Saturday, October 31, 2020

RELEASE DAY! BLACK OAK: THE LOVELESS CHRONICLES by Titus Murphy

 


Black Oak 
The Loveless Chronicles 
Chapter 1 
Titus Murphy 

Genre: Horror, Fantasy
Publication Date: October 31, 2020
Publisher: Cosby Media Production 
ASIN: B08KRQDCGY

WELCOME TO BLACK OAK!

In the town of Black Oak, nothing is ever what it seems. Besides the wrangling local country-types, the city is marred by a history of indiscretions, murders, and no-named civilians perpetrating as heroes. But beneath the surface of this "run of the mill," Midwestern locale lurks a pervasive past that is about to come full circle: like a blazing blood moon.

Mark is an unassuming trucker who has fallen for a beautiful clerk working at a “Mom & Pop” store named Sharon, and nothing else in the world matters more than stealing her heart. But after making a run into the Bayou to deliver a package, destiny steps in and serves him a plate of "the unexpected," which sparks the flames of wickedness that will set his hometown ablaze. And as the secrets buried in this town begin to unearth, the truth will fan those burning flames until there is nothing left but ashes and chaos.

In the end, the only mystery left to solve will be if this is isolated to one town or involve the fate of the entire world...

FOREWORD REVIEW: "...full of interesting characters who hold attention...the secrets of their home are a binding force that brings the tale together."

CLARION RATING: 4/5 "In the fantasy novel Black Oak, citizens across two ears reckon with strange creatures among them."


Excerpt:

“A what?” Sharon laughed.

“You know, a PITA. Pain in the ass?”

Sharon couldn’t contain her laughter. The conversation seemed to be leading to a much more relaxed place for Mark, and that had to be a good sign. Sharon playfully pushed Mark and prodded him on. “Tell me the story your mom told you, silly,” she said. ”What was it about?”

“Okay. Now I know this might sound kind of crazy to you, but she would tell me about these wild beasts in the Black Oaks.” 

“Are you serious?” asked Sharon.

Mark nodded. “Very.”

“Well, to be honest, I’ve heard that story over a million times too.”

“Word?”

“Yeah. What, you thought you were the only one it was told to? This is Wichita, Mark. Everyone here has heard that story before. My dad used to tell my cousin and me that story every weekend and virtually every day she was sleeping over during the summer. He said that the forest was run by wild animals with long fangs and claws that could rip a man to shreds with one swing. Said they’d harvest your heart for food and drink your blood like wine.”

“Word? Like werewolves?” Mark asked.

“Yeah. Sorta. I remember how my mom would lean against the threshold of my room, listening with a serious look on her face as if the story my dad was telling us was the truth. And no matter how many times it was told to me, it would always sound the same. Wild beasts, murderous rampages and mysterious sightings in Kansas, especially in the Black Oak Forest. I brushed it off as a myth because it always sounded like some werewolf story to me. But some people say the stories are real because they’ve been told for over a hundred years in Wichita. Who knows, maybe it all could be the truth. But I never have nor do I now give it too much thought. I tend to put my faith in what I can see, and I’ve never seen anything like what my father and others describe in those stories.”

“Me either,” said Mark.

“Well, I tend to live by one rule when it comes to wives’ tales. If it doesn’t happen to me, it’s not real. So since neither of us has ever seen one before, they don’t exist. And that means it was just a story. Something to tell unruly kids, like you and me, to keep us in line.”


About the Author:

Titus Murphy was born and raised on the streets of New Orleans, Louisiana.  From a small child, there was an overarching desire for Titus to do one thing: win. His drive and determination drove him to succeed. Armed with a strong mind, a quick wit, and a sharp tongue, he set out to emblaze his mark on everyone he would encounter. Unknown to him were the overwhelming obstacles and seemingly insurmountable tragedy he would have to endure. From this devastation came a resolve fueled by an uncompromising commitment that resonates through every aspect of his life. Forced from the city he knew and loved, Titus relocated to Atlanta, Georgia. It was there his desire and commitment came together resolutely to birth a dream that had long been held in his heart. Oblivious to detraction, and beyond all doubt, Titus would become an author. From the streets of New Orleans that marked his life, to the ink-graced pages upon which he now pours his soul, Titus Murphy has come to show the world that he is truly…something more. 







