Category Archives: Spooky Side Up

ghosts and paranormal phenomena

The Truth About UFOs (Or is it??)

by Kirsten Weiss

According to two recent reports, UFO sightings have been declining in recent years, and general belief in UFOs has fallen. (Don’t tell that to the residents of my fictional town of Doyle, California. They’re certain UFOs are to blame for their long history of mysterious disappearances.) But what’s the truth about UFOs?

UFO Sightings

The truth about UFOs: photo of 1952 purported UFO sighting

Purported UFO sighting, 1952, Passaic, NJ (public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

Reports of UFO sightings reached their peak in 2014, and have now declined to 55% of that year’s number, according to The Guardian. Most UFOs are later identified as comets, meteors, unusual cloud formations, aircraft, or other such explanations. But according to Wikipedia, about 5-20% remain unidentified.

There were many sightings in the 1940s and 50s by pilots, military and civilian, and people on the ground. The U.S. and other governments conducted secret investigations from the mid-1940s until 1970.

In the 1990s and 2000s in the U.S., there was an upsurge in interest again, accompanied by conspiracy theories that the government was hiding the results of their studies from the general public. Those theories lost some of their punch after disclosure of thousands of government documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

Explanations Are Inconclusive

None of these investigations have definitively told us the truth about UFOs. Many of the early ones concluded that extraterrestrial explanations could not be ruled out. Later ones, from both private and public groups, ranged from derisive to neutral, calling for “continued study.”

The truth about UFOs: Sighting in Wallonia, Belgium June 15, 1990

Sighting in Wallonia, Belgium June 15, 1990 (public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

The psychologist, Carl Jung (1875-1961) believed UFO sightings were a part of being human, that they were actually repressed bits of the human psyche popping out. And that means UFOs aren’t going away.

Jung went all the way back to sightings reported in ancient Egyptian history and viewed UFOs as “manifestations of psychic changes” in the collective unconscious.

Apparently they are changes in the constellation of psychic dominants, of the archetypes, or ‘gods’ as they used to be called, which bring about, or accompany, long-lasting transformations of the collective psyche. ~ Carl Jung.

In other words, the more things change, the more unsettled we become, and the more we see (or technically, project from our unconscious) freaky lights in the sky.

UFOs or Fairies?

The truth behind UFOs: strange lights in sky over Sri Lanka

Close-up of light in sky, Sri Lanka (from The National Archives UK, no restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons)

Jung was on to something, because UFO reports go back hundreds of years. Though way back then, the lights-in-the-sky, kidnappings, and weird probings were blamed on fairies.

Of course, those devoted to the UFO theory claim that what our forefathers called fairies were simply aliens in disguise.

Or is the reverse true? Are aliens really fairies in disguise? Just what is the truth about UFOs? Maybe we will never know.

In Planet of the Grapes, book 2 in my Wits’ End series of cozy mystery novels, believers in the fairy myth and in UFOs clash at a UFO festival. B&B owner Susan Witsend must keep the combatants apart and the festival on track… in spite of all those pesky murders.

Curious? Read more about Planet of the Grapes below.

Your thoughts on the truth about UFOs? Do you believe in them, and/or in fairies?

Sources:
(2018) What is behind the decline in UFO sightings, The Guardian.
Unidentified flying object, Wikipedia.
Fraim, John (2013) The symbolism of UFOs and aliens, The Jung Page.

Planet of the Grapes, A Doyle Cozy Mystery (A Wits’ End Mystery #2)

Planet of the Grapes book cover

Aliens, fairies and murder, oh, my!

In small-town Doyle, California, UFO abductions are a budding tourist attraction. So, when Susan Witsend brings a UFO festival to town, she’s ready for some well-deserved time in the sun.

What she gets instead is the corpse of a UFO conspiracy theorist, brained with a bottle of local wine.

Susan may be the owner of a UFO-themed B&B, but she doesn’t wish on stars to get what she wants. She’s a woman with a planner. Plan A: Milk the UFO festival for all it’s worth. Plan B: Stop lusting after her best-friend-turned-security-consultant, Arsen Holiday.

But murder isn’t the only thing threatening Susan’s best-laid plans. Beset by alien protestors, aging nudists, and hidden secrets at every turn, Susan’s nearing her wits’ end. And now Plan C is to stay on the good side of a grumpy local sheriff.

Susan may not have a clue, but she knows she wants a certain security consultant at her side when the killer goes supernova.

Planet of the Grapes is book 2 in the Wits’ End series of cozy mystery novels. If you like laugh-out-loud cozy mysteries, you’ll like Planet of the Grapes. Breakfast recipes at the back of the book.

Available NOW on: AMAZON APPLE KOBO NOOK

Kirsten Weiss has never met a dessert she didn’t like, and her guilty pleasures are watching Ghost Whisperer re-runs and drinking red wine. The latter gives her heartburn, but she drinks it anyway. Now based in San Mateo, CA, she writes genre-blending cozy mystery, supernatural and steampunk suspense, mixing her experiences and imagination to create vivid worlds of fun and enchantment.

If you like funny cozy mysteries, check out her Pie Town, Paranormal Museum and Wits’ End books. If you’re looking for some magic with your mystery, give the Witches of Doyle, Riga Hayworth and Rocky Bridges books a try. And if you like steampunk, the Sensibility Grey series might be for you.

Kirsten sends out original short stories of mystery and magic to her mailing list. If you’d like to get them delivered straight to your inbox, make sure to sign up for her newsletter at kirstenweiss.com.

We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

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Séances, Spirits and Murder, Oh My! (and a New Cozy Mystery for You)

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by Gilian Baker

Murder Over Medium

Each society mourns and honors their dead differently, and yet one thing remains a constant—humans have been attempting to reconnect with their lost loved ones since the dawn of time.

