Halloween Blogfest: Dianne Hartsock

Ghost Stories

Don’t you just love Halloween! All its creepy scariness and delicious spookiness, the ghouls, jack-o-lanterns, witches and ghosts? Oh, especially the ghosts! Nothing’s better than sitting around munching popcorn balls and candy corn, sipping cider and telling ghost stories.

Especially when the ghosts are real. These stories can make me shiver long after Halloween is over. My brother told us a story from the time he lived in Mexico that still fascinates me. He sold Time-Share condominiums there and was at a dinner party in the hills one evening with some potential clients.

Not having his car with him when the party broke up, he called a cab to take him home. It was dusk, the sun having set shortly before. The wind blew up. A storm was coming. The cabdriver picked him up outside the restaurant and they started down the winding, nearly deserted road back into town.

The cabdriver was friendly and they talked about nothing important. That is, until they passed a turn-off on the road and my brother looked back at the gravel driveway leading deeper into the trees.

“I took a young woman home on that road last spring,” the driver said suddenly.

“Did you?” my brother asked. The driver had sounded almost nervous.

“Yeah. It was a night like this, very stormy. I didn’t pass another car for miles, when suddenly I turned a bend and almost ran over the girl walking on the side of the road. I stopped and made sure she was okay. She said her car had broken down and she wanted to go home. I offered her a lift.”

The driver paused for several heart beats. “She didn’t talk as we drove except to give me directions. When we got to the house she said she didn’t have any money with her but if I waited she’d get some from her father to pay me. It was a very nice house so I thought they should have the money to pay.”

“The girl got out and went inside the house. I waited. And waited. After about ten minutes I began to wonder if she hadn’t told her father about me. Angry, I get out and pounded on their front door. A handsome man answered. When I told him that I had given his daughter a ride home and he needed to pay her fair, he gave me a very strange look. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, getting angry himself.

“Your daughter owes me for the ride home.”

He beckoned me into the hallway and pointed to a picture of the girl on the wall.

“Yes, that’s her.” I tell him.

“Impossible. My daughter was struck by a car last year on the road and was killed.”

True story! My brother has this awed note in his voice when he tells it. Shiver! I’m getting a little creeped out writing this and have the terrible urge to look over my shoulder…but what if she’s standing there? Oh yikes!
Lose of interest in sex is damaging not only for women, but impacts her partner as well. cialis 20mg tablets http://americanlandscapingci.com/ This also means that due to its popularity there are a number of male sex pills ordine cialis on line americanlandscapingci.com that you can try to fight male impotence. We all love tadalafil discount http://americanlandscapingci.com/services/ chocolates because they are natural mood booster. I may try different variations, but when I hit by sexual disorder buy cheap levitra called erectile dysfunction.
Happy Halloween! To celebrate I’d like to give away an e-copy of any book on my backlist to a commenter who tells me what their favorite holiday tradition is.

THE DARK BOKOR

Breathless Press: http://www.breathlesspress.com/

When it comes to the dark weavings of hoodoo magic, only a few can survive.

Blurb:

It’s started. Bodies have been found in the French Quarter, torn limb from limb. The undead have been seen walking. For Detective Matthew Rieves, this is the worst news he can imagine. Having spent his entire life in Orleans Parish, Matt’s no stranger to the bizarre. Though, despite the growing evidence, he still has a hard time believing in the occult. But when two hoodoo bokors vie for supremacy, it’s the innocent civilians that pay the price.

For Jesse Dalembert, he’d left New Orleans to sever his ties with hoodoo. But when a friend is brutally murdered by the bokor’s zombies, he returns, falling at once into danger and into Detective Rieves’s bed . With their lives on the line, their simmering attraction flares into a passion they can no longer deny.

Working against time, can the lovers find a way to stop the hoodoo war, or will they fall victim to the dark magic, maybe becoming zombies themselves?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

After growing up in California and spending the first ten years of marriage in Colorado, Dianne now live in the beautiful Willamette Valley of Oregon with her incredibly patient husband, who puts up with the endless hours she spends hunched over the keyboard letting her characters play.

She says Oregon’s raindrops are the perfect setting in which to write. There’s something about being cooped up in the house while it pours rain outside, a fire crackles on the hearth inside, and a cup of hot coffee warms her hands which kindles her imagination.

Currently, Dianne works as a floral designer in a locally-owned gift shop. Which is the perfect job for her. When not writing, she can express herself through the rich colors and textures of flowers and foliage.

Blog: http://diannehartsock.wordpress.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/diannehartsock
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/diannehartsock
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4707011-dianne-hartsock
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Dianne-Hartsock/e/B005106SYQ/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1361897239&sr=8-1