Friday, October 30, 2020

INTERVIEW WITH C.A. MASTERSON (Secret Spirit Guardians of Santa Fe)


Let's divert from the scary place with the world is right now and seek some comfort with author C.A. Masterson, who has stopped by for a little chat. Welcome,

SC: Tell me a little bit about your main character of this book.

CAM: Marissa Tahy is my favorite kind of heroine – smart, feisty, brave (maybe to a fault), and a little bit flawed. She lost her brother at a tender young age, and is distrustful of love, and even a little distrustful of family. All her life, she knew they’ve kept secrets from her, but when she finds out the real reason, she puts her personal life aside to do what’s necessary for everyone’s good.

SC: Sounds like she rushes into things head first. I like her! We also like the paranormal around here.  Do you believe in the paranormal and if so, do you have an experience you can share?

CAM: Though I personally haven’t encountered a spirit face to face, I’ve had experiences that made me believe in the paranormal. I love ghost tours, and orbs have appeared in photos I’ve taken at Gettysburg. While in New Orleans, as the guide in the cemetery was telling a story about a brother and sister who both died in the cemetery of "natural causes." A paranormal team left a teddy bear with a camera and recorder inside, and heard a conversation between them while the teddy bear was being carried around. *shivers* I took this photo. Can you see them?

[New Orleans Cemetery photo]

SC: Sorry, the photo doesn't want to show up for us. Ghost in the machine? What titles are you working on now that you can tell us about?

CAM: I have notebooks of ideas that I’d love to have the time to develop. At the moment, I have finished the first of two books that follows the story of two girls from opposite worlds whose lives collide. Set in an alternate world, it’s different from anything I’ve written before. I also have notes for a women’s fiction  that I’ve had in mind for awhile.

Thanks so much for having me at Supernatural Central!

SC: Thanks so much for visiting us. Come back anytime. Let's take a look at your novel now.

Secret Spirit Guardians of Santa Fe
C.A. Masterson  

Genre:  Fantasy
Publisher: Wild Rose Press
Date of Publication:  October 5, 2020
ISBN:  978-1-5092-3351-9 Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-5092-3352-6 Digital
Number of pages:  330
Word Count:  82,600
Cover Artist:  Debbie Taylor

Tagline:  Most families have quirks, but not like Marissa’s.

Book Description:

After Marissa Tahy returns home to Santa Fe, she is haunted by visions and glimpses of danger no one else sees: the spirit of Old Man Gloom in his true form. 

For a hundred years, people have burned their troubles in the spirit’s effigy at the Zozobra festival, each year making the spirit angrier and more powerful.  This year, Old Man Gloom demands his due. The vengeful spirit targets those Marissa loves. 

Even when Marissa discovers the secret history binding her family to Zozobra, joining their forces may not be enough to prevent the furious spirit from burying Santa Fe beneath an avalanche of misery.

Book Trailer:  https://youtu.be/j3HVxC6azcQ 

Amazon     BN

Excerpt:

The crack between worlds happened before I decided to move home to Santa Fe. Had the thought occurred to me, I’d probably have laughed, a little. Until the memory pushed through, a half-remembered nightmare hidden in an undercurrent of emotion, but

always there, flowing beneath the surface of consciousness. Sometimes it’s better if those feelings stay buried, where they can’t pull you under.

After twenty-four years, here I was. Back in the City Different. Because sometimes, life makes hard choices for you. Otherwise, I’d still be in San Diego, not in my aunt’s house, trying hard to pretend I wasn’t a stranger to my own family. For the last half hour, I’d tried to shake off the odd sensation after Zelda made an impromptu, awkward stop at the site of my childhood home, whatever that was about. No longer commenting

on family social media posts from a distance, instead I was in the thick of things.

“How’s Javi been?” I asked Zelda. My aunt had answered my offer to help prepare dinner by handing me a glass of wine and telling me to relax, she had it under control. I had no doubt. Despite driving me from the airport, she was as cool as a freshly picked jalapeno, and as likely to burn you.

“Wonderful. But you can ask him yourself at dinner.” Her deep, distinctive voice was like smoke pouring across gravel.

“Cool, I can’t wait.” When I’d last spent time with my cousin, we’d been kids. Closer than most first cousins, we shared a family conspiracy, hoping none of our classmates would find out that we were not like any of them. No matter where we went, we didn’t belong.