Séances and mediums first became all the rage during the Victorian era. So it may make you scratch your head that, in our modern age, we’re witnessing a resurgence of interest in the occult.

But all you need do to observe this revival in action is look at the bookshelves in your local shop or channel surf. Witches, hauntings, and all things paranormal are back in fashion.

In the latest Jade Blackwell Mystery, this fascination is explored, tongue in cheek, when Jade welcomes an old colleague, Gwendolyn Hexby, into her home. Unbeknownst to her, her friend is no longer a professor of religious studies, but has found a “higher calling” as a medium. Jade spends the entire book trying to reconcile Gwendolyn’s new beliefs with the woman who demanded empirical evidence years before.

One of the first things Gwendolyn does once she’s darkened Jade’s door is hold a séance.

Séances aren’t only for preteen girls’ slumber parties. Many people visit mediums each year all around the globe, in hopes of reconnecting with a loved one who has left this world. Séances are typically held by a medium, a person who has developed a talent for communicating with those who have passed over. With their help, the dead are able to give messages to those they love who are still living.

Here are some fun facts you may not know about séances and Spiritualism:

Famous people who attended séances include Harry Houdini, poet W.B. Yeats and Sherlock Holmes’ creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Nancy Reagan wasn’t the first First Lady to practice the occult in the White House by consulting astrologists. Both First Lady Jane Pierce, wife of Franklin Pierce, and Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln hired mediums to hold séance in the White House to contact their dead sons.
In 1840, the world’s first recorded séance was performed by the Fox sisters, Kate and Margaret. They had their séances recorded in text to prove they were the real deal. The two sisters had a huge influence in the world of spiritualism and became highly sought-after mediums. Many years later, they announced their performances had all been faked, though they later recanted that statement.
Both First Ladies hired the same famous mediums, the Fox sisters.
Harry Houdini was a great believer in Spiritualism and attended séances frequently, until he was unsuccessful at connecting with his departed mother. After that, he put a great deal of energy into proving séances were hoaxes.
So obsessed was Houdini with verifying séances were hoaxes, before he died in 1926, he told his wife he would come back to speak with her. They even came up with a code word so she would know it was him. For ten years after his death, she held a séance, but he never did show up. Magicians and fans of Houdini continue the tradition by holding séances each year on his birthday.
In 2003, two British mediums, Craig and Jane Hamilton-Parker, held a pay-per-view séance to contact Princess Diana. They claimed they connected with her—she told them she was having fun in the afterlife, hanging out with Mother Teresa.
The Victorians who brought us the Spiritualist movement are the ones we can thank for the popularity of tarot cards and the Ouija board.
Tarot cards had been around since the 1400s, but they started out as a card game to be played alone. During the Victorian era, tarot cards became a very common way for mediums and spiritualists to receive messages from the dead.
The Ouija board was first manufactured during the Victoria era, in 1891, by a game company. It claimed the power to “provided a link between the living world and the one inhabited by the dead.”

You can enjoy more metaphysical mischief in Book 3 of the Jade Blackwell Mystery Series, Murder Over Medium, which is now available for pre-order here.

Former English professor turned blogger, Jade Blackwell, is enjoying her predictable routine when trouble comes knocking in the form of an old friend and colleague. Unbeknownst to Jade, Gwendolyn Hexby is no longer the successful academic she once knew and trusted—she is now following a new calling as a psychic medium, a contentious career that flies in the face of the logic and deductive reasoning Jade values.

At first, Jade welcomes the visit, but things soon turn bizarre as Gwendolyn brings only disorder, danger and disruption. When a murder is prophesied, and a beloved pillar of the Aspen Falls’ community winds up dead, Gwendolyn becomes Sheriff Ross Lawson’s prime suspect.

To get Gwendolyn out of hot water, and more importantly, out of her house, Jade attempts to prove her friend’s innocence. Jade believes she’s finally discovered the truth, but is soon brought back to reality when she learns all is not as it seems in the realm of the metaphysical. Not even murder.

Return to the Jade Blackwell Cozy Mystery Series in Murder Over Medium, as Jade jumps into the fray of a territory not governed by logic or reason—in either this world or the next.

Posted by Gilian Baker. Gilian is a former writing and literature professor who now uses her geeky superpowers only for good to entertain cozy mystery readers the world over. When she’s not plotting murder, you can find her puttering in her vegetable garden, snuggled up with her husband watching British mysteries or discussing literary theory with her daughter. She lives in Flagstaff, Arizona with her family and their three pampered felines. Gilian is the author of the Jade Blackwell cozy mysteries.

We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

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Halloween Hauntings: True Ghost Stories

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by Kassandra Lamb (on behalf of the whole group)

For once, we’re not letting our imaginations write the stories. These are “true” ghost stories we have heard that have happened to real people whose judgement, for the most part, is usually sound.

I’ll let our newest author, Gilian Baker, go first, with a story from her daughter’s college…

The Ridges dormitories at Ohio University

When our daughter announced she wanted to go to Ohio University, we didn’t realize we were sending her off to one of the most haunted campuses in the world! OU is located in Athens, Ohio, and there are many stories of hauntings in the small college town. But the one I’m going to share occurred (or should I say occurs) right on campus—in one of the dorm buildings.

The story goes that, in the 1970s, a girl living in Wilson Hall, room 428, died violently after practicing various forms of the occult, including attempting to contact the dead. Those who knew her said she tapped into the energy of the room to practice astral projection and that she was enthralled by sorcery.

Wilson Hall Dormitory. Don’t let them assign your son or daughter to Room 428!

