companion anthology of eighteen original works on the same theme, subtitled “New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles.” In addition to motion pictures on the big screen, some stories deal with indie films, obscure straight-to-video movies, or digital-only productions. And of course there’s the ever-popular lost movie that may or may not have even existed, until an intrepid researcher unearths the truth. Some distinguished horror authors in the volume include Christopher Golden, Gemma Files, Garth Nix, Brian Hodge, and Kelley Armstrong, among others. At least three of the selections feature snuff films, although one would have been enough for me. My favorite of those is “Exhalation,” by A. C. Wise, in which a protagonist with hyperacute hearing analyzes sounds on death-scene films to help his lifelong friend, a police detective, identify a serial killer. One recurring trope is the interview with a veteran actor or director about a production or celebrity with an ominous secret. Since the theme of the buried past impinging on the present is one of my favorite plot premises, I enjoyed many of these. Of particular interest for vampire fans, “Altered Beast, Altered Me,” by John Langan, traces the history and destructive influence of a ring worn by a succession of actors who played Dracula, beginning with Bela Lugosi. Narrated in the form of e-mails between two writers, the story builds to a satisfying payoff in the Lugosi reminiscence but, for my taste, has a succession of surreal flights of fancy in the middle that go on far too long. The most unusual piece in the book, “The One We Tell Bad Children,” by Laird Barron, takes place in either a post-apocalyptic or an alternate-universe America and centers on a boy captivating his younger siblings with a forbidden magic-lantern show in the absence of their parents. Like all Datlow’s anthologies, FINAL CUTS offers something to entertain almost any horror fan.
GOD AND THE PANDEMIC, by N. T. Wright. This brief (76 pages) but content-dense trade paperback was released earlier than its originally announced July publication date, to my great delight. It expands upon Wright’s essay in TIME magazine about the optimal Christian response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The first chapter, “Where Do We Start?”, touches upon the reactions of early Christians to past epidemics and other disasters. Wright lays out the ancient world’s principal beliefs about such disasters and how we should deal with them. Foremost was the concept that plagues, earthquakes, and other calamities showed that the gods were angry, and humanity should repent and atone. The Stoics maintained, “Everything is programmed to turn out the way it does,” and we simply have to endure it. Epicureans held, “Everything is random,” so we should stop worrying and seek whatever happiness we can find in life. Platonists taught that this world is merely the “shadow” of a higher reality, and we are destined for a better existence after death. Wright points out the modern equivalents of these positions. Some Christian groups hold the first or last position, both of which Wright deconstructs as mistaken. Although occasional passages in the Old Testament do appear to endorse what Wright calls a “vending machine” doctrine of sin and retribution—transgression in, punishment out—many other parts of scripture interrogate or outright contradict this simple approach. Chapters Two through Four of the book cover the Old Testament, Jesus as presented in the Gospels, and relevant texts in the rest of the New Testament. The final chapter asks, “Where Do We Go from Here?” Particularly interesting is Wright’s statement that our response should begin with “lament.” That’s only the beginning, of course, with much more complex discussion to follow. GOD AND THE PANDEMIC presents the lucid, rational, compassionate analysis of the present crisis that one would expect from this author.