Zelda’s silver bracelets jingled as she briskly arranged vegetables around haddock fillets. “Phoebe will be excited to see you again.”

“You still have her?”

“Of course. She’s as old as you, which makes her barely middle-aged. Phoebe, dear,” she called, “we have company.”

A squawk sounded from the other room, where sunshine poured across the floor in a welcoming sea of light.

I’d always loved my aunt’s house. From sunup to sundown, daylight flooded through the house’s tall windows. The wood-framed stucco structure was a typical style for Santa Fe, not much different from the others in the neighborhood. What had stood out in my

memory was the tall wooden fence that bordered the yard, painted a vivid shade of blue, with myriad crosses along the top of the front gate.

“Careful,” Zelda said. “She’s testy sometimes.”

“Aren’t we all?” I only half joked.

Before my aunt could answer, I made my way from the kitchen to the sunroom beside it. The glass enclosure looked out onto the back yard and faced the outdoor fireplace. On either side of the tall chimney, colorful painted angels decorated its white stucco surface.

The bird cage, as tall as me, occupied a corner. And as always, the door sat wide open so Phoebe could climb in if she wanted, which she almost never did unless she got hungry. A bamboo perch ran above the cage, between the two potted palm trees that provided shade. There Phoebe sat, eyeballing me. Sunlight caught the green and blue feathers, making their colors rich as jewels.

At my approach, the parrot bobbed its head and danced along the perch. Even a nip from Phoebe’s curved beak hurt like hell, so I kept a few feet between us and cooed my greeting.

Pans rattled in the kitchen. “Be nice, Phoebe girl.”

The bird gave no indication of recognizing me. I didn’t know why I’d expected a different reaction. Because I’d taught it more than fifty words, over two decades earlier? Moving home shouldn’t reduce me to childish notions.

So much for a reunion. I returned to the kitchen.

“Sure I can’t help with anything?”

“When do you start your new job?”

“Monday.” Fluttering in my belly reminded me it was coming up fast. Another long adjustment period awaited me, learning a new job, getting to know all the quirks and qualities of my coworkers. After I’d been hired as the new reporter at the Santa Fe Chronicle, I’d read the online edition every day. The stories helped give me a sense about the writers. Glimmers of their personalities shone through in their word choices, the nearly undetectable spin they gave topics.

“That doesn’t leave you much time for moving in.”

Spooning a marinade over the dish, Zelda flicked up her gaze.

The look hit me like lightning. The cogs were turning in my aunt’s head; I could practically see the rotation behind her eyes. If I didn’t put her off track, Zelda would start commandeering my daily life.

I folded my arms and shifted toward the island, a not-too-subtle body language indicating my need for a barrier between us. “The two guys I hired to bring my stuff are supposed to arrive tomorrow morning. I don’t have much, so they can get everything inside the apartment in a few hours. I prefer to take my time settling in.” All taken care of, my subtext said. No need for Zelda to worry. She could divert those black eyes elsewhere.

On cue, Zelda flashed her Mona Lisa smile and glanced away. “Too bad I gave my extra furniture to Javi.”

I watched my aunt with a mixture of wonder and frustration. All these years, and Zelda still pretended. Spoke with flawless Spanish enunciation, wore her long black hair in a bun at the back of her neck, decorated her house with painted ceramic geckos and metal sun faces, even named her son Javier to avoid question of our true nationality. My parents had committed the same sins of omission and pretense and expected us children to do the same.



About the Author 

Award-winning author C.A. Masterson loves stories of any genre. Multi-published in contemporary to historical, fantasy/dark fantasy to paranormal/speculative, she sometimes mashes genres. In 2010, The Pearl S. Buck Foundation awarded first place to her short literary story, Christmas Eve at the Diner on Rathole Street. Her short literary story, All is Calm, All is Bright, was awarded second place in the annual Pennwriters Short Story contest in 2005.

Visit her at http://paintingfirewithwords.blogspot.com or look for her romance stories as Cate Masters at http://catemasters.blogspot.com and in strange nooks and far-flung corners of the web.




 

 


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Tuesday, October 27, 2020

INTERVIEW WITH TYLER CRAM (The Curse of the Mountain)



Ever leave your phone at work and then get a flat tire on the way home? Ever do this during COVID? Yeah…that was my week last week. Glad it's over.

