Today we have author Denise Howard visiting us. Welcome, Denise!
SC: Tell me a little bit about your main character of this
book.
DH: Gracie is the name of the main character she is a teenage
girl from a small town. She does not know she is a witch at fire and has the
bizarre way of finding out. I would consider her a strong personality she has
handled a lot through her life. A fun fact is my main character is named after
my baby sister Grace, not based on her those two share very different
personalities.
SC: Do you believe in the paranormal and if so, do you have an
experience you can share?
DH: Of course I believe in the paranormal. When I was younger
around 15 years old I was using an Ouija board with my friend at a party and I
learned his dad died when he was younger and that was something he never told
anybody. I do believe we were communicating with my friend’s dad. He is a very
private person and I was friends with him for years and I did not know that
detail about his life till that day.
SC: I don't run into too many Ouija players these days. Good on you. What titles are you working on now that you can tell us
about?
DH: Without giving it away I am working on my second book to
the Hidden Lake series. Except new characters, more drama and even more
fighting and character development!
SC: Sounds fun, I'm sure your fans can't wait. Let's take a look at Hidden Lake now.
Hidden Lake: The Prophecy
Denise Howard
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Northern Amour Writing
Date of Publication: 18 March 2022
ASIN: B09CRN5YYC
Number of pages: 195
Word Count: 50,383
Cover Artist: Northern Amour Writing
Tagline: What can go wrong in the hands of a newly founded teenage witch?
Book Description:
Enter a world as new to you as it is to teenager Gracie Willton. On her 17th Birthday she learns about a secret her mother has been keeping from her. Gracie comes from a long blood line of powerful witches. Not only is Gracie a witch she is also considered the prophecy.
Join Gracie on her journey as she learns the depths of her powers and how to control them. See how the prophecy unfolds and the bounds of the supernatural world are affected.
However, as a 17 year old girl you still need to be concerned about high school grades and cute boys right?
Denise lives with her partner and their four legged fur babies. She loves small town living and visiting the big city lights. When she isn’t writing or indulging in reading the next book on her endless bucket list, she enjoys nature and binge watching TV shows.
Denise has a college diploma in Intra-Oral Dental Assisting and in Business. She is currently enrolled in Laurentian University working on her undergraduate. On top of that she works full time within the Government sector. She is an advocate for equality and hopes one day to become a bestselling author.
Series Tagline: Kendra sees ghosts, and then her BFF, Jenna, becomes one. The two friends and FBI agent Derek Knight form a team that fights for the victims of heinous, supernatural crimes.
Book Tagline: The FBI-VCU-SI team deals with the ultimate test of good vs. evil when the powerful, evil entity Chaos joins forces with the dark side.
Book Description:
Kendra Sparks’ vacation gets cut short when Sassy Blaze, the captured voodoo priestess of the dark arts, hangs herself in prison, and a string of curious deaths follows.
Attempting to stop Sassy costs lives, relationships, and creates unexpected complications, especially for Derek and Kendra.
Who will defeat the voodoo, dark witch when she can possess whoever she wants?
The FBI-VCU-SI team must deal with the ultimate test of good vs. evil and it’s not looking promising, especially when the powerful, evil entity Chaos joins forces with the dark side.
About the Author:
S. Peters-Davis writes multi-genre stories but loves penning a good page-turning paranormal or supernatural suspense-thriller, especially when it’s a ghost story and a romance. When she’s not writing, editing, or reading, she’s hiking, RV’ing, fishing, playing with grandchildren, or enjoying time with her favorite muse (her husband) in Southwest Michigan.
She writes Adult and NA paranormal, supernatural, suspense romance novels.
For a current listing of her book links, check her author or publisher homepage below. She’s listed as: Davis, S. Peters
Thanks for dropping by the page today. We have author Donnette Smith with us to talk about her novel BURIED ALIVE. Welcome, Donnette!
SC: Tell me a little bit about your main character of this book.
DS: Jenna Langley is the kind of woman who takes matters deeply to heart. Like for instance, when Cole Rainwater, the teenage love of her life promised her it would be she and him forever, that was as good as written in stone as far as she was concerned. Even though tragedy struck in their lives at the age of seventeen, and they were forced apart for ten years, there wasn’t a day that went by she didn’t think of him and remember the vow they’d made so long ago.