The college continued to assign students to room 428 in Wilson Hall after her death, but they were forced to declare it “uninhabitable” after a series of them complained of hearing strange noises and footsteps, not to mention seeing objects move by themselves and fly across the room to smash against the wall. To this day, the room is the only one on campus that is sealed off and goes unused, even for storage. Students and residents of the town continue to witness sightings of a girl standing at the window of room 428.

The Asylum’s administration building, 1905

The building is located in an auspicious location. It’s in the dead center (pun intended) of a huge pentagram that is made up of five cemeteries situated throughout the town. You can see the pentagram for yourself on maps of the area. If that weren’t enough, it was built on top of an early cemetery of the Athens Lunatic Asylum, itself haunted.

“Let’s build a dorm on top of a cemetery,” they said. “It’ll be fun,” they said.

Next up is Kirsten Weiss, our resident expert on all things occult, with a story from her sister…

My sister Alice, who doesn’t believe in ghosts, seems to constantly attract them. One took a nap with her last August, and she lived in a college apartment which was stuffed with spooks.

Human-shaped shadows were often spotted climbing the stairs. And once, while she was alone in the apartment and about to take a shower, a white, child-sized hand holding a purple mirror reached under the bathroom door. She spent the next thirty minutes perched like a Notre Dame gargoyle atop the toilet seat, waiting for one of her roommate to return. No hand – child-sized or otherwise – could have fit between the door and the floor.

One Halloween, she and a friend sat around a table, a pumpkin centerpiece between them. A shadow flitted across the pumpkin, and the pumpkin rolled over.

“That didn’t just happen,” her non-believer friend said.

“But did you see—”

“It didn’t happen!”

Vinnie, Kass and Kirsten in the Moss Beach Distillery parking lot. It was a tad windy that day.

In 2015, I visited California and was able to meet up with Kirsten and Vinnie Hansen for lunch at the Moss Beach Distillery. Turns out they have a resident ghost. Sadly, we didn’t catch sight of her but here’s her story…

In the 1940’s, a young married woman fell in love with a handsome ladies’ man (some versions of the story say that he was a piano player in the bar). Always dressed in blue, she came to the restaurant many times to meet her lover. One day, while walking with her lover on the beach below, they were assaulted. He was injured but survived; she was killed.

Moss Beach Distillery (photo by Lupislune CC-BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia Commons) Wikimedia Commons

She has haunted the restaurant ever since, looking for her lover. Although most actual sightings have been by children (their filters are so much less critical), she is mostly known for her pranks, such as levitating checkbooks off the table, locking empty rooms from the inside, and stealing one earring each from female patrons and then they all show up in one place a week or so later. (I did lose an earring that day, but I’m not sure it was at the restaurant.)

The Blue Lady has been featured on Unsolved Mysteries and Ghost Hunters.

Which brings us to our greatest ghost story enthusiast, Shannon Esposito, who loves shows like Ghost Hunters. Her story comes from her mother…

Note the mirror on the wall

This photo was taken at the Nemacolin Castle in Brownsville, Pa. by my mom, Carol. They only let eight people go through the tour at one time, so there were only a few people in the room with her when she snapped this shot.

Close up of ghost’s image

When Carol looked at her photos later and spotted the man in the mirror in this one, she didn’t believe what she was seeing. She called the castle and asked if they had a mannequin in a period costume in that room. They said they didn’t and asked her to bring her camera in to see the photo for themselves.

After viewing the photo, they did a recreation and had Carol stand in the spot she was when she took that particular shot. She was standing in the doorway of the room at that time. The weirdest part was the team tried to take photos from that spot and their batteries drained twice before they could get a photo.

Finally, they were able to take several photos with people of different heights to determine how tall he was. Their conclusion was, by the angle and reflection of the man, he had to have been standing in the doorway next to Carol… and looking right at her.

And last but not least, I have a ghost story of my own.

My grandmother died when I was sixteen. She was very loving to both of us, but my older brother was her favorite. I knew this and was not particularly jealous since I adored him as well (still great friends today).

Shortly after she died, my brother and his first wife broke up. He moved into my grandmother’s house, which was sitting vacant. A year later, he let his girlfriend move into the house with him.

I was not that fond of Sally (not her real name) partly because she was a bit of a flake. But I believed this story when she told it because she herself didn’t even realize the significance of it at the time.

(photo by TH.Korr CC-BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia Commons)

A little background info: My grandmother grew up in an era when women did not admit they were sexually attracted to any man, not even their husbands. But she had a huge crush on Clark Gable. Whenever she would see him in a movie, she would sigh and say, “That man can put his slippers under my bed any day of the week.” This was quite a risque statement for her.

So Sally moves into Grandma’s house, and a few weeks afterward she says to my brother, “Why do you keep moving my slippers across the room at night?”

“What do you mean?” he said. “I haven’t touched them.”

“You must have. I put my slippers under the edge of the bed every night, and every morning they are over by the door.”

There were a few other odd things reported while Sally lived there, and she said she actually saw my grandmother in the attic one day.

My grandmother as a young woman.

We weren’t sure we believed that, but there was no denying that Grandma was showing her disapproval by moving Sally’s slippers.

Sally moved out, and a year after that, my brother married someone else. They lived in my grandmother’s house for a few years, but we never “heard” from Grandma again. We assumed she was pleased with her new granddaughter-in-law and was able to move on.

How about you? Do you know any “true” ghost stories? Please share!

We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

Please follow us so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )

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The Witchy Season

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by Kirsten Weiss

(Note from Kass: What a great mash-up of posts/thoughts on witches. I especially LOVED the article about casting spells with emojis!)

Halloween is coming! And that means… witches!