Today we have author Tyler Cram stopping by to chat about the new book and answer a few questions. Welcome,Tyler!

SC: Tell me a little bit about your main character of this book.

TC: Thank you so much for having me! So, I have five main characters, four of them are best friends fresh out of high school and the other is a young, Byronic female police officer. She was attacked by a werewolf but not the Hollywood kind where if you get scratched you start howling at the next full moon. It’s a demonic one that eats your flesh and punished your soul. Officer Sarah survives her scrape with the beast but doesn’t change. At least, not conventionally. It changes her as a person into a sad, bitter ghost of the person she once was. She has an amazing development throughout the story that I couldn’t be more proud of.

SC: That's certainly a new twise on an old tale. Do you believe in the paranormal and if so, do you have an experience you can share?

TC: Okay, so, I live in Florida. Some call it “The devil’s armpit”, I simply call it, “swamp”. I have a family home in North Carolina that I go to every summer, it’s on a mountain in the middle of nowhere and that’s where my novel takes place. It’s the most beautiful state. The cascading mountains and deciduous forests. I can almost smell the pines now.

The first day I started writing my horror story… something happened to me that has never happened before.

I finished the first few pages and went to bed. The beginning of my story spooked even myself. I woke up at around four in the morning and couldn’t move. Sleep paralysis. I’ve never had to deal with that stuff in my life and let me tell you. I certainly don’t care to do it again. I couldn’t move my hands, and in the pitch-black darkness, I saw a wide, wicked, bright smile over me and nothing else. Like a demented cheshire cat. There was nothing I could do. After a few moments it went away, and I could move again. I know people say it’s just the place of your mind stuck between the dream and waking worlds, but what if it’s not?

I’m going to stop thinking about it now.

SC: Thanks for sharing it with us.  What titles are you working on now that you can tell us about?

TC: I just started writing a story about a community of old people who stay alive and youthful by intercepting people driving through their rural town… but then they sacrifice those people to an ancient native American god who lives in a nearby lake. It’s going to get pretty crazy.

SC: Thanks for the chat. Let's take a look at your novel now.

    The Curse of the Mountain
    Tyler Cram

    Genre: Horror
    Publisher: Darkstroke books
    Date of Publication: October 27, 2020
    ISBN:979-8684886829
    ASIN: B08H5N4H1F
    Number of pages:236
    Word Count: 76K
    Cover Artist:Laurence Patterson

    Tagline: Death stalks a town. An ancient evil. A long-buried         secret.

    Book Description:

    A young officer responding to a call in the middle of the night about chickens being slaughtered turns into a night of reckoning when a deadly creature emerges from the woods. 

Years later, while on a hike in the North Carolina wilderness, four friends discover an old book. When they open it, they black out – only to find on waking that they have released the evil things that live within the pages. 

As they fight to keep their neighbors from dying, they unravel a dark secret that the leaders of their town have held since their ancestors first settled. 

But can the boys really stop the devil?

Excerpt:

Roanville’s entire existence was archaic. Nothing was truly that modern there. The town was built on small businesses, a community full of people betting on themselves and their local companions. It was a logging community in the 1800s, it wasn’t a sweet place to live; it only existed to make a living. Slowly it crept its way up through time and modernity to be sustainable for all family types, but it still had trouble catching up. The locals joked that the slogan for their lonesome town should have been ‘The town that time forgot’. There were still pay phones in the city that were frequently used. The police and fire department shared a building because the cost of running both in separate buildings would’ve crippled the town. There were only four cops on the force, the Chief, Frank Gilmore alongside his deputies: Bradley Fine, a lazy native who was ready to retire at the age of forty. Garrett Brock, a stable and smart man around the same age as Brad. Brock was Frank’s right-hand man because of his dedication to the job. He served papers, and wasn’t afraid to give people he knew speeding tickets. The most important thing to Brock was that he needed to get paid. The police force worked off a ticket quota system. Brock held no prisoners. The newest addition to the team was Sarah Mann.

A few years ago, Sarah got a call from the outskirts of town. The trailer park, ‘Disneyland’, as it was called by the denizens, was the source of drugs in Roanville. It was constantly surveyed by the cops.