THE IRISH ROOTS OF MARGARET MITCHELL’S GONE WITH THE WIND, by David O’Connell. I ordered this unusual little book (published in 1996 by a small press in Georgia) expecting literary criticism or social commentary. Instead, the author has a PhD in French, and the book’s emphasis is biographical and historical. Of course, it’s practically impossible to discuss Irish Americans in the nineteenth century without some degree of social commentary, and O’Connell does analyze issues related to the status of lower-class Irish immigrants versus black slaves. Most of the book, however, deals with how Margaret Mitchell’s Irish Catholic background on her mother’s side is reflected in GONE WITH THE WIND. Since I didn’t know much about Mitchell before reading THE IRISH ROOTS…, most of the information was new to me, presented engagingly by an author who clearly has a warm affection for his subjects (both Mitchell and her novel). I was surprised to learn how much of Scarlett O’Hara’s family history is directly based on Mitchell’s. Also, I hadn’t noticed the extent to which allusions to Catholicism play a continuing role in the story. Although Scarlet as an adult shows no discernible devotion to her religion, she often thinks of it at fraught moments in her life, mainly in the context of realizing how disappointed her mother would be in her behavior. Not that this realization has much concrete effect on Scarlett, usually ending in the familiar refrain, “I’ll think about that tomorrow.” O’Connell enhances his discussion of Irish and Catholic culture in the nineteenth-century American South with extended quotations from poems referenced in the novel. Occasionally he makes unwarranted assumptions in connecting historical and fictional threads, such as his confident statement that early drafts of GONE WITH THE WIND (all of which Mitchell destroyed) “must” have contained allusions to a certain well-known priest that were removed before publication, simply because he seems to think Mitchell “should” have referenced that historical figure. Not by any means unbiased, this author shows clear sympathy for the old South. Although certainly not pro-Confederacy, much less pro-slavery or pro-Klan, he makes assertions such as declaring Sherman guilty of “war crimes.” Most oddly, O’Connell devotes a chapter to proving Rhett Butler not only symbolizes but almost literally IS Satan in human form, ignoring the complexity of the character, Rhett’s devotion to little Bonnie, and his genuine, though deeply flawed, love for Scarlett. THE IRISH ROOTS… is inexpensive enough to be a worthwhile purchase for devoted fans of GONE WITH THE WIND.
*****
Excerpt from “Kitsune Enchantment”:
As usual, holding human shape for an entire day in the near-constant presence of other people had strained Ryo’s control. He didn’t bother changing out of the slacks and polo shirt he’d worn to work but hurried out back as soon as he got home. Alone in the tiny yard behind a six-foot, wooden privacy fence, he unlatched the gate so he’d be able to push it open without hands to go for his evening run. At last he allowed himself to relax. His ears lengthened and perked up, pointed and furry. His teeth sharpened into fangs, while a plumed tail sprouted from his backside. He crouched on the ground. A familiar voice shattered his focus.
“Ryo? You back here?” Footsteps paced around the outside of the house. “I rang the bell, but I guess you didn’t hear it. I came by to drop off your courier bag. You must’ve accidentally left it in the office. I don’t live that far out of the way, and I figured you might need it between now and the next time you come in.”
Damn. Joel Brady. Can’t let him see me. Joel occupied the cubicle next to Ryo’s at the company they worked for, Delmarva Game Galaxy. Since Ryo mostly telecommuted and wasn’t scheduled to be on site again for almost a week, he couldn’t deny bringing him the bag was a nice gesture. Still, damned inconvenient timing. Shapeshifting in this sheltered spot had always been safe enough that he’d obviously become complacent. He forced his mouth to form intelligible words. “Thanks. You can leave it on the front porch.”
“What the heck, I’m here now. Let me just give it to you.”
The latch clicked, and the gate started to open. “No need.” Ryo’s voice came out as more of a growl than human language. He struggled to wrench his half-transformed body back into man shape.
“You okay, Ryo? You sound sick.” The gate swung ajar. About the same age and height as Ryo, but huskier, the unwanted visitor had a mop of sandy hair trimmed to just above his collar and wore wire-rimmed glasses. Ryo froze and stared up at him.
The blue eyes behind the glasses widened in shock.
The change swept over Ryo like a gust of wind. His clothes vanished to wherever they went on such occasions. He shrank from man-size to twenty pounds as his face became a muzzle, his hands and feet morphed into paws, and a reddish pelt covered his skin. Stunned, both he and the intruder gaped at each other for a second.
Joel broke the silence. “Good God, this is actually happening. You really turned into a fox.”
Ryo sprinted for the open gate, tripping Joel in the process. The other man dropped the black courier bag and yelled after him, “Hey, wait, I won’t hurt you!”
In blind panic, Ryo rushed around the house with Joel lurching after him. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Joel getting into a car and starting it. Ryo ran up the street, pursued by the vehicle—a two-door compact of some light color, his animal vision couldn’t distinguish exactly what.
After running two blocks through the quiet neighborhood of sixty-year-old houses similar to his own, he gathered his wits enough to think of leaving the street and cutting through yards instead. Can’t go home now. Need a safe place. Where?