Even out of the Halloween season, witches just don’t seem to be going out of style. This summer, Vogue devoted a week to witches in its online magazine.

And the TV show Riverdale is resurrecting Sabrina the Teenage Witch (though no doubt Riverdale’s will be a darker version than the cheery original). Books and movies about witches aren’t going away.

Crystals, Tarot cards and smudge sticks are, if not everywhere, easy to get your hands on. And you can even cast spells using emojis!

Or, you can take a more academic approach to the craft, and take a pseudo-university course on Magic in the Middle Ages. (I got the certificate, because… who wouldn’t want a certificate in Magic in the Middle Ages?)

Witchcraft has hit the mainstream, which probably means it’s about two seconds away from being passé. Still, I can’t stop myself from plotting my next witchy book in my Doyle Witch cozy mystery series. I might be missing the top of the market by the time it comes out, but there’s just something about a witch that appeals.

Is it the magical powers? The mystery? The cool clothes?

All of the above?

What do you love (or hate) about the witchy season? Tell us in the comments below!

(Another Note from Kass: this blog will be on hiatus next week while we move the site to a new host. Please stop back on the 31st for a whole bunch of cool, true-life ghost stories!)

The Witches of Doyle Trilogy of Cozy Mysteries

Three sisters. Three mysteries. Three love affairs.

In a small town where magic lies hidden in its foundations and forests, three sisters must master their powers and shatter a curse that threatens to destroy them all.

Bound, Book 1 in the trilogy, is free through Halloween!

Posted by Kirsten Weiss. Kirsten worked for fourteen years in the fringes of the former USSR and deep in the Afghan war zone. Her experiences abroad gave her glimpses into the darker side of human nature but also sparked an interest in the effects of mysticism and mythology, and how both are woven into our daily lives. She is the author of the Riga Hayworth Metaphysical Detective urban fantasy/mystery series, the Sensibility Grey steampunk mysteries, the Rocky Bridges mysteries and the Witches of Doyle cozy mystery series.

We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

Please follow us so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )

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Binge Reading – No, It’s Not What You Think

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by Kirsten Weiss

Call it the age of Netflix.

It’s spoiled us for the wait – no longer do we have to hang on an aching seven days to find out what comes next on our favorite TV show. With shows produced by Netflix, we can now binge watch the entire season over a weekend. (And yes, I’m guilty of this – Longmire! Stranger Things!).

So when I heard about “binge reading,” I decided to take the plunge with my new Doyle Witch cozy mystery series. Fortunately, my patient editors at misterio press were willing to take this journey with me, because a lot ended up happening in a short span of time.

The concept is simple – launch all the books in the series at once.

As a reader, binge reading was nothing new to me. How many weekends had I spent curled up with a good book, closing one cover only to open and devour the next in the series?

My Kindle made the process easier. I didn’t have to go to a bookstore or wait for a book to arrive in the mail. Instant gratification! Push a button, and it arrives on my screen.

Now some people may not care for binge reading. They may prefer to savor a story a bit after finishing it, before plunging on in the series.

One of my editors at misterio reminded me about this old commercial:

But my witch cozy mystery trilogy seemed to fit the binge model well. Each novel in the Doyle Witch cozy mystery series is a self-contained murder mystery (and romance). But there’s a paranormal mystery too, which arcs across all three books, making the trilogy akin to a TV “season.”

(And if you’re one who likes “anticipation,” by all means spread out the reading of these stories. But they’ll all be there waiting for you when you’re ready.)

As a writer, the process of launching everything at once was more stressful than I’d expected. I was never one for keeping my powder dry. Having to sit on the first two books while waiting for the third to be completed was… irritating.

It also made the stakes higher. Many more months of work were riding on a single launch date. The only feedback I got on the books was from my editors – champions, to be sure. But what if readers didn’t like the series I’d spent so much time writing? (No pressure there.)

My launches are usually chaotic, but having the materials prepped for the first two books well in advance made this one smoother. I had teasers. I had quotes. I had covers.

But I also ended up spending so much time thinking about the launch, that I made more work for myself. A friend suggested putting spells at the back of the books (instead of the ubiquitous recipes).

I squeezed out a 5-day free Kitchen Witch course to promote the series.

I developed a supplementary novella that fits between books 1 and 2. I even wrote a companion book of poetry, Tales of the Rose Rabbit. This did not get launched with the other books because of a last-minute brainstorm to add illustrations, and is due out some time in December.

That said, I’m happy I did it all – I’m thrilled with the total package of books and supplementary materials.

What about you? Are you into binge-watching/reading or do you prefer to anticipate and savor?

Here’s a bit about the books themselves:

Bound: Book 1 in the Doyle Witch Cozy Mystery Series

Bound by magic, bound by love, bound by murder…

The Bonheim triplets live seemingly ordinary lives, hiding their magic from the neighbors in the small, mountain town of Doyle, California. But when a body is found in big sister Jayce’s coffee shop, Karin, the practical one, is determined to prove Jayce innocent.

A murder isn’t the only bizarre event in Doyle. Why are hikers vanishing in the nearby woods? Why are some people cursed with bad luck and others with good? And why is Karin’s magic the weakest of the three sisters’?

As Karin digs deep to uncover the truth and regain her magic, her family is thrown into peril. Will her power return too late to save the people she loves the most, or will it be the cause of disaster?

Spells included at the back of the book!

ISBN: 1-944767-15-0 ~ Available at: Amazon Kobo Barnes & Noble

Ground: Book 2 in the Doyle Witch Cozy Mystery Series

Her magic flows from the earth…

Jayce Bonheim is on the sheriff’s radar and not in a good way.