Jenna has a way of sympathizing with others on a profound level. And I believe it is this gift that awakened her clairvoyant abilities at a young age. Although she sustains these incredible, psychic talents, she would give anything to just be a normal girl living an average life. But she finds the longer she must content with these psychic episodes, the more she begins to realize that being ordinary will never be in the cards for her. And she struggles to find a way to accept that.
Jenna also has an independent streak a mile wide. More than anything, her take-charge attitude came from her mother’s constant meddling in her life. Too many important decisions had been taken away from her when she was a teen, and the penance paid for her mom’s intrusion was Jenna’s happiness. When she became a woman, she decided no one would be responsible for the course of her life other than herself. And when something happens that makes her rethink that, she must decide if letting go of her independence is worth the reward she stands to gain.
SC: We all certainly have some tough decisions to make on our journey. Sounds like Jenna can handle it. Do you believe in the paranormal and if so, do you have an experience you can share?
DS: I believe when people fully open themselves up to the world around them, they will be blessed with an insight into things they can’t see. Call it a sixth sense, an intuition, whatever label you want to stick on it. Like white noise…there are things out there beyond the realm of our knowledge. And the awesome thing is, we can all tap into it, simply by paying attention to what we can’t see, and allowing ourselves to believe we are not the only ones exiting on earth.
There have been times in my life when I’ve seen things before they’ve happened. And I’ve heard people say things before they had an opportunity to speak them. For instance, I’ll never forget what happened right before my husband’s father passed away. His bone cancer had progressed, and we got the call they were transporting him to hospice. We drove down as quickly as we could. We’d spent a few days with him, and we knew the time was drawing near. But he’d held on for so long that the nurses were baffled as to what was keeping him from letting go.
I remember sitting in his room with the family. We all knew he was waiting for something, and everyone began to ask what it could be. The nurse, who stood by his bedside looked at us and announced he was waiting for his youngest son, Michael. I remember at the time thinking how strange it was she would say that when she didn’t know who Michael was and had no idea that he was on his way to hospice to see his father. It wasn’t long after Michael arrived to say goodbye to his dad, that his father passed away.
Hours later, the family and the nurse who had been in the room with us, gathered outside. We were all sitting around the picnic bench when someone asked again why he had held on so long. Me and my husband’s sister looked at each other, and we both said in unison that he had been waiting for Michael to arrive. Everyone stared at us in shock. And I said, remember. The nurse said as much in his room. The nurse shook her head and insisted she’d never spoken any such words. Everyone else agreed they hadn’t heard her say that at all.
But me and my sister-in-law heard her say it as clear as a bell. I knew that day from the bottom of my heart that was my husband’s father’s way of reaching out to us to let us know who he had been waiting for.
SC: Thanks so much for sharing that with us. Sounds like you've met the Clair's... i.e. Clairaudience. For those who can't see into the future, what titles are you working on now that you can tell us about?
DS: I’m working on book 3 of the Spirit Walker Series, The Stolen. In book 3, Jenna Langley faces her biggest challenge yet. She gets kidnapped by a human trafficking ring, and she must rely on the guidance of a dead girl who was once their captive to survive this latest horror.
Writing about the subject of human trafficking was something that pressed upon my heart. Human trafficking has become the second most profitable criminal activity in the United States, second only to illegal drugs. Yet, it doesn’t seem to get the attention it deserves. There are an estimated 27 million victims of trafficking. 50% are children, and 80% are women and girls. That’s a frightening statistic. And it begs the question of what exactly it’s going to take to stop these monsters.
SC: Best of luck with that! Thanks for chatting with us today. Let's take a look at Book Two from your Spirit Walker series now.
Tagline: When your sixth sense speaks, believe it.
Book Description:
As a clairvoyant, Jenna Langley has foreseen her fair share of murder. But the night she is haunted by visions of a woman buried alive in a makeshift casket, nothing prepares her for the chilling reality that the victim she saw in her vision is herself.
Having survived a recent tragedy, and now tasked with the duty of planning her wedding, everyone attributes Jenna’s disturbing dreams to stress. Even her fiancé does his best to convince her she is perfectly safe.
