Something Returning… #Poetry
mystery
Ghost of a Chance: Book 4 of the DI Snow Series ~ Tour Stop Day Three ~ Jan Sikes and Colleen Chesebro #Bookrelease #Ghost #Mystery
Day three, and we get double the fun with two hosts for Ghost of a Chance. Jan Sikes and Colleen Chesebro, both wonderful writers, are sharing the centre stage to promote my story.
I’ve been an avid reader all my life. I can still remember the excitement that surged through me the first time I realized I could decipher words. There’s nothing I love more than losing myself in a story.
Oddly enough, I never had any ambition to be a writer. But I wound up in mid-life with a story that begged to be told. Not just any story, but a true story that rivalled any fiction creation. Through fictitious characters, the tale came to life in an intricately woven tale that encompasses four books. Not satisfied to stop with the books, I released music CDs of original music to match the time period of each story segment. In conclusion, to bring the story full circle, I published a book of poetry and art. I was done.
Wrong!
The story ideas keep coming, and I don’t intend to turn off the creative fountain.
I love all things metaphysical and often include those aspects in my stories.
I am a member of the Author’s Marketing Guild, The Writer’s League of Texas, Story Empire, and the Paranormal Writer’s Guild. I am an avid fan of Texas music and grandmother of five beautiful souls. I reside in North Texas.
Connect through Jan’s website: http://www.jansikes.com
Follow Jan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorJanSikesBooks
Follow Jan on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/JanSikes3
Follow Jan’s Blog: http://www.jansikesblog.com
Our Review for Ghostly Interference
Rena Jett grew up inside the foster care system with her brother. I grew up in the same circumstances and identified with her every step of the way. I know how hostile and confusing her world must have been. It can confuse how you see the world, a world you never knew existed while inside a system that meant well but never felt like it did. The author has captured every confusing emotion and how they interact with a person’s life extremely well.
I especially loved Rena’s relationship with her brother, Sam. He tried so hard to be there for her and his constant caring and mysterious presence made this romantic and beautifully written story lovely to read.
Just heard that the second book in the White Rune series, Jagged Feathers is now available, and I cannot wait to read it!
Please follow Jan’s link to read more about Ghost of a Chance HERE
Colleen M. Chesebro is a Michigan Poet who loves crafting syllabic poetry, flash fiction, and creative fiction and nonfiction. Colleen sponsors a weekly poetry challenge called Tanka Tuesday, on wordcraftpoetry.com where participants learn how to write traditional and current forms of syllabic poetry.
Along with Jules Paige, Colleen is also a co-editor of “Word Weaving, a Word Craft Journal of Syllabic Verse,” at wordweavingpoetryjournal.com. The debut issue of this journal will publish in October 2021.
Colleen’s syllabic poetry has appeared in various other online publications. Recently, she created the Double Ennead, a 99-syllable poetry form for Carrot Ranch. Colleen’s poetry has poetry in various anthologies and journals including “Hedgerow-a journal of small poems,” and “Poetry Treasures,” and Poetry Treasures 2: Relationships.
Colleen published “Word Craft: Prose & Poetry, The Art of Crafting Syllabic Poetry,” which illustrates how to write various syllabic poetry forms used in her Tanka Tuesday challenges; and a collection of poetry, flash fiction, and short stories called, “Fairies, Myths & Magic: A Summer Celebration,” dedicated to the Summer Solstice. She contributed a short story called “The Changeling,” in the “Ghostly Rites Anthology 2020,” published by Plaisted Publishing House.
Find Colleen at Word Craft Poetry at wordcraftpoetry.com.
Our Review for Fairies, Myths & Magic
These enchanting poems and stories are a joy to read and would make a truly beautiful present for anyone who loves the magical world of myths and magic.
I had just finished editing my complicated mystery/thriller and wanted something to undo all the knots in my brain. I chose to read this delightful book written by Colleen Chesebro and it worked a treat!
I was transported back to a time when I saw fairies everywhere, and the years simply fell away as I remembered those golden days of my childhood.
Thank you, Colleen, for restoring the magical centre in my brain…
Please follow Colleen’s link to read a special interview with David Snow HERE
Our thanks to both of these ladies for taking part in the book tour for Ghost of a Chance!
Letters to a Friend… #Fiction #WIP
Letters to a Friend
My Dearest Anne
I wish you were here; America seems so far away. I am writing today as I feel I am losing my mind. Of late, I am hearing two voices clearly, in my mind. Florence and Albert Wilson, they say. Florence insists on being called Flo.
They tell me they are my parents. They tell me my soul belongs to the five-year-old son they lost. They have mentioned so many things that I know, such as the birthmark I have behind my right ear that their son also had.