He zigzagged under trees and through hedges, abruptly shifted course whenever he hit a fence, put on a burst of speed when a dog barked as he ran past its yard, and skidded to a halt at an intersection with a four-lane road blocked by speeding vehicles. Glancing behind him, he didn’t see Joel’s car. Fragmentary scraps of human thought reminded Ryo to wait until the light changed to let him cross without getting flattened. He imagined drivers and passengers exclaiming to each other, “Wow, look, a fox in broad daylight,” and snapping photos with their phones.
-end of excerpt-
*****
My Publishers:
Writers Exchange E-Publishing: Writers Exchange
Harlequin: Harlequin
Whiskey Creek: Whiskey Creek
Wild Rose Press: Wild Rose Press
You can contact me at: MLCVamp@aol.com
“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter
Welcome to the June 2020 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.” For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, e-mail me to request the desired issue, and I’ll send you a free PDF of it. My e-mail address is at the end of this newsletter. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links (gradually being updated as the Amber Quill and Ellora’s Cave works are being republished):
For anyone who would like to read previous issues of this newsletter, now that the Yahoo group is useless for that purpose, they’re posted on my website here (starting from January 2018):
This is my Facebook author page. Please visit!
Facebook
Here’s my page in Barnes and Noble’s Nook store:
Barnes and Noble
Here’s the list of my Kindle books on Amazon. (The final page, however, includes some Ellora’s Cave anthologies in which I don’t have stories):
Carter Kindle Books
Here’s a shortcut URL to my author page on Amazon:
Amazon
My Goodreads page:
Goodreads
The Wild Rose Press has released my lighthearted ghost story “Spooky Tutti Frutti” in its summer reading “One Scoop or Two” ice-cream-themed series:
Here’s a spreadsheet displaying all (or most) of the covers and blurbs of e-books in the “One Scoop or Two” series:
And the page for the series on the publisher’s website:
Another snippet from the story appears below.
I’ve started posting some of my self-published works on Draft2Digital, in case readers want to acquire them in formats other than Kindle. The two so far:
DEMON’S FALL:
Demon’s Fall
VAMPIRE’S TRIBUTE:
Vampire’s Tribute
On the release date of “Spooky Tutti Frutti,” I was interviewed on the Wild Rose Press blog:
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
IF IT BLEEDS, by Stephen King. A collection of four new novellas. The title story, the one I was most eager to read, measuring about 190 pages, could qualify as a stand-alone novel. It’s a sequel to THE OUTSIDER, with Holly Gibney as the central character. Observing one particular TV news reporter who covers an abnormally high number of disasters, she becomes suspicious of him and gathers evidence that he’s a type of creature related to the shapeshifting “Outsider” she helped to destroy. Not quite the same, this entity feeds on pain and suffering without necessarily causing it. In that role, he’s not unlike a natural scavenger surviving on roadkill, like a vulture. Lately, though, he has become greedy. Now that he has the potential to turn into a serial murderer, Holly feels compelled to track down and eradicate him. Meanwhile, her beloved uncle’s Alzheimer’s has progressed so far that he has to be committed to a nursing home. The crisis forces her to deal with her mother, who dominated Holly for decades, crushing her spirit and keeping her dependent until the events of MR. MERCEDES changed her life. I love reading about Holly, whose non-neurotypical quirks are an intrinsic part of her personality and contribute to her strengths as an investigator. Combine this delightful character with a psychic vampire, and what more could I ask for in a short novel by Stephen King? In his concluding Author’s Note, he doesn’t mention the possible source “If It Bleeds” immediately brought to mind for me, a classic story by Ray Bradbury about certain people who mysteriously appear at the scene of every fatal accident. My second favorite story in the book, which I’ll definitely reread, “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone,” draws upon King’s strengths in writing about children and adolescents. The first-person narrator reminisces about his odd friendship with the title character, beginning when smart phones were new and exciting. Mr. Harrigan, fabulously rich yet frugal and reclusive, hires young Craig to read to him and perform other incidental chores. He sends greeting