But someone wants revenge and Jenna is the target of that obsession. Her only hope for survival is if her fiancé, Detective Cole Rainwater, can root out who wants her dead before time runs out.
At the same time
a sharp intake of breath filled her lungs, Jenna’s eyes snapped open. Blackness
surrounded her; panic set in instantly as soft whimpers set off a series of
echoes. It took a moment for it to sink in the sounds were her own.
Raising both
hands, her palms struck a hard object not a foot above her head. She slid her
palms over a rough surface, searching, feeling across the top and down the
sides of what felt like a wooden crate.
That embodied
her like a tomb.
She let go a
shriek, crying out in agony, “No! no! please, no!” There was no doubt she was
in the very place that stoked the deepest fear in her heart. Just the way her
vision forewarned. She was buried alive.
About the Author:
Although not a native Texan, Donnette Smith has spent more than half her life living in the Lone Star State. She is an entrepreneur and former business owner of Tailor Maid Services LLC.
After spending a few years working as a journalist for the Blue Ridge Tribune, she realized her love for writing romantic detective novels. Her stories cover a wide range of genres, from horror, time travel, mystery, fantasy, paranormal, and thriller. But one theme stays the same, there is always a detective solving a crime, and a gorgeous victim he would lay down his life to protect.
Donnette’s biggest fascination is with forensic science and crime scene investigations. Her first mystery/suspense novel, Lady Gabriella, was published in 2008. Her second novel was a horror/mystery/suspense titled Cunja and debuted in 2012.
Her latest released novel, book 1 of the Spirit Walker Series, Killing Dreams is a fantasy/romance story and became available in September of 2021. Book 2 of the Spirit Walker Series, Buried Alive, is soon to be released on March 14, 2022.
Tagline: Sent away because of her feelings for a girl, she discovered a birthright of magic at her aunt’s lake house.
Book Description:
Thirteen-year-old Zinnia is about to turn fourteen when her life is flipped upside down. With her parents on the brink of a divorce, Zinnia is sent to spend the summer with her eccentric great-aunts on their lake house away from her home in Manhattan. Zinnia arrives at her aunt’s massive Victorian house, with a heavy heart.
After a recent falling out, she had with her best friend Charlotte, who betrayed her trust by showing the meanest and most popular girl in school a letter Zinnia wrote confessing her feelings for Charlotte. The aunts rely on practical magic, acceptance, and old family friends to help heal their great-niece in more ways than one.
But what no one expected that summer was for Zinnia to meet Billie, another girl who was more like Zinnia than she would have guessed.
Charlie flashed me a big, fatherly smile. The wrinkles around his eyes traveled down the sides of his face, and for a moment I couldn’t believe how time had caught up to him since my last visit. “Well, look at you, Zinnia! You’ve shot up like a string bean.”
Charlie reached straight for my suitcase and threw it into the truck. His hearty laugh filled the cabin as we both buckled in. “I almost didn’t recognize you there with how you’ve grown.” I looked down at my cramped legs, desperate to stretch out as my knees touched the glove compartment. Charlie patted my back and turned the key inside the ignition, bringing life to the beat-up truck as the engine groaned like an old dog too tired to wake from its nap. “Here we go, String Bean! Off like a herd of turtles at the races.”
I cracked a smile at this, almost by accident, before wiping it away and looking out of the window. I could admit that I liked Ole Charlie. He’d been neighbors with my aunts for over forty years, and I’d known him all my life, so I thought it was safe to say that he was basically family. “Wait till your aunts get a look at you, string bean.”
I rolled my eyes as I tried, and once again failed, to conceal my smile. Every time I visited my aunts, Ole Charlie gave me a new nickname. I suppose my nickname for this summer is going to be string bean. I whispered it to myself for a test drive and annoyingly, it wasn’t so annoying.
“It’s been a few years since you and your mom visited us on Ambrosia Hill.” Charlie looked over at me with his old brown eyes full of affection. “Not ashamed to say we’ve missed you, string bean.”
