The Midnight Rambler by Craig Boyack~ #Review #Urban Fantasy @Virgilante

Today, it is our turn to host the amazing new story from our friend and fellow writer, Craig Boyack.

Over the years, we have read several of his lovely stories, and they never disappoint.

The Midnight Rambler, in our humble opinion, is the best yet!

Fabulous cover!

Our Review

Craig Boyack’s stories are always a good read, especially at this time of year, with plenty of wonderful characters and situations.

The Midnight Rambler story is the best, with one of the worst monsters!

Disasters follow Lizzie around, but this time she has extra help in the form of Ray C Adair. He is a very likeable character, and although he seems to need more help than Lizzie, I rooted for them both. I loved that he brought a little romance to the proceedings while helping Lizzie find a missing professor, a horde of menacing scarecrows, and of course, The Midnight Rambler.

They have their hands full in this dizzy adventure, chock full of the unusual and the bizarre.

Just the job for Halloween!

Over to you, Craig, and welcome to our blog!

So kind of you to lend me your space, Anita & Jaye. I’d love to have you over whenever you need a place to promote. I love this indie author community and this is just a small part of it.

I tend to write stories that are more toward the outrageous fringe of fiction. I orbit around paranormal, science fiction, and fantasy tales. Today, I want to talk about keeping readers grounded.

Before I get started, don’t forget to check out the cover and blurb. Those will give you more insight into what this story is about. I think it’s perfect for the Halloween season and hope you’ll give it a try.

Back to the topic of reality, I think it’s important to give readers a solid base to start from. The Hat Series is full of monsters and things that go bump in the night. I want readers to come along for the ride, but try really hard to ground them in things they can understand.

Lizzie St. Laurent is a twenty-something young woman who teamed up with a magical talking hat to fight monsters. That’s a lot to expect readers to swallow, so I try to include a lot of the real world. Lizzie struggles with things young people are experiencing right now.

She works multiple meaningless jobs to pay the rent. She has a small cover band that brings in a few bucks on the weekends. When her car needs attention, she doesn’t always have the cash to cover the bills. She has a Keurig in her apartment, which seems to fit a certain age group. Readers can relate.

In this story, she’s going to have to deal with the fallout from a major flood. Her life could take years to get back on track. These are things that happen in the real world, and I think they give readers a way to understand her while she’s dealing with monsters, like The Midnight Rambler.

Hoard some toilet paper and canned goods, bring your snorkel, and check out The Midnight Rambler. I think you’ll have a good time.

Cover Blurb:

Something evil is after the hat. The ageless enemies have battled many times, but this time Lizzie is wearing the hat. She’s also up against a ticking clock, in that if she can’t find the maker of her new friend’s medicine he will die.

The Rambler has kidnapped the only witch capable of making Ray’s medicine in an attempt to make the hat sloppy in his efforts. He’s also flooded the streets with deadly minions to impede any progress our heroes might make.

As if that weren’t enough, Lizzie is facing more of life’s struggles, both financially and mechanically. This all goes down in the middle of a huge flood event that she’s ill equipped to handle.

Join Lizzie and the hat as they battle the elements, the paranormal, and a being of pure evil. Lizzie might be battling some personal demons along the way as she and Ray grow closer.

Get your copy here: https://mybook.to/TheMidnightRambler

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The Scarlet Ribbon ~ #UrbanFantasy

Wordle by Jaye Marie

Worry is a terrible thing, it steals the quality of life from right under your nose, reducing your world into a place of doom and gloom. We have been sitting on a massive worry these past six months and have refused to start the new year until we had good news.

I have desperately tried to keep everything normal, finish my WIP and keep the website going, but have to admit it was a poor imitation of the real thing, and I apologise for that.

I have not been sharing much of this with our friends and followers and this may seem strange after all your incredible support when Anita had that massive heart attack in 2020. Your love and good wishes pulled us through that terrible time, but when disaster struck again last year, it seemed far more serious, and we really felt that talking about it might make it worse.

Anita’s heart is still severely damaged, and despite having two stents and a pacemaker fitted, it only barely functions. When a series of lumps started to appear around her neck last year, the alarm bells started ringing again.

Because of the raging virus and all the hospital delays, it took months to have the lumps investigated. The consultant mentioned cancer and after deliberation, they finally decided to remove part of her thyroid. Surgery was a problem as they didn’t think her heart was strong enough, but they said that delaying it was not an option.

A nightmare time for all the family, especially Anita for she can’t abide hospitals at the best of times. My sister has never been ill and to be struck down by two life threatening illnesses almost at the same time seems very unfair. She made it through the surgery without incident, but we had to wait two agonising weeks to get the results of the tests.

By this time, we were all terrified and sick with worry, dreading the news.

The day of the appointment, I felt sick to my stomach but somehow kept a smile on my face. I think I held my breath when she was called into the consultants office, but five minutes later the door opened and she rushed out of the room, a massive smile on her face. We watched in amazement as she ran out of the ENT department to a standing ovation from the nurses.

By this time, we knew the news must be good, but I wanted to know how good. Just before we all reached the lifts, I caught her arm and made her stop walking. ‘Well,’, I said and waited.

She stood there and laughed at me, and I didn’t think she was going to say anything.

‘THERE IS NO CANCER,’ she shouted.

All the way home in the car, she kept saying those words, and her relief was wonderful to see. Despite the odds, her poor old ticker had survived the surgery and she was cancer free.

But four days later, we had to rush back to the hospital, as Anita was having trouble breathing. She is now back home, but it seems that worrying isn’t going anywhere after all.

She is looking better, although still very weak and breathless much of the time. The list of her medications grows ever longer, but … and you may have noticed this, none of what happened has stopped her writing her poetry.

Now all I have to do, is get my own head back together!

I hear a voice telling me to run
A hollow sound here in the darkness
Held by a disembodied voice
Telling me there is no touching where you are going
No interfering
You will not be calling any place you see, home
That is the place you left behind
You will be given a chance to earn your way back
You will take nothing from this place
The darkness pulsed around me like a living entity
I thought of those waiting for me to come home
Jack, my husband
What have I done, why must I run?
I feel the rain on my skin, a memory
Jack’s whispered voice, here in the darkness
Maggie, you must come back, I miss you
A new voice nagged at the back of my mind
You liar
I am being pushed into the light
It’s not a place I remember
Strange faces, a woman tries to wave me away
Telling me I don’t belong here
Tears on the face of a small child pull me forward
She needs my help, her home is filthy
Her tear-streaked face a charcoal smudge
Her tiny hand clutching a red ribbon…

© Anita Dawes 2021