Certain habits make me wonder, am I hearing them, or is it my imagination? I cannot be sure. One afternoon, I imagined them sitting in a small parlour tuning into an old radio, looking for their lost son. They tell me that is precisely how it is. The frequencies they can tune into, and somehow, they managed to find me.
If I am to believe such a thing, does that mean there are no new souls? That we are all second-hand, recycled human beings?
It made me wonder, could that be why I was such a tomboy? Why my mother had a hard time getting me to wear dresses? How I have always liked to beat the boys at any game? Especially climbing trees and collecting conkers.
Should I have been born a boy?
I must say, I never felt like a boy. I like being a woman and mother of two boys. My husband, Richard, tells me I am overworked. He doesn’t understand, although I am busy with my new commission. The author sought me out herself, as she loved the drawings I did for my last commission.
I do not believe that is the problem. They almost know what I think before I think it. Last night I had a strange thought. Could a person be born with two souls? That one soul being so much younger than the other? Could that be why I chose to be an illustrator for children’s books?
Maybe I have that wrong. If indeed I have two souls, I cannot know how old the other may be. I cannot help believing that Florence and Albert are real. They have told me so much about themselves. Where they were born, where they lived, so many places, until Albert’s father died, and he inherited three grocery shops. That, Flo, tells me, is when they settled down.
One thing that unnerves me a little is Flo tells me they lived in my house for three years.
My dearest friend, please don’t think me crazy. Please write back soon, as I know you will put my mind at ease.
Your dearest friend
Alice
To be continued…
©AnitaDawes2022
Ghost of a Chance: Tour Stop 2: John W Howell #Bookrelease #Ghost #Mystery
Day two of the book tour for Ghost of a Chance, and we are visiting John W Howell, a brilliant writer and a good friend, sharing an excerpt of my book with you all today.
Take it away, John and we will see you THERE
My favourite of John’s books is Eternal Road, The Final Stop.
James began a road trip alone in his 1956 Oldsmobile. He stops for a hitchhiker only to discover she is his childhood sweetheart, Sam, who disappeared seventeen years before. James learns from Sam that falling asleep miles back caused him to perish in a one-car accident. He also understands that Sam was taken and murdered all those years ago, and now she has come back to help him find his eternal home.
The pair visit a number of times and places and are witnesses to a number of historical events. The rules dictate that they do no harm to the time continuum. Trying to be careful, they inadvertently come to the attention of Lucifer, who would love to have their souls as his subjects. They also find a threat to human survival and desperately need to put in place the fix necessary to save mankind.
Our Review for Eternal Road.
The prologue to Eternal Road reads like any good murder mystery, followed by a quite normal beginning to chapter one, but that’s when normal left the building!
Eternal Road is a beautifully written and unique story in so many ways. A love story, an exhilarating adventure, and variations of history all rolled into one.
This story encompasses all your different emotions as it explores life and death, good versus evil, and considering the afterlife can be such a sad subject, I found no sadness in this story.
On the contrary, I found the chemistry between Sam and James heart-warming as they try to make sense of their predicament and learn how to handle it. The ending was a surprise for me, being a lifelong romantic at heart, but I understood the reasoning behind it.
And because of this, I feel there could be more from John Howell on this theme, and that’s fine by me!
All about John W Howell
John began his writing as a full-time occupation after an extensive business career. His speciality is thriller fiction novels, but John also writes poetry and short stories. His first book, My GRL, introduces the exciting adventures of the book’s central character, John J. Cannon. The second Cannon novel, His Revenge, continues the tension. The final book in the trilogy, Our Justice, launched in September 2016, concludes the thriller series. John’s fourth book, Circumstances of Childhood, launched in October of 2017, tells a different thriller story of riches to rags, football, Wall Street, brotherly love, redemption, and inspiration with a touch of paranormal to keep you riveted.
The fifth book is a collaboration with the award-winning author Gwen Plano titled The Contract. Heavenly bodies become concerned about the stability of the Earth and send two of their own to risk eternal salvation in order to save the planet. The Contract achieved number one status in its genre. John’s latest book is titled Eternal Road – The final stop and launched in September 2020. In search of their eternal home, Sam and James discover a threat to human existence. They also encounter the prince of darkness. The question is can they save humankind and their eternal souls. All books are available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.
John lives in Lakeway, Texas with his wife and their spoiled rescue pets.
Thank you again for helping to launch Ghost of a Chance, John. It means a lot to me!
Ghost of a Chance: Tour Stop 1 ~ Marcia Meara ~ #Bookrelease #ghost #mystery
Today is the first day of the book tour for Ghost of a Chance, the fourth book in the DI Snow series.
Marcia Meara is kicking off the tour with #GuestDayTuesday, featuring yours truly and my latest story.
Follow the LINK to join us there
Marcia lives in central Florida, just north of Orlando, with her husband of over thirty years and four big cats.