About the Author:
Rebecca Henry is an American author living abroad in England. She is a devoted vegan who gardens, practices yoga, crafts, travels the world, and bakes. Rebecca’s favorite holiday is Halloween, and she is obsessed with anything and everything witchy! Besides writing fiction, Rebecca is also the author of her vegan holiday cookbook collection and green living lifestyle book. Her love for animals, baking with her family, having a plant-based diet, and cruelty-free, green lifestyle inspired her nonfiction novels. You can find all Rebecca’s books on Amazon and Goodreads.
How was your weekend? Keeping away from the news? Good idea. Let's take a few moments to sit and chat with author Maria DeVivo who is here to talk about her novel DAWN OF THE BLOOD WITCH Book One. Welcome, Maria.
SC: Tell me a little bit about your main character of this book.
MD: Josephine “Joephie” Turner is the main character of Witch of the Black Circle. The audience finds out rather quickly that her mom always says that she was cursed by a witch. Mother moves them constantly from town to town so that Joephie never gets too settled in one place, and too comfortable around the wrong people who could be potential bad influences on her or demonic cult members trying to get her to join their coven. It’s rather laughable to Joephie, who, by now, at 17 and a senior, is just riding it out until she graduates high school and can move as far away from her mother as possible. And every town they live in, her mother forces her to join the local Youth Ministry so as to walk the straight and narrow. But this time is different. At the First Northport Assembly of God in Northport, Long Island, New York, Joephie encounters a group of occult-sensitive teens, the town’s infamous baddie, and a mysterious youth minister, who all crack open the secrets of her true nature.
SC: Do you believe in the paranormal and if so, do you have an experience you can share?
MD: I’ve always been attracted to the paranormal. For as long as I can remember there’s always been beauty in the darkness and things bumping around in the shadows. I’ve had/have my fair share of paranormal experiences, but if I told you, then I’d be giving away a lot of plot points in my series! One thing I can share is this: my sister and I are inherently connected. We talk to each other (without talking), we know things, we’re very emotionally sensitive to each other. We live in different states and are 5 years apart. People would say, “oh, it’s the sister thing.” But it’s more than just that because we’re noticing that my 13 year old daughter is starting to connect to us as well. I guess I have my very own built-in coven. 😊
SC: Thanks so much for sharing that with us. Sisters can be very intuitive. What titles are you working on now that you can tell us about?
MD: The Dawn of the Blood Witch series is a planned series of ten novels. Witch of the Black Circle is the 1st book. The second novel, Witch of the Red Thorn, is due to release this June. The really cool thing that I’m enjoying about this series is that books 1 – 9 are standalones, but connected. If you wanted to read Book 4 first, you wouldn’t be missing anything. But there are, and will be, easter eggs throughout each book to give hints of the past and things to come. The only one that MUST be read last is Book 10, but that’s a long ways away!
SC: It'll come sooner than you think, lol. Thanks for joining us today. Let's take a look at your novel now.
Witch of the Black Circle
Dawn of the Blood Witch
Book One
Maria DeVivo
Genre: Horror
Publisher: 4 Horsemen Publications
Date of Publication: March 7, 2022
ASIN: B09NB1G11Y
Number of pages: 217
Word Count: 64k
Tagline: When it comes to witchcraft, it's never just a teenage phase...
Book Description:
For as long as she can remember, high school senior Joephie Turner's mother has told her she is cursed by a witch. As she settles into her new hometown of Northport, Long Island at the height of the 1980s Satanic Panic era, Joephie is accepted into a circle of friends obsessed with the occult. Demonic messages on cassette tapes, shady youth group leaders, and passionate sexual encounters push the teen into a thrilling world that lends a deeper meaning to the proverbial mantra: "sex, drugs, and rock and roll." Until it all goes wrong.
A decade later, haunted by nightmares of cults and rituals, formidable burgeoning witch Joephie pieces her memories together in search of answers about the small group of suburban teens that meddled with dark forces. As an adult, Joephie will have to decide what, or who, she is willing to sacrifice from her past in order to claw her way back to sanity.
Inspired by true events, Witch of the Black Circle is a deliciously wicked and nostalgic journey through time where the lines of reality and the supernatural blur. Content warning: satanic rituals; sex; graphic violence; language; drug use
Dan reaches over
to his bag and pulls out his math book. In the front pouch, I notice a small
novel with a black cover. “Hey,” I say, nodding my head in the backpack’s
direction. “Whatcha reading?”
“Uh, nothing,”
he answers, shrugging his shoulders.
I put out my arms and tap my fingers together like a baby grasping at
something. “Lemme see it!”
“Nah. It’s
really nothing,” he repeats, but he’s unconvincing, and it makes my curiosity
burn a hole in my brain.
Kit’s curiosity
is piqued as well, so she stands up and moves behind the chair with the
backpack. “Now, now,” she sings. “No secrets here, Dan!” She grabs the bag from
the chair and pulls out the book. “The Satanic Bible?”
Dan quickly
shoots up from the chair, snatches the book away from her, and cradles it to
his chest as to hide the cover from us. “Shhhh…” he admonishes as he looks side
to side, assessing if my mother was in the vicinity or not.
I hold out my
hand again. “What are you reading that for?” I ask. “Give it here.”
Reluctantly, he
turns the book over to me, and I examine the cover, the spine, and the back
like an investigator studying a piece of crime-scene evidence. Only, I don’t
have on rubber gloves. I’ve known about this book. Heard about it. Knew the
story of the author, Dr. Anton LaVey, and his Church of Satan. Practically,
every youth ministry I had attended had mentioned the evil of this piece of
literature at some point in time: If you even look at the book, you can be
possessed. Being in its presence alone can have a profound effect on your
heavenly soul. Dare not open or read the pages for fear of infiltration by a
powerful demonic force. But as I actually hold the book for the first time in
my life, I feel … nothing. No fear. No wonder. No spooky taboo. I press the
book in my palms trying to feel for any ‘other-worldly’ vibrations or
indication that if I open it up I will be damned to hell. But no. Nothing. Zip.
Zilch. And more lies and deception from my past teachers come into clear view.
“Dude. It’s just a book.”
“Yeah, I know
it’s just a book,” he huffs, grabs it from me, and shoves it back into his bag.
The three of us
sit back down in silence for a few minutes.
“You okay, man?”
Kit asks, concerned.
“Yeah. Fine.”
Clearly, he’s
not.
“Where’d you get
it?” I ask.
“Why’d you get
it?” Kit emphasizes.
Dan looks behind
him and scans the kitchen again. Then, he moves his upper body slightly across
the table as if to beckon me and Kit to huddle in. We oblige him and he speaks
in a soft, hushed tone: “Thomas. This guy from my school. He got the connection
with that Ricky kid and the Knights of the Black Circle.”
“The Knights of
the Black Circle?” I ask. “What’s that?”
Dan glares at me
and holds up his arm revealing the faded black circles drawn up and down his
arm, over and over and over. I had thought they were just silly drawings borne
out of boredom, but…
“They
wanted him to read the book and know some stuff before they accepted him,” he
continues. “Thomas said he could probably get me in, too, and told me what passages
to study and shit.”
Kit’s pretty
eyes widen, and her bangs touch her eyelashes again. “He knows the Acid King?”
A sneer forms on
Dan’s lips and he nods. “Uh huh.”
“Wait,” I
protest. “What are you talking about? Who are the Knights of the Black Circle?
What’s an Acid
King?”
“The Knights…”
Dan explains, “they’re a group. Local. They do stuff. They know stuff.”
About the Author:
Maria is the Author of the Amazon bestselling and award-winning series The Coal Elf Chronicles, the YA psychological horror series The Altered Experience, and the NA Urban Fantasy series The Aestrangel Trinity. When not writing about dark fantasy and horror, she teaches Language Arts and Journalism to middle school students in Florida. A lover of all things dark and demented, she takes pleasure in warping the comfort factor in her readers’ minds. Just when you think you’ve reached a safe space in her stories, she snaps you back into her twisted reality.
I don't know if you've seen any of the "Somewhere in the Skies" Youtube videos, but they're really good. In this one, host Chrissy Newton interview VICE correspondent Daniel Otis, to discuss documents he has received via FOAI. The video has a link to Daniel's report, and the documents can be viewed there, for anyone who is interested. Have a wonderful Supernatural Sunday.