Always the reckless one of her triplet sisters, Jayce is trying to turn over a new leaf. No more wild partying. No more one night stands. But when someone leaves a dead body in her pickup truck, her resolve to become the sensible sister is sorely tested.

Caught in a web of love, murder, and magic, Jayce must clear her name and discover who is behind the curse that holds her family and town in thrall.

Spells included at the back of the book!

ISBN: 1-944767-18-5 ~ Available at: Amazon Kobo Barnes & Noble

Down: Book 3 in the Doyle Witch Cozy Mystery Series

The answers lie below…

A shamanic witch and a poet, Lenore Bonheim hides in the world of books to escape reality, which for her includes seeing ghosts and forecasting death. But when her employer and friend dies under suspicious circumstances, she must use all her skills – magical and mundane – to find the killer and save her two sisters and her town.

As the three sisters pull together to stave off a growing menace, Lenore must discover what it means to be in this world and of it.

Spells included at the back of the book!

ISBN: 1-944767-20-7 ~ Available on: Amazon Kobo Barnes & Noble

Spirit on Fire, A Doyle Witch Mystery Companion novella

What happens when a fictional character writes a romantic novella about a shaman and a fire demon? All hell breaks loose.

When fledgling witch, Karin Bonheim, began writing her paranormal romance, she never could’ve anticipated the world she created would bleed into her own…or the danger it would bring.

A companion novella of romantic suspense to the Witches of Doyle trilogy, this novella takes place between books 1 and 2 of the Doyle Witch cozy mystery series.

ISBN: 1-944767-21-5 ~ Available on:

Amazon Kobo Barnes & Noble

And coming in December:

Tales of the Rose Rabbit (Poems)

~ preorder on Amazon now ~

We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

Please follow us so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )

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Things that Go Bump in the Night in The Carolina Hills

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by Kassandra Lamb

I am delighted today to introduce you all to a guest blogger, a writer of mysteries and romantic suspense whom I recently stumbled upon.

Please welcome the delightful Marcia Meara…

Appalachian Legends and Myths

Right up front, let me say that I am absolutely besotted with the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. The Blue Ridge Mountains, and the Smokies, in particular. Part of the Appalachian chain—the oldest mountains on the planet—they are stunning in their ancient, mystical beauty.

Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina (public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

And vast. It’s rather amazing how many, many miles of wilderness they encompass, along with the mountain towns and villages like Asheville, Lake Lure, and Bat Cave.

(photo by Stratosphere, CC-BY-SA 4.0 International, Wikimedia Commons)

(Yes, there is actually a small town named Bat Cave. You can’t make stuff like that up.)

I also love the legends, folk lore, and outright myths that have sprung up over time throughout these hills.

Some tales arrived in the area via settlers from England, Ireland, and Scotland, and have a solid basis in Celtic mythology. Others apparently have been made up out of whole cloth—unless, of course, they aren’t legends at all, but strange truths that our modern minds refuse to accept. (Is that the theme from The Twilight Zone I hear playing in the background?)

Here are some examples of stories passed around in “them thar hills.” Some might make you grin, others might give you a shiver, but all are part of the overall body of strange tales you run across in these mountains.

The Moon-Eyed People
A race of small, bearded men, with pure white skin, who were called moon-eyed because they were unable to see in daylight, the moon-eyed people eventually became totally nocturnal. So the story says.

(photo by TranceMist, CC-BY Generic, Wikimedia Commons)

The Cherokee believed them to be responsible for ancient stone structures that line many mountain ridges from North Carolina down through Georgia and Alabama. The most famous is Fort Mountain in Georgia, which gets its name from an 850 foot long stone wall that varies in height from two to six feet and stretches along the top of the ridge. This wall is thought to have been constructed around 400-500 C.E.

Were the moon-eyed people early European explorers? Legends refer to them as a race of small, pale people, rather than mystical beings unrelated to humans, but so far, no one has come up with any information on who they might have been, or if they were real at all.

Boojum and Annie
The Boojum is reported to have been an 8’ tall creature, not quite a man, and not quite an animal, covered in shaggy fur. (Does the name “Bigfoot” ring a bell?) He is said to have had two very human habits, though. He liked to collect gems, and hoarded them in discarded liquor jugs, which he buried in secret caves. (I do have to wonder how they know this, if the caves are so secret.)

He also was a bit of a Peeping Boojum, as he apparently liked to watch women, particularly when they were bathing in mountain streams. Bad, bad Boojum! But when a young woman named Annie spotted the hairy creature watching her, instead of screaming in fright, she fell in love with his sad eyes, and—wait for it—ran away with her hirsute admirer, presumably to settle down in a cozy little cave somewhere, and raise a whole passel of little Boojums.

There’s more to the tale, but this is a G-rated blog.

The Brown Mountain Lights
The Brown Mountains are home to a genuine and puzzling phenomenon. In the autumn, on crisp and cool nights, ghostly blue orbs are seen floating a few feet above the ground. They have been documented repeatedly by a large number of reputable witnesses. So far, there is no scientific proof as to what the lights are. Swamp gas and other known possibilities have all been ruled out. So when the nights get cool, people (presumably people with too much time on their hands) head to the Brown Mountains to observe and wonder for themselves.

The Phantom Hiker of Grandfather Mountain and the Chimney Rock Apparitions
Both of these are full on ghost stories, one a little shivery, and one just downright bizarre.

Sunrise in the autumn over Grandfather Mountain (photo by http://kenthomas.us public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

According to the first, there is an old man who has been hiking the trails on Grandfather Mountain for generations, passing by groups of modern day hikers without a word, and disappearing into the distance, never looking back. He’s dressed in clothing not appropriate to today, and appears and disappears before anyone knows he’s coming.