The caller said someone had been killing the chickens that the Quinn family owned, butchering them once a month since the beginning of the year. Sullivan Quinn didn’t even entertain the thought of someone else doing it. He knew it was his neighbor Ichabod Turner. Ichabod had a loose grasp on the English language. He was seventy-five and was skin and bone, Sarah thought he looked like a skeleton from a Halloween store. He had a yellow-stained beard and long grey frizzy hair. His eyes were sunken and his face was drawn.

He spoke as if there was a marble on his tongue. “Da… Sully… he, uh, he say it wah me ’cus I ain’t never wen to he granpappy fun’ral back een March. I say to Sully ‘daggom, boy, da’worl don’t stop for nobody granpappy, not even yours’ well… he don’t like dat much so he been plannin’ a war and dat boy, daggom, he try’na get me arrested… sheeeeit,” he explained to Officer Sarah Mann when she went down to mediate the situation.

It was night when she talked to them. She got called down because one of Sullivan’s chickens was shrieking, and when he went to go look on the side of his double-wide trailer where his coop was, its innards had been tossed around like dripping scarlet streamers. The fresh red blood hadn’t yet permeated the loose dirt.

He looked over across the street and saw the light inside Ichabod’s house flick off suddenly. Sullivan began to bang on the door, threatened to grab his .44 and shoot his way in. Ichabod called the Sheriff’s office. When Sarah arrived, Sully was pacing in front of Ichabod’s trailer with a revolver in his hand, Sarah jumped out of her patrol vehicle and yelled, “Put the goddamn gun down, Sullivan!”

“He killed my chickens! Every month, massacred! He did it, Sarah!” He was Standing in baggy jean shorts and a stained white tank top, pointing his gun at the house. Sullivan was a tall, skinny guy who had trouble with pills. He worked the lumberyard and a log fell off a pile and broke his leg, snapped like a twig, the bone protruded from his skin and was shattered in multiple places, nearly having to get it amputated. He got hooked on painkillers shortly thereafter. He was thirty, but the labor and drugs aged him. He used to be a hirsute young man, always kept his thick, golden hair shoulder length, and stayed clean shaven. Now he was nearly bald save for some patches, and had a scuzzy, holey black beard, speckled with blond and red strands that were so long off his chin he looked like a goat.

“Drop the gun, Sullivan, or I will be forced to pull mine out as well,” she yelled, her words weaved through the alleys between the trailers. She had her hand fixed on her Glock 17 attached to her hip.

Sullivan dropped the gun to his side. “Just get him out here so you can arrest him,” He said condescendingly.

Sarah walked to Ichabod’s front door, her eyes never leaving Sullivan. She was born and raised in Raleigh and ended up going to North Carolina State University. She had no extracurricular activities, no significant other. The idea of being a police officer took all of her time and thought. Frank found her by chance when he visited the Raleigh NCSU campus to meet with a friend that happened to be her Professor. She was in his office when Frank came in. He offered her a job by the end of the conversation. She was twenty-two years old, even in a small town she was making sixty thousand a year. Many scholarships through the state for women in policing gave her some extra bumps. Now she had been with the Chief for about four years and was sick of all the hick bullshit she had to deal with. A feud over killing chickens? What happened to my life? Now she was a cantankerous, young cop in a trailer park.

She banged on Ichabod’s door, the way only a cop can. He swung it open immediately. She led him into the middle of the trailer park’s road underneath a yellow-orange mercury streetlight. There was one every fifty feet, and in between each post was pitch darkness. As soon as someone would step out of the ten-foot diameter light beam, they would be completely gone.

Sarah asked, “Sullivan, what makes you think Ichabod did this?” She started writing in her notebook.

“He has had a vendetta against my family for some time now, Sarah. He didn’t go to my grandfather’s funeral a few months back and they were best friends,” he said politely, with a southern drawl.

“Now das just boolshit… Aaron hated my guts, boy, he tol me a few week back ‘fore he died dat he hated me for my, uh, demeanor or some shit. Dat I was jus too nasty and he didn’t wan to be seen wit me. But let me tell you bof dat he was nastier den a hooker lickin’ a frog to find her prince charmin’ ’cause he sexed he goddamn cousin… I caught him, too, in the back of his old pick-up back by route one-one-six, where da, uh, post office is. Dats why he hate me, boy.”