cards to the boy on major holidays, with lottery tickets enclosed as gifts. After an astonishingly large win, Craig gratefully presents the old-fashioned, technophobic millionaire with a smart phone. Initially skeptical, Mr. Harrigan comes to appreciate the gadget’s advantages (for instance, up-to-the-minute stock market reports). After Mr. Harrigan’s death several years later, Craig sentimentally slips the phone into the old man’s pocket in the coffin. When Craig calls the number to listen to the voice mail message one more time, he gets a cryptic text response. There’s no doubt Mr. Harrigan is dead, so is the reply a software glitch or a supernatural phenomenon? Various events over the years hint at the latter, yet they could be coincidence. This being a Stephen King story, I prefer to believe in the supernatural explanation. This story reminds me of a TV episode (from THE TWILIGHT ZONE, maybe?) about phone calls ultimately traced to a fallen wire hanging over a grave (probably not the same program King mentions as an inspiration). I also tend to embrace the supernatural in the story “Rat,” one of King’s fascinating glimpses into the workings of a writer’s mind. The protagonist, a modestly successful short-story author, has failed several times to finish a novel. Now he has a new idea that he’s sure will flow to a successful conclusion, and he retreats alone to the family’s vacation cabin in the Maine woods to work on the projected book. Unfortunately, a major winter storm closes in, and he comes down with a cough and fever. On the bright side, the novel progresses brilliantly—until it doesn’t. The writer finds a dying rat at the door and brings it inside to perish in comfort beside the fire. Instead, the rat revives and talks to him, offering a devil’s bargain as a reward. After agreeing to the proposal, the protagonist does triumphantly finish his novel. Or are the conversations with the rat the product of a fever-dream and the subsequent events purely coincidental? The dilemma remains unresolved. In addition to the insight into the author protagonist’s process, the glimpses of life in the wilds of rural Maine also make this novella memorable. My least favorite of the four, “The Life of Chuck,” is still worth reading. Its experimental structure presents its three “Acts” in reverse order. The first act, the longest and (to me) most interesting of the three, portrays a world in the process of disintegrating into a gradual yet apocalyptic collapse. Billboards and other media begin to display the message “Charles Krantz. 39 Great Years! Thanks, Chuck!” whose meaning nobody seems to know. At the end of that section, we meet Chuck, dying in a hospital of a brain tumor. The other two sections narrate earlier episodes from his life. The novella turns out to be an extended development of the metaphor that every person contains an entire world. Since this point becomes clear fairly early, I don’t feel I’m giving away a major spoiler here. As always, I enjoyed King’s discussion of how he came to write these stories. While some readers may skip this kind of thing, I’m always disappointed if it’s omitted.
THE MOMENT OF TENDERNESS, by Madeleine L’Engle. The stories in this collection were unearthed and compiled by L’Engle’s granddaughter, Charlotte Jones Voiklis. She freely acknowledges that readers expecting “vintage L’Engle” won’t find that kind of fiction in most of these pieces, almost all written from L’Engle’s college years through the 1950s. Only the last four (as far as I recall)—The Fact of the Matter,” “Poor Little Saturday,” “That Which Is Left,” and “A Sign for a Sparrow”—constitute fantasy or science fiction. Some of the stories are early versions of material that later appeared in L’Engle’s volumes of autobiographical memoirs. Others, dealing with the inner lives of lonely, sensitive children, teenagers, and young adults (mostly female), reflect the author’s own youthful experiences. There are also slice-of-life glimpses into mature marriages, often troubled. Although these stories are, of course, exquisitely written, if I’d encountered this volume before L’Engle’s novels I wouldn’t have felt motivated to seek any more of her work (and she wouldn’t have become one of my favorite authors). I must regretfully confess that I find several of the early pieces downright depressing, when they leave their young protagonists in solitary unhappiness with no immediate prospect of change. For a longtime fan of the author, however, all the contents are worth reading for the insights they provide into her early career, her creative processes, and some aspects of her own life.