And he never answers when spoken to. Indeed, he never even seems to see other hikers.

Chimney Rock State Park, overlooking Lake Lure (public domain)

Now, the apparitions at Chimney Rock occurred long ago, though it’s said that many people witnessed them for several days, and they were widely publicized in the newspapers of the day. In the first tale, ghostly white figures gathered in the air over the chimney formation itself, circling it for some time, before several larger figures rose above the rest and guided them all straight into the heavens above. A sort of airborne revival meeting, without the sermon in the tent.

And as if that wasn’t enough excitement for one of my favorite places to visit, there are still more tales about military men on horseback, who fought an epic battle in the skies over the chimney for several days, before just up and disappearing. This, also, was witnessed by many people over a period of time, and reported on in all the best papers.

Official inspects moonshine (tough job, hunh?)

Moonshine — more than just an afternoon refresher.

(Okay, I’m being a bit skeptical here, but can you blame me? Pity there were no cell phones on hand at the time. The cavalry would never get away with a stunt like that today!)

Ol’ Shuck
Tall tales for every taste abound in the Appalachians, but of all of them, my personal favorite is the legend of the Black Dog, or Ol’ Shuck, as they call him. This one is based on truly ancient Celtic legends of a huge, hellhound of a dog who is thought to be a harbinger of death, and many variations appear throughout literature. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle loosely based his famous book, Hound of the Baskervilles, on one version.

But beware! When you see Ol’ Shuck, someone you know (maybe you!) is going to die. Obviously, you don’t want to wake up one day, and find him sitting on your doorstep. And you’ll know it’s him if you do. We aren’t talking your everyday black Labrador retriever, here. Oh, no. An impossibly large dog with gleaming red eyes, sent straight from the devil himself to escort you to . . . wherever you’re going next. Be afraid. Be very afraid!

As the theme for my latest book makes clear: You can run, but you can’t hide.

HARBINGER: Wake-Robin Ridge Book 3

“. . . he felt the wet slide of the dog’s burning hot tongue on his face, and the scrape of its razor sharp teeth against the top of his head. A white-hot agony of crushing pain followed, as the jaws began to close.”

The wine-red trillium that carpets the forests of the North Carolina Mountains is considered a welcome harbinger of spring—but not all such omens are happy ones. An Appalachian legend claims the Black Dog, or Ol’ Shuck, as he’s often called, is a harbinger of death. If you see him, you or someone you know is going to die.

But what happens when Ol’ Shuck starts coming for you in your dreams? Nightmares of epic proportions haunt the deacon of the Light of Grace Baptist Church, and bring terror into the lives of everyone around him. Even MacKenzie Cole and his adopted son, Rabbit, find themselves pulled into danger.

When Sheriff Raleigh Wardell asks Mac and Rabbit to help him solve a twenty-year-old cold case, Rabbit’s visions of a little girl lost set them on a path that soon collides with that of a desperate man being slowly driven mad by guilt.

As Rabbit’s gift of the Sight grows ever more powerful, his commitment to those who seek justice grows as well, even when their pleas come from beyond the grave.

Marcia Meara lives in central Florida, just north of Orlando, with her husband of over thirty years, four big cats, and two small dachshunds. 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. At the age of five, Marcia declared she wanted to be an author, and is ecstatic that at age 69, she finally began pursuing that dream. Three years later, she’s still going strong, and plans to keep on writing until she falls face down on the keyboard, which she figures would be a pretty good way to go!

Marcia has written six books so far: the Riverbend series, the Wake-Robin Ridge series, and a book of poetry. She’s a very social being. You can find her hanging out on Twitter (@marciameara), Facebook, Pinterest and at her two blogs, The Write Stuff and Bookin’ It (for book reviews). You can sign up for her newsletter to get news and giveaways at either site, or just give her a shout via email at mmeara@cfl.rr.com.

NOTE: Vinnie Hansen is participating in Smashwords’ Summer/Winter Sale. Her awesome novel, Black Beans and Venom is 75% off for the entire month of July!!

We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

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Are You More a Trickster or a Treatee? (and a new release!)

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word cloud created on tagul.com

For Halloween this year, we asked our authors to share some childhood memories, specifically to answer this question:

Which did you prefer, playing tricks or getting treats? Here are their answers.

Kirsten Weiss:

I was too busy scavenging candy to play any Halloween pranks. Trick time = less treat gathering time, though the folks who gave out raisin boxes on Halloween definitely deserved some payback.

I mean, seriously? We’re going to be healthy tonight? I don’t think so.

Given my candy maximization focus, it’s weird that the treat that always delighted me most in my pillowcase full of loot was Smarties. I think they’re basically sugar + fruit acid, so I’m not sure why I find them so appealing. Plus, they’re super small. Purely from a mercenary perspective, I should have been going for the full-sized candy bars. But nope, it was always Smarties, followed by their tangier cousin, Sweet Tarts.

Smarties (R)

Kassandra Lamb:

When I was a kid, I loved trick-or-treating, but not so much for the candy. I was more into the costumes, and the excitement of being out after dark without adult supervision. This was back in the days when parents naively thought kids were safe in their own neighborhoods. I was allowed to go out with just my older brother to look out for me.

My mom made our costumes and they were pretty neat. Often she came up with some theme, like Lone Ranger and Tonto (I was younger so guess who was saying Kimesabe).

I'm the one in the middle with the dorky clown hat. And no, my mother didn't let us go out alone when we were this small; that was later when we were in elementary school.

I’m the one in the middle with the dorky clown hat; big brother’s to the right. (Don’t know who the kid hogging the limelight in front of me is. And no, my mother didn’t let us go out alone when we were this small; that was later, when we were in elementary school.)

When I was a teenager, and my brother was now beyond such juvenile pursuits as trick-or-treat, I went in more for tricks. My friends and I would come up with excuses to get out of the house (collecting for charities was my favorite, and I did collect money for them, but I did so after school before my parents got home so I could go wild that night). Looking back our “tricks” were pretty lame. Mostly we rang doorbells and then ran. Occasionally we toilet-papered the trees in people’s front yards. Again, the appeal was mostly about the forbidden fruit of being out after dark, footloose and fancy-free of adult supervision.

Vinnie Hansen:

My brothers pulled legendary Halloween pranks like moving an outhouse to the downtown hill. But I was a good kid, hustling to Mrs. Wampler’s house because she gave out full-sized Hershey’s bars. I also liked homemade treats such as candy apples.

photo by photogmateo CC-BY 2.0

Mrs. McKay gave out popcorn balls. She may have been a teacher, but she didn’t get the concept of Halloween. When you rang her bell and said, “Trick or treat?” she said, “Trick,” and she expected you to do a trick to receive her treat.

I went into her carpeted living room and stood on my head. I guess she deemed that satisfactory because I received a popcorn ball wrapped all fancy in colored cellophane.

K.B. Owen:

I don’t have much memory of Halloween as a kid, because I was usually sick with asthma during that time of year (I remember one Halloween in the hospital, all us kids were given paper grocery bags, markers, and scissors to make masks). I carved my first pumpkin at age 22.

So for me, the fun of Halloween really got going with my kids! And we’ve had a grand time: making a PVC skeleton we put out every year, concocting decadent goodies, and yes…carving pumpkins! Here’s one of my fave pics, of my now-14-year-old, getting in on our pumpkin-carving action by sampling the goods.

Shannon Esposito:

Trick-or-treating in rural Pennsylvania meant my parents had to drive us around in the car because the houses were miles apart. It was always freezing anyway, so the heater was welcomed. Needless to say, we didn’t get much candy, but we didn’t mind because one of the houses belonged to the Sarrises. They own Sarris Candies, which makes the best chocolate in the world (OK, maybe just in the US). Every year they gave out pure chocolate suckers shaped like pumpkins, cats, ghosts… whatever, it didn’t matter. They were all delicious.

And if you were lucky, there were enough costume-clad kids that you could sneak back around and snag another one. Often they would recognize you and give you a stern look, but it was worth the try.

They don’t know it, but they’re responsible for one of my favorite family traditions: On Easter and birthdays, our family members send each other Sarris chocolates. A piece of childhood wrapped in chocolate. Nothing sweeter.

photo by The Culinary Geek of Chicago, CC-BY 2.0

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE!

How about you? Did you prefer tricking or treating as a kid?

Or do you still go trick-or-treating as an adult? (I know some people who do.)

Please check out Kirsten Weiss’s new release, the grand finale of the Riga Hayworth series. Her books are pretty spooky. They make great Halloween reads!!

Also, she’s having a Halloween blog party today. Check it out for more fun Halloween posts!!

THE HERMETIC DETECTIVE, A Riga Hayworth Mystery

A Monstrous Assassin. A Metaphysical Detective.

Housebound with five-month-old twins, Riga Hayworth just wants to get back in the metaphysical detecting game. But when she’s called to help an elderly woman, haunted and alone, a deadly threat follows Riga home. Can Riga prevent a tragedy and protect her family?

The Hermetic Detective is the seventh and final book in the Riga Hayworth series of paranormal mystery novels. Buy this book to finish the epic series today.

Amazon Kobo Nook

Kirsten Weiss worked for fourteen years in the fringes of the former USSR and deep in the Afghan war zone. Her experiences abroad not only gave her glimpses into the darker side of human nature, but also sparked an interest in the effects of mysticism and mythology, and how both are woven into our daily lives. She is the author of The Metaphysical Detective mystery series and the Sensibility Grey steampunk mysteries.

Posted by Kassandra Lamb on behalf of the whole gang. We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

Please follow us so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )

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Spooky Nights

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by Vinnie Hansen

As night falls, we advance toward the 100-year-old mausoleum in the cemetery. There is no electricity. Candles and a kerosene lamp light the way.

Vinnie reading by lamplight

Here in Santa Rosa Memorial Park, I join seven other mystery writers to read our spooky stories in the echoing marble chambers.

Even though we are competing with the Giants playing in the World Series, the annual event draws a standing-room-only crowd.

No one rose from the dead around us except in our tales.

However, two nights later, at the Dead Writers Costume Party, three local Santa Cruz writers used an Ouija board to conjure up Edgar Allan Poe. Asked what he wished he’d written about, Poe replied: H-O-E-S

Three “dead” authors conjuring up a 4th one.

This delightful evening, a fundraiser for the Young Writers Program, featured H.P. Lovecraft as an animated host.

I resurrected my Emily Dickinson outfit for the evening. Before I retired as a teacher, I would wear the costume when teaching Dickinson. I’d stay in character for the entire class, in spite of questions like, “Are you a virgin?” and “What’s it like to be dead?”

I also rubbed shoulders with the lovely Beatrix Potter who brought along her hedgehog and Peter Rabbit.

Vinnie as Emily Dickinson, with “Beatrix Potter”

Among others in attendance were Kurt Vonnegut, Dashiell Hammett, Mark Twain, Djuna Barnes, Virginia Woolf, and an imposter Emily Dickinson. Authors were invited to read and I recited “my” poem:

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.

If you had gone, which author would you have impersonated? Why? And which author would you have wanted to contact in the Great Beyond?

Posted by Vinnie Hansen. Vinnie is a retired English teacher and award-winning author. Her cozy noir mystery series, the Carol Sabala mysteries, is set in beautiful Santa Cruz, California.

We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

Please follow us so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )

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The Most Haunted House in New Orleans

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by Kirsten Weiss

We’re hosting a Rafflecopter giveaway to celebrate the Halloween release of my new book, The Hoodoo Detective! The prize? An ARC of the novel!

But first, a bit about the most haunted house in New Orleans…

In The Hoodoo Detective, Riga Hayworth travels to New Orleans for her paranormal reality TV show. The book opens mid-way through shooting, and Riga has found little to get excited about in the haunted houses they’ve filmed so far.

What would have happened if they’d filmed at the Lalaurie House, considered the most haunted in New Orleans?

The stucco-over-brick mansion, on Royal Street in the French Quarter, was built in 1832, and an invite to the fashionable Lalauries’ abode was considered a hot ticket.

moldie13 via Compfight cc

On the afternoon of April 10, 1834, a fire started in the kitchen while the Lalauries were away. Neighbors rushed inside, dousing the fire, and found hapless slaves chained in their quarters, near death from starvation.

The newspapers reported – and it’s suspected they exaggerated – the wretched conditions the slaves had been discovered in, and authored follow-up stories of gory torture and degradation, including one about a slave girl who Madame Lalaurie chased with a whip until the terrified slave jumped to her death from the roof. Today it’s believed the Lalauries may have been one of America’s early victims of yellow journalism. But they kept human beings chained and whatever else happened, that in itself is enough. (It’s a surprise more southern mansions aren’t haunted).

The paper’s tales of the torture, dismemberment, and abuse of the Lalaurie slaves inflamed New Orleans’s sensibilities. An angry mob ran the Lalauries out of town and ripped the mansion apart. The couple escaped and eventually made their way to France.

The apparitions of tormented slaves and of Madame Lalaurie have been reported in the house, as well as moans and weeping. Ghostly re-enactments of the fire have also been reported. People have heard shouting, doors slamming, and even the servants begging for help with putting out the flames. Furniture has moved of its own accord, and visitors to the mansion have reported feelings of oppression.

Adding to the general spookiness, some say Madame Lalaurie was an amateur occultist and a friend of the voodoo queen, Marie Leveau. The mansion was reputedly even too haunted for one of its more recent owners, the actor Nicholas Cage. You can watch him discuss his rationale for buying the home on his interview on Letterman, along with the possibility of whether he’s a vampire. (Nicholas Cage denied the vampirism).

Today’s Lalaurie house doesn’t look much like the original, and the most recent owner hired an upscale designer who played off the haunted theme. (She says she wore holy water whenever she visited the house).

The Hoodoo Detective will be released on Halloween! If you’d like to win an advance review copy, click on the link before the blurb to enter the raffle.

Hoodoo, Haunts, and Horror.

Riga Hayworth just wants to wrap up her supernatural TV series exploring the magic of New Orleans. When she stumbles across a corpse, she becomes a police consultant on a series of occult murders, murders that become all too personal.

The Hoodoo Detective is book six in the Riga Hayworth series of paranormal mystery novels.

Click here for: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Have you ever been inside a house that was truly haunted? I’d love to hear about it.

Posted by Kirsten Weiss. Kirsten is the author of The Hoodoo Detective, book six in the Riga Hayworth series of paranormal mysteries: the urban fantasies, The Metaphysical Detective, The Alchemical Detective, The Shamanic Detective, The Infernal Detective and The Elemental Detective. She’s also the author of Steam and Sensibility, a steampunk novel of suspense.

We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

Please follow us so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )

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Halloween Haiku, Just for You

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by Kassandra Lamb (on behalf of the whole gang)

Our own Kirsten Weiss is hosting a Hoodoo Halloween Blog Party this weekend to celebrate the upcoming release of her new book, The Hoodoo Detective. She also suggested we do a haiku post for Halloween, so we decided to make this our contribution to her party.

And since this was Kirsten‘s idea, she gets to go first:

Footfalls crush dried leaves
Pumpkins cast malformed shadows
Gimme candy now.

Shannon discovered she was even more mathematically challenged than she’d thought. It’s 5, 7, 5, Shan. She finally nailed it:

(photo by Mckelvcm CC-BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia)

Confetti of gold
Flutters, falls, lands on hard earth
Creates skeletons

And from Vinnie:
Closure:
Time of ripe walnuts
my sister’s hope shimmers like
golden aspen leaves.

Along similar lines, I chose to contrast the autumns of my years in Maryland with those of my new home in Florida:

Crisp air, brilliant leaves,
Plucking apples from the trees–
Autumns of my youth.

Black cats and palm trees,
Ghosts and gators and brown leaves–
Southern Hallowed Eve.

And another from the poetic Vinnie:

For Micah:
Like a genie or
sunflower, wispy and bold,
magic, dancing gold.

And if you prefer spooky…

19th century painting by Stanisław Masłowski

From Kirsten:
Brooding autumn wind
shivers skeletal branches
clawing at the moon.

From Kathy:
Eve of All-Hallows
brings moon-cold fog, wisp-fingered,
circling huddled souls.

*shudders* That sent a shiver down my spine. And finally some fun images:

From Vinnie:
Fall:
Crows bombard the street
with walnuts, then strut and pluck
the sweet exposed meat.

From Kathy:
Battered, bruised flyers
need night-vision goggles, or
headlights on broomsticks.

Heroes, ninjas, ghosts:
“Get candy, get candy, get-”
Mission accomplished.

Check out the other posts at ParaYourNormal, then try your hand at your own autumn/Halloween haiku in the comments.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN from the crew at misterio press!!

We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

Please follow us so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )