Category: witch

Witch’s Cursed Cabin–new release paranormal romance By Marsha A. Moore

Published on by Juli D. Revezzo2 Comments

Fantasy author Marsha A. Moore stops by today on the release of her latest paranormal romance, in her series, Coon Hollow Coven Tales, to tell us a little bit about her new release,  WITCH’S CURSED CABIN. You know how much we love witches, around here, so I asked her to tell us a little about their her heroine’s newest adventure! Take it away, Marsha.

 

Would you dare to visit Coon Hollow Coven’s haunted carriage house?

by

Marsha A. Moore

Coon Hollow is the setting for Witch’s Cursed Cabin, the second of my series, Coon Hollow Coven Tales, and there are a lot of strange happenings going on down in the Hollow.

The Hollow is a fictitious small valley in southern Indiana, south of Bloomington. Somewhere in Brown County near Nashville and Bean Blossom, if you’re from around those parts. It’s Hoosier hill-country at its finest.

The coven was founded on strict rules of adherence to lifestyle and customs that existed at the time of the coven’s conception, in the mid-1930s. The rationale: to keep the transmission of witchcraft from one generation to the next as pure as possible. Members dress in styles of that period and drive long sleek Packards, Studebakers, and Nashes.

Coon Hollow’s coven members stay to themselves but sometimes need to do business in the nearby small town of Bentbone. When witches and townies mingle, all sorts of trouble and fun can happen.

Several times during the year, the coven puts on magical events open to the public as charity fundraisers for their schools and eldercare. Witch’s Cursed Cabin opens with the coven preparing for their annual Halloween haunted house. Real spiders are enchanted to drop onto guests’ faces. Bespelled live rats run the length of the halls, not stopping for human feet, legs, or other body parts. Ick! Floorboards randomly are set to give way and take selected guests to unknown destinations. Common bedroom objects, such as brushes, nightgowns, and toys, are empowered to chase guests. The scares are so real, people come from all over the state to see these attractions!

You’re invited to enjoy the thrills and magic at the coven’s haunted house, and while you’re in the Hollow, stay for the chilling Samhain celebration in Witch’s Cursed Cabin!

Thank you, Juli, for featuring my new release today on your blog!

 

Thank you, Marsha. Spiders dropping onto people’s faces? EEKK! Thanks for the warning. I think maybe I’ll try to find another path through the haunted house, this year. 😉 Want to check out Witch’s Cursed Cabin? Here’s the synopsis:

Witch's Cursed Cabin by Marsha A. Moore, paranormal witch fictionWitch’s Cursed Cabin
Coon Hollow Coven Tales
Book Two
Marsha A. Moore

Genre: Paranormal romance

Date of Publication: 4-27-16

Number of pages: 380
Word Count: 111,000

Cover Artist: Marsha A. Moore

Book Description:

Eager to be on her own away from home, twenty-year-old Aggie Anders accepts a relative’s invitation to live in Coon Hollow Coven. Although she’s a witch from a different coven, what locals say about the Hollow confuses her. How can witchcraft there live and breathe through souls of the dead?

Aggie’s new residence in this strange southern Indiana world is a deserted homestead cabin. The property’s carriage house serves as the coven’s haunted Halloween fundraiser. It’s a great opportunity for her to make new friends, especially with the coven’s sexy new High Priest Logan.

But living in the homestead also brings Aggie enemies. Outsiders aren’t welcome. A cantankerous, old neighbor tries to frighten her off by warning her that the homestead is cursed. Local witches who practice black magic attempt to use their evil to drive Aggie away and rid their coven of her unusual powers as a sun witch.
Determined to stay and fit in, Aggie discovers not only that the cabin is cursed, but she alone is destined to break the curse before moonrise on Samhain. If she fails, neither the living nor the dead will be safe.

Goodreads

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Author and Editor Rebecca Buchanan on ancient magic and pagan literature

Published on by Juli D. Revezzo

Our guest, Rebecca Buchanan, has been a feature in the pagan fiction community for a while, we are pleased to have read her latest release, a fine collection of ranging from fantasy to scifi to mythological retellings entitled A Witch Among Wolves.She is the editor of Eternal Haunted Summer. Her short stories, poems, and essays have been published in a number of different venues. When she is not editing EHS, she is also the Editor-in-Chief of Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the publishing arm of Neos Alexandria. She also blogs fairly regularly at BookMusings: (Re)Discovering Pagan Literature at PaganSquare and Gods Among the Stars: Paganism in Genre Fiction at Luna Station Quarterly. She recently took time out of her busy editing schedule for a little interview about the book.

Hi Rebecca, thanks for being here. I really enjoyed your anthology and I’m happy to have you here. Can you briefly describe the anthology?

Rebecca Buchanan: Thanks for inviting me! A Witch Among Wolves, and Other Pagan Tales is a collection of five of my short stories. Each is a different genre — science fiction, contemporary horror, a political tale, an eco-fable, and an urban fantasy — but all feature Pagan/polytheist themes. For instance, “Alexander’s Heart,” set in a far future ruled by the descendants of Antony and Cleopatra, follows the Captain of a solar barque and his crew as they try to safely deliver the Pythia of Delphi to a colony far from Earth. The title story, “A Witch Among Wolves,” stars a traditional Lithuanian ragana as she negotiates with a pack of shape-shifting wolves for access to their hidden valley.

My next anthology, A Serpent in the Throat, and Other Pagan Tales, also features a variety of genres, but each story contains strong Pagan/polytheist themes.

How long have you been a practicing pagan?

Rebecca: Oh, gosh …. Over twenty years. I started having serious problems with the Church in college, but continued to go through the motions. As soon as I set out on my own, though, I fully embraced Paganism: the altar, the festivals, the hymns to the Gods and Goddesses, the works.

Is there a particular mythology you’re found of?

Rebecca: Greek. Hands down, that is my favorite. I’ve always been most strongly drawn to those stories, so, when I finally embraced Paganism, I came out as Hellenic.I have a bit of a soft spot for Egyptian and Norse mythology, too, but Greek is definitely at the top.

Can you recall the first myth you read?

Rebecca: Not the first book, no, but I can recall several books which deeply affected me as a child. Augustus Caesar’s World by Genevieve Foster; The Enchanted World series from Time-Life; The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus by Aliki; The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles by Padraic Colum and Willy Pogany; Pagan Grace and Pagan Meditations by Ginette Paris; Pegasus by Marianna Mayer and KY Craft; The Trojan War by Olivia Coolidge; to name just a few.

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cover art by Paula Arwen Owen

That seems a nice list, particularly for those who’d like to investigate the Greco-Roman pantheons themselves. What inspired you to write the stories in Witch Among Wolves?
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Sneak Peek Sunday #4

Published on by Juli D. Revezzo

Did you know today is Bastille day? *nods* So for  this Sneak Peek Sunday we have a spooky entry from House of Cards (Reign of Tarot, book 1) that just so happens to take place around this time of year. The main character, you see, is on the run because his family is about to be arrested during the opening strains of the Reign of Terror which affected France in the years following this event. So, here he is, just a moment after one of his horses threw a shoe. And he sees a woman hanging from a tree.

Spanish Dungeon© Kacpura | Dreamstime.com

Surely, he was seeing things: the poor soul hadn’t been there a moment ago.  Ignoring the driver’s warning, he turned back to demand he lend a hand as Sinjon intended to cut her down. The more he looked, the less he was sure she was human. There was something odd about her: the nails weren’t right seeming almost like razors, her skin more like wrinkled leather, her throat a little too long. Her eyes were altogether strange, gouged, yet whole; staring and lifeless, yet somehow they seemed to watch him. What had happened to the right side of her torso, he couldn’t tell, but it was torn to shreds, strips of bloodied flesh hanging, ribs showing through the injury. Yet, when he tilted his head for a different view, the skin and sinew seemed almost woven together. Something protruded from her back, but whether two humps, knives, or—it couldn’t be—stubby wings, he couldn’t decide. Or didn’t want to know the nature of what he saw.

As he turned back to his driver, a wall of ethereal flame erupted between them. Sinjon fell back, staring in astonishment. The ice-blue flames crackled and spat, the wind gusting from the blaze was cold as a winter’s breeze. Beyond, noises of battle erupted.

Sinjon reached for his pistol. A screaming woman flew from the conflagration and locked her hands around his throat. Shock paralyzed him as she dragged him to the flames.