When not writing or blogging, she spends her time gardening and enjoying the surprising amount of wildlife that manages to make a home in her suburban yard. She enjoys nature. Really, really enjoys it. All of it! Well, almost all of it, anyway. From birds to furry critters to her very favourites, snakes. The exception would be spiders, which she truly loathes, convinced that anything with eight hairy legs is surely up to no good. She does not, however, kill spiders anymore since she knows they have their place in the world. Besides, her husband now handles her Arachnid Catch and Release Program, and she’s good with that.
Spiders aside, the one thing Marcia would like to tell each of her readers is that it’s never too late to make your dreams come true. If, at the age of 69, she could write and publish a book (and thus fulfil 64 years of longing to do that very thing), you can make your dreams a reality, too. Go for it! What have you got to lose?
CONTACT MARCIA HERE:
The Write Stuff: http://marciamearawrites.com/
Twitter: @marciameara
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/marciameara/
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MARCIA’S BOOKS:
Wake-Robin Ridge
A Boy Named Rabbit: Wake-Robin Ridge Book 2
Harbinger: Wake-Robin Ridge Book 3
The Light: Wake-Robin Ridge Book 4
Swamp Ghosts: A Riverbend Novel
Finding Hunter: Riverbend Book 2
That Darkest Place: Riverbend Book 3
The Emissary: A Riverbend Spinoff Novella
The Emissary 2: To Love Somebody
The Emissary 3: Love Hurts
The Emissary Trilogy: A Riverbend Spinoff Collection
Summer Magic: Poems of Life & Love
Our review of our favourite book from Marcia Meara, The Light, from the Wake-robin Ridge series
A brand new story for lovers of Wake Robin Ridge and Rabbit!
I had been looking forward to reading Marcia Meara’s latest Wake Robin Ridge story, as I am a devoted fan of the adopted, delightful eleven-year-old star of the previous book, Rabbit.
This story is all about the mysterious Brown Mountain Lights, a very real phenomenon, something that has puzzled people for years and had Rabbit entranced. I wondered if he would end up discovering something connected to his own special gift, his ability to ‘read’ people and sometimes see the future.
Along the way, he becomes involved in a murder mystery, turning what I thought would be a light-hearted story into something more complicated.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Light. The quality of the writing, the wonderful cast of characters and the sublimely complicated plot left me in awe of the author’s talent.
Jaye’s Week ~ #Progress
It is getting harder than ever to come up with posts that are not filled with even a little doom and gloom, mainly because I am trying so hard to avoid thinking about the future.
I should be bouncing around like a two-year-old at a birthday party, full of the joy of the approaching release of my latest masterpiece.
The excitement is there, somewhere, as I get moments when I forget everything else and become a writer and nothing else matters.
The pre-release is going well, HERE IN UK and IN US with interest on amazon itself and also my own marketing efforts on social media and Bookfunnel HERE.
Many, many thanks to everyone who has taken part!
I almost have everything ready for next week’s launch, and I’m busy working on a trailer and the paperback edition.
It crossed my mind that I should be promoting the previous book in the series, CrossFire, so I have reduced the price in case anyone is interested in finding out what happened before and how my favourite detective, David Snow, ended up the way he did.
Blurb for CrossFire
A mysterious thriller about an unusual serial killer, from the author of Nine Lives and Out of Time…
Detective Snow has another killer to catch.
A killer as mysterious as the crimes he commits.
Someone has killed his sergeant and now seems to be coming after him.
He is hampered by the arrival of ‘Ruthless’ DI Ruth Winton,
Someone who is not who she seems to be.
Can he outwit this killer, or will the truth cost him his life?
Silent Sunday…
Jaye’s Week…
This has been a very strange week.
Along with trying to organise the book launch for Ghost of a Chance and sending out the promo material for all those lovely people taking part; I have been battling with not feeling great. Coping with the new meds they have given me to help dissolve the blockage in my right coronary artery has not been a walk in the park.
My body doesn’t care for medications of any kind, never has, but I did hope this time might be different, considering what might happen if they don’t work. The thought of possibly having my ribs cracked and being opened like a filleted fish is scaring me silly.
I have endured a lot in my life, but something tells me this might be a bridge too far.
So, regardless of my fuzzy head, muscle cramps and nausea, I am determined to handle this problem my way. I have reviewed my diet and upped the amount of time I do yoga. At least I feel a little better with all these positive thoughts and actions!
This brings me to the reason for this post today.
Ghost of a Chance is now on pre-release on Amazon for just 99p. UK: and US:
A damaged detective, out of a job
A relationship on the rocks
What does the future hold for David Snow?
Just when he thought life couldn’t get any worse
A ghost with a grudge adds to his pain
A ghost hell-bent on stopping him from rebuilding his life…
Excerpt from Ghost of a Chance
It was pretty late when Alan Turner let himself in. He couldn’t hear the television, so he assumed making himself a cup of coffee was safe. Normally, he wasn’t allowed in her kitchen and forbidden to use the kettle, but he had been sitting outside in the car for the best part of an hour, and his mouth was dry.