Sarah tried to understand what he was saying. She had never heard him uppity the few times she interacted with him. She stopped writing down what he was saying halfway through his aside.

“Don’t you fuckin’ slander my dead grandfather, you dirty shit,” Sullivan gritted through his words.

“Hey, Shut it, both of you,” Sarah said, looking up from her notebook, then back down again to write.

“How would I slaughter dem chickies, boy? I look like a serial killer to you?” Ichabod said, pulling on the length of his tarnished beard.

“Yeah, you really do. The guts were thrown out of them, Officer, and I think this man is sick enough to do it. I saw him standing and pissing off of Arthur Scott’s truck going seventy miles an hour on the highway coming into town,” Sullivan said, thinking that would be the final blow. She didn’t even look up and mumbled, “I expect nothing less from this town.”

“It’s a damn dog doin dis shit, I’m tellin’ ya’s. Couple miles down da road, that farmer, uh, I forget his name, two of his sheep, dead. I know it some damn big dog or wolf, you can quote me on dat one, lady,” Ichabod said.

“Officer,” she retorted, looking at him with fire in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Officer, but dis mother fucking boy, he—what the fuck?” He squinted past Sarah, three streetlights down the road—an animal.

“What the fuck is that thing?” Sullivan said.

Sarah turned, and her throat dried immediately when she saw it. It didn’t move. She pulled her pistol out of her holster with some difficulty, she never had to pull it before. She had never seen a dog this big. Even from this distance she could see every detail of it. On all fours, it was five feet tall with paws the size of baseball gloves. Its fur was long, dark brown. Sarah could tell that the head was over a foot long, its prodigiously large vulpine teeth hung out of its mouth, glittering by the dingy light. The streetlight gleamed in the beast’s eyes. It stared at her. Her breathing started to sputter, she couldn’t control it. She shook with her gun in her hand as she raised it. A tear built up in her eye. She felt a wave of cold throughout her body as gooseflesh raised on her skin.

The beast stood on its hind legs, the light painted onto the creature and revealing its oversized dog-like body. Ichabod and Sullivan both screamed and ran into their houses.

Full stretch, it stood at nine feet tall. Sarah didn’t move. She stood there waiting for it to start coming towards her, the moon was going to reach its apogee in the sky and that’s when their duel began.

 

About the Author:

Tyler is a horror aficionado. He has been obsessed with the genre since he was too young to be watching it. It started with An American Werewolf in Paris—the awful 90’s sequel to the original—and snowballed ever since. His influences stem from Stephen King, Joe Hill, Shirley Jackson, Algernon Blackwood, and countless others. He studied them almost academically, peering into their minds psychologically, pulling back the curtains to see what drove them to creating their stories. 

The answer is reality. Tyler loves the idea that all great horror writers use the real world to concoct monsters. At certain points, you don’t know whether it’s the real ones or the fake ones that are scarier. He decided he wanted to open that box for himself, create something that no one has read.

That’s when the ideas start.





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SPOOKTACULAR GUEST BLOG: KEEPING YOUR PETS SAFE ON HALLOWEEN with TENA STETLER (Hidden Gypsy Magic)




Since I'm a big animal person, I’ve compiled a few tips on Keeping your Pets Safe on Halloween.

It's almost time for another spooktacular sequel in the annual Halloween tradition. A holiday beloved in countries around the world, appealing to people looking for fun and thrills-- But for their pets...not so much! Halloween festivities can be stressful, to say the least and downright hazardous at times. A few tips to keep everyone safe and enjoying the holiday!

1. Treats - Chocolate is poisonous to cats, dogs, and parrots. The darker it is the more toxic it is. One ounce of dark chocolate can poison a 50-pound dog. Keep these treats out of your pets' reach. Make sure everyone in your household understands, especially children, how crucial it is that no human treats are given to pets.

2. Alarming sounds and sights - The constant doorbell, ringing, unfamiliar guest, and little monsters running around is a recipe for disaster for your pets. They could try to escape or display unexpected aggression.  Keep your pet sequestered in a section of the home where they can avoid this anxiety-causing activities. Provide food, favorite toys, and check on them often.

3. Don't leave pets outside! Pets have been known to be abused or killed on Halloween night by cruel people. I owned a black cat for twenty-two years, he was the best cat ever. But we made sure to keep him inside several days before Halloween and several days after. Yep he was no pleased!

4. Never take your dog trick or treating for all of the above reasons. Dogs can easily be spooked by all the Halloween hubbub. If they run away or bite someone it will end your evening of fun.

5. Dangerous Decorations - Electrical cords and batteries used to operate the exciting Halloween decorations can be hazardous to your pets. Chewing on cords can cause electrocution, chewing on batteries can cause chemical burns, if swallowed can cause intestinal blockage. Artificial cobwebs look cool as heck, but they can also present a choking or entanglement hazard to curious pets. Nightmarish Pet Costumes - Most pets are happiest in the skin they were born in. LOL Yet pet owners will dress their fur, scaled, or feathered babies up for Halloween. Don't put your pet in a costume unless they are completely comfortable with it.  I admit I dress up my dog and parrot for Halloween. I choose costumes they're comfortable in, do not hinder movement, sight, hearing, or ability to breathe, bark, scream, or meow.

6. Eerie Glow Items - Glow necklaces and Glow sticks can help keep people safe on Halloween, but pets not so much.  They can cause gastrointestinal distress and chewed fragments can pose a choking hazard.

7. One last thought - Opening the door repeatedly for trick-or-treaters creates the possibility of pets to slip outside. Collars and tags work if someone locates and collects your wayward pet. Make sure the information on the tags is up-to-date. Microchips offer permanent identification. Just make sure your information is correct with the company who supports your pet microchips.

Hidden Gypsy Magic
A Witch’s Journey Series
Book Three
Tena Stetler

Genre: Paranormal Romance/Mystery
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Date of Publication:  September 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5092-3256-7
ASIN: B08FXBNLW5
Number of pages: 330
Word Count: 85,144
Cover Artist: Kristian Norris

Tagline: The consequences of awakening hidden gypsy magic could forever alter life as they know it!

Book Description:

The Salem Wildlife Sanctuary is Gwen Taylor's life work.  Her Irish Gypsy heritage provides a hidden talent she uses to help the creatures under her care.  But even her magical skills can't help new rescues in dire need of veterinary care.

The opportunity of signing on as the vet for Gwen's sanctuary dropped into Brock Scutter's lap after he expanded his practice to include wildlife. The personal attraction he and Gwen experience is undeniable the more their professional and personal lives collide.

Touring the only "non-haunted" house in Salem they both feel a spark of magic.  A trip to his family's cabin uncovers a heritage he didn't know existed.  If they want a future together, it means facing the consequences of awakening hidden Gypsy magic and a race against the clock to correct past wrongs.

Amazon      Amazon UK      Amazon AU       Amazon CA

BN      iTunes


"This house may not have a history of magic, but I'd bet it's magical. You're going to put an offer in. Right?"

"As I said before, it may be completely out of my price range."

"I have a feeling the house has been waiting for you." Gwen flung her hand to her mouth, her face flushed, and her gaze swiveled to him. "I don't know what made me say that."

Looking thoughtful, he grinned. "Since the day I stumbled upon Pepper's secret — then discovered that you and I share the gift or curse of gypsy blood, things have been different—" Pausing, he shoved his hand in his jean's pocket and jingled the change in his pocket. "I've been different. It's as if knowing magic exists awakened something in me."

"Join the club. Years ago my best friend Pepper made a believer out of me. In fact, there were times I wished—never mind. Whether it was my outlook or as you said magic awakened. But to be fair, I've always had what I called a sixth sense with animals, attuned to their feelings, almost their thoughts, fears, that kind of thing. Pepper called it my talent. But as we became close, I noticed other abilities… you'll think I'm crazy."

"Try me." He moved closer to her and the front door banged open. Quickly he rushed to the top of the stairs.

 

 




About the Author:

Tena Stetler is a best-selling author of award winning paranormal romance with an over-active imagination.  She wrote her first vampire romance as a tween, to the chagrin of her mother and the delight of her friends. Colorado is home; shared with her husband, a brilliant Chow Chow, a spoiled parrot and a forty-five-year-old box turtle. When she’s not writing, her time is spent kayaking, camping, hiking, biking  or just relaxing in the great Colorado outdoors.

 Her books tell tales of magical kick-ass women and mystical alpha males that dare to love them. Travel, adventure and a bit of mystery flourish in her books along with a few companion animals to round out the tales.


















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