The fire engulfed them utterly. The hag hissed, baring wicked fangs. Twisting her grip, her nails cut his flesh like blades. He shivered in the chill of the unreal blaze, struggling for freedom. She laughed and tossed him about until nausea threatened to overtake him.

Sudden darkness blinded him. Chains snaked around his chest, his limbs. He slammed against a stone wall alive with spiders; the monsters sunk their teeth deep into his flesh, shocking him with unmatched pain.

“Where are you?” he screamed. “Come and face me, damn you! I’m not afraid of you!”

Does he have reason to fear her? What does she want? If you’d like to see what happens next, House of Cards (Reign of Tarot, #1) is available at Amazon and Smashwords. Book two is in the works to be released (tentatively) next year!

For more Sneak Peek Sunday writers see the main site at: http://sneak-peek-sunday.blogspot.com/

Demons, and godesses and a Freebie at Smashwords

Published on by Juli D. Revezzo3 Comments

Just FYI, I’ve put Caitlin’s Book of Shadows up on Smashwords. It’s available for a limited time for FREE so if you want it and would rather not get it from Amazon or Barnes and Noble for $.99 you can pick it up at SW. 🙂

Juli D. Revezzo, paranormal, supernatural, horror, Antique Magic series, Fort Pickens, Gulf Breeze, FloridaCaitlin’s Book of Shadows (Antique Magic, Book 1.5)

Blurb:

Something terrifying stalks Caitlin and her beloved Trevor. Something the bits and pieces she left claimed she had to make sense of–or so legend says. When the curator of their collection finds Caitlin’s long forgotten diary, she wonders will it tell the whole tale? Will it tell why Caitlin seemed so determined to tell the difference between reality and nightmare even as she continued the fight to defend her family from evil? Will it explain why she thought her world twisted? If she really became a witch?

Perhaps the answer lies between the lines of her story, one of lessons, struggles, and the hopes she carried like a warrior’s shield.

This is a side (or supplemental, if you will) story in the Antique Magic series, a companion to The Artist’s Inheritance (Antique Magic, Book One).

Share an excerpt Saturday

Published on by Juli D. Revezzo1 Comment

TAINEW700copyCaitlin frowned at her flowers. Maybe there was something there, a calming feel, a wisp of dust? “What do we need charms for?”
Love and happiness were always welcome, sure. But protection? “What do we need protecting from?”
Beryl leaned forward and sniffed a rose. “Don’t you know by now? The gods of Annwn want his chair.”
The words hit Caitlin hard as if the tree branch overhead had collapsed on her head. She felt faint, and was glad her friend hadn’t brought this up while she was driving. “Why would any— I don’t understand. How can you think that?”
“Look at it, Cait. The horses, the writing he’s carved into the arms and back.”
“What writing? There’s scrollwork, but no writing.”
“Yes there is,” Heather said, “if you look close.”
She shivered. “What’s it say?”
Beryl pursed her lips. “Enough for me to know it’s got all the signs to attract what wants attracting.”

Caitlin pictured the chair in her mind. “No. They’re nothing more than designs, like the ones in his sketchbook.”
“What designs in a sketchbook?”
She led them upstairs to the attic and showed them Trevor’s sketchbook. Spiraling tornadoes, prancing horses and snorting bulls covered the pages in elegant and bold ink lines. Beautiful drawings that simultaneously awed and scared her.
Beryl shut the book quietly. “I amend my earlier statement.”
“What do you mean?”
“We don’t just have work to do. We have a ton of work to do.”

If you are interested in reading more, The Artist’s Inheritance is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, and in paperback at Createspace.

Freaky Friday–vampires, witches, and plague victims, oh my!

Published on by Juli D. Revezzo

 

For today’s freaky Friday installment….

This could be filed under lots of things I suppose. What’s odd about is the evolution of how our species looked at their neighbors. That at one time we considered old age a mark of witchcraft just feels that way now. At least to my modern eyes.  The other thing that’s odd is how we at one time in history buried our dead to appease our own fears. Take this poor woman, for instance: A plague victim in 16th century Europe. Was she a witch or a vampire? Imaginations can go wild. For a writer, even more so. 😉

If you’d like to read the article, it’s here: via National Geographic.

Thankfully, we live in a more modern age….right?