The kettle had just switched itself off, and he was pouring the hot water into the cup when the voice of doom spoke from the doorway.
‘What the bloody hell are you doing in my kitchen?’
He didn’t answer or turn around. He figured she could see well enough what he was doing. It wouldn’t matter anyway, for she never liked anything he said. He casually picked up the cup and took a sip, even though it burned his mouth.
Before he knew what hit him, she had knocked the cup out of his hand, the hot coffee soaking through his clothes.
‘Clear that mess up and get out of my kitchen!’ She stood in front of him glaring, almost defying him to retaliate.
When he didn’t move, she raised her hand to hit him. Instinctively, he leaned forward and shoved her. He didn’t push hard, but she went backwards, striking her head on the door frame.
He expected all hell to break loose at that point, but she lay there, her eyes unfocused, making no effort to get up.
An old memory suddenly surfaced, and he saw his mother lying there, blood trickling out of her mouth and eyes, beaten to death by his stepfather. He was just seven years old and terrified of what would happen next. A neighbour had rescued him and called the police. Alan had spent the next few years in children’s homes, finally becoming free on his 16th birthday. His life continued to be unkind until he met his wife.
Looking down at the sprawled figure at his feet, he couldn’t bring himself to touch her to see if she was all right. If she wasn’t dead, he would know about it soon enough. He couldn’t stay in the house; fate had finally intervened, showing him the error of his misplaced loyalty. He left the house to sleep in his car, determined to find somewhere better to live in the morning.
In the guise of his mother-in-law, fate had decided he wouldn’t be leaving just yet. The following morning, desperate to use the toilet, he let himself into the house, praying she was asleep or still unconscious. Not only was she conscious, but she was smiling, and there was a cooked breakfast on the kitchen table, something she had never done before. Deciding to accept what appeared to be an olive branch, he waited to see what she was up to.
Over the bacon and eggs, she threatened to have him arrested for assault if he tried to leave. Not fooled for a minute by this new development, he wondered what game she was playing now. The obvious conclusion was that she didn’t want his torment or money to stop anytime soon.
It was a very subdued but disappointed man who went to work that day…
I know you are all busy and time is short, but if you could buy a copy; UK and the US and leave a few words on launch day, September 27th on Amazon, or Goodreads, you would make this old lady very happy.
Ghost of a Chance might be my last book (although I really hope not!), and I would love it to do well, just in case…
*** ARC copies are available on request in the comments ***
Under Dark Clouds… #Poetry
Under dark clouds, a secret lay, hiding
No one person can hold on to it
Catching a falling star burns your hand
Over time it cools, revealing the secret held
Making time for magic,
dancing in the mind like a court jester
Fools have chased the philosophers stone, the elixir of life
Over many continents the pilgrimage continues
Rivers catch the ragged feet, sores soothed
Tales of heroes emerge from such journeys
After a time, heroes get lost, forgotten
Beware the one who finds the meaning of the secret
Little by little he would change the world
Everything you know would be destroyed
by power too hard to hold…
©AnitaDawes2022
The Haunting of Chatham Hollow ~ Review ~ #GhostHorror
One founding father.
One deathbed curse.
A town haunted for generations.
Ward Chatham, founder of Chatham Hollow, is infamous for two things—hidden treasure and a curse upon anyone bold enough to seek it. Since his passing in 1793, no one has discovered his riches, though his legend has only grown stronger.
In 1888, charlatan Benedict Fletcher holds a séance to determine the location of Chatham’s fortune. It’s all a hoax so he can search for the gold, but he doesn’t count on two things—Victor Rowe, a true spiritualist who sees through his ruse, and Chatham’s ghost wreaking havoc on the town.
More than a century later, the citizens of the Hollow gather for the annual Founder’s Day celebration. A paranormal research team intends to film a special at Chatham Manor, where the original séance will be re-enacted. Reporter and sceptic Aiden Hale resents being assigned the story, but even he can’t deny the sudden outbreak of strange happenings. When he sets out to discover who or what is threatening the Hollow—supernatural or not— his investigation uncovers decades-old conflicts, bitter rivalries, and ruthless murders.
This time, solving the mystery isn’t about meeting his deadline. It’s about not ending up dead.
Our Review
I thoroughly enjoyed this ghost story.
Written by two of my favourite authors, I thought the dual timelines worked very well. The times and places balanced each other perfectly and made the story more convincing somehow.
This story has two very different lifetimes, connected by a malevolent ghost and a mysterious séance.
A complex, well-written story with spine-tingling chills that kept on coming…
Anita Dawes and Jaye Marie 