THE GOOD BROTHER, by E. L. Chen, author of SUMMERWOOD / WINTERWOOD (reviewed in last month’s newsletter). Like SUMMERWOOD / WINTERWOOD, this novel has an Asian-Canadian protagonist. Tori Wong has dropped out of college and moved out of her parents’ house, where she felt suffocated by their traditional Chinese attitudes. The death of her overachieving older brother, Seymour, made her life more difficult, for now she’s being judged against an idealized figure. Tori herself is a bit of an underachiever, happy with her low-paid job at a bookstore, where she takes justified pride in being able to find whatever a customer needs. Barely scraping by financially, she rents a room in the house of a male acquaintance. As the story opens, the Festival of Hungry Ghosts is beginning. During Ghost Month, neglected spirits supposedly roam the Earth. Families burn ceremonial paper money and paper images of other things spirits might need in the afterlife. Tori’s mother expects her to perform this service for her late brother, a duty Tori wants nothing to do with. The apparition of Seymour appears to her in the bookstore, and her right arm instantly becomes numb and paralyzed. Although the effect wears off, then comes and goes erratically, she discovers Seymour can take control of her arm at will. He also has some ability to affect the physical environment, poltergeist-like. He doesn’t speak but still finds ways to make demands of her. She tries with limited success to figure out exactly what he wants so he’ll leave her alone. The ghost is a Good Brother in the sense that fairies have often been called the Good People—to avoid offending dangerous supernatural entities. Then two more ghosts arrive, not spirits of the dead, but something more intimately related to Tori. To avoid spoilers, I won’t be more specific. The ghosts are literally hungry; when Tori provides them with food, they eat it, sometimes right off her plate without permission. Because of their erratic behavior, especially Seymour’s, Tori gets into trouble at work and in her already shaky relationships. Her life, far from perfect to begin with, starts to disintegrate. The climactic blow falls when she realizes the full truth about her brother’s death. Since she narrates the story in first person, we discover layers of truth about herself and her family at the same time she does. Chen pulls off the difficult task of writing about a depressed protagonist without being depressing, although at times I did get exasperated with Tori for figuratively shooting herself in the foot even without the interference of ghosts. Like the protagonist of SUMMERWOOD / WINTERWOOD, however, she eventually grows into self-awareness and finds a measure of peace.
*****
Excerpt from “Spooky Tutti Frutti”:
Celia started at a rapid clicking behind her. Turning toward the entrance, she came face-to-face with the source of the noise. A huge, black, hairy dog—a Newfoundland. He panted and wagged his tail at the sight of her.
“What the heck are you doing in here?” She glanced at the door—securely shut, of course.
The dog sat in the middle of the floor and stared up at her with a goofy, tongue-lolling expression. When she offered her hand, he sniffed it. “Wherever you came from, you can’t stay.”
As she leaned over to look at his collar, a feminine voice said, “Oh, neat, you found Nigel.”
Again Celia flinched in surprise. She whirled around to discover a girl who looked no more than twenty, at least fifteen years younger than Celia herself, leaning against the counter.
Where did she come from? Again Celia checked the door, which was still definitely closed and locked. “How did you get in?”
“I saw your sign about needing help.” Which wasn’t an answer. The intruder, petite and lightly freckled, had flame-red hair in a pixie cut with fringed bangs. Dressed in white capri pants, a loose, white, V-necked blouse trimmed in red and blue, and canvas deck shoes, she looked as if she’d just come from a boating excursion.
“Is this your dog?” Celia frowned down at the girl, whose delicate frame made her feel even taller than she normally did. “He can’t stay in here. It’s against health regulations.”
“Oh, sorry.” The girl opened the front door and shooed the dog outside. “Go on, Nigel.” A second later, the door closed again, and the dog was gone.
I didn’t see her turn the deadbolt or the knob either time. I must be falling asleep on my feet. “Wait, will he be okay? You can’t just let him wander the streets.”
“It’s cool. My boyfriend will take care of him.”
Celia marched to the entrance and peeked through the glass. She didn’t see any sign of the animal by the glow of the nearby street lamp. The alleged boyfriend must have whisked him away instantly.
She turned back to the visitor. “You’re interested in the temporary job? I’d rather you’d have come during regular hours, but since you’re already here…” She gestured for the girl to take a seat at the nearest table. “I’m Celia Rossi, the owner.”
“I’m Suzie Conroy. Making ice cream is my hobby, so I’d love to work however long you need me.” She scanned the room. “It’s so different from before.” She spoke softly, as if to herself.
“Oh, you used to come here when the previous owner had the place?”
“Longer ago than that.”
-end of excerpt-
*****
My Publishers:
Writers Exchange E-Publishing: Writers Exchange
Harlequin: Harlequin
Whiskey Creek: Whiskey Creek
Wild Rose Press: Wild Rose Press
You can contact me at: MLCVamp@aol.com
“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter