Update: Rebecca’s winner is…Lynn Rush! Congrats, Lynn!

First I’d like to thank Cynthia for letting me play on her blog today! My name is Rebecca Zanetti and I write dark paranormals for Kensington Brava. My debut book, FATED, will be out February 22, 2011.

I love the month of October.  The time when goblins walk among us and the veil slips between reality and the supernatural.  And, well, it’s a time for pumpkins.  Carving them.  Eating the seeds.  Decorating.  Who doesn’t love decorating?  Plus, you have the perfect excusing for toting around those miniature candy bars–in you purse, in your desk, in the car…  It’s October!

This is the best month to write a good paranormal, as far as I’m concerned.  There’s something about writing a bad guy during the month of October. The mist creeps higher off the ground, the clouds hang lower and well…nature crackles. At least where I live. Take the misty picture with the cold looking bench.  Can’t you just see the villian wandering the rough path, thinking about doing evil?

I love a well written bad guy.  But he has to be SO bad you don’t want to root for him. In October, it’s easier to create him. The bad guys in FATED are called Kurjans—pasty faced devils who hate the sun and like to kill. Of course the sexy good guys love the sun and are determined to end the Kurjans. For good.

There’s something about the moon in October.  It’s more mysterious.  Maybe preparing for Halloween like the rest of us.  But if you’re a writer and you want inspiration, look up.  Then imagine who else is looking up.  Probably a bad guy out hunting prey.  Or maybe a goblin or two out looking for treats.  Or possibly a lonely writer trying to create the ultimate bad guy.

November will be here soon.  The mystery of October will disappear until next year while snow blankets the ground.  (At least where I live.)  But for now, the mist is scary and the moon is veiled.  Something howls late at night.  And the bad guys roam.

So, here are a couple of questions:  What makes the ultimate bad guy?  Or, what do you like about October?  I’ll randomly draw the name of one commenter and send a signed coverflat of FATED right away – and then an ARC when I get them.  (I should be receiving ARCs soon, and will send one right out.)  BTW – this will be the first ARC I send out!  🙂

Thanks for reading today!

Rebecca Zanetti has taken her experiences as a lawyer, college professor, Senate Aide, art curator and cocktail waitress, wrapped it all up, and decided to write about vampires and fate.  It all fits together.  Somehow.  Please visit her at: http://www.rebeccazanetti.com/ for more information.

Update:  The blog winner is Lisa Freeman! Congrats, Lisa!

What is it about dark edgy men that we love so?  Is it the fact that we like a little roughness around the edges?  A bit of friction to make things interesting?

I think women like a challenge and what better challenge is there than a bad boy?  A man with dark secrets and a past that may be questionable.

In my latest book, His Darkest Embrace, my hero Jagger is such a man.  He’s a jaguar warrior and carries with him the sins of his past.  He’s dark, edgy and passionate.  It will take one hell of a woman to break through the barriers he’s erected around his heart and soul.

A solitary hunter with no regard for the human world, Jagger Castille is a shifter living on the edge. It will take the woman who calls him enemy to give him a reason to live.

Jagger is a creature of the night—Skye Knightly soars in the sun. Natural adversaries, they have been joined by destiny in a mission entrusted to Skye’s family centuries ago: Nothing less than the salvation of the Earth.

Wounded and bitter, Jagger sought escape in the solitude of the jungle, driven by a need to disappear forever… until a mysterious shifter who calls to his soul and feeds a yearning long forgotten, pulls him from his dark path. A courageous warrior, Skye’s passion is equal to Jagger’s own—but can she trust a man on the edge? A man whose secrets are as devastating as her own?

Each is the other’s sole hope for survival. But a dark and twisted truth is leading them toward the ultimate sacrifice for a love they may never live to claim.

Watch the video trailer here!  His Darkest Embrace or read the first 4 chapters online HERE

Tell me what it is you like about bad boys…and I’ll give one random commentator a copy of my latest book in the jaguar warriors trilogy, His Darkest Embrace.

Update: The winner of the Deadly Heat ARC and the Deadly Lies ARC is…Natasha A! Congrats, Natasha!

I interrupt this monster bash talk to bring you…ARCs.  I know, I know–my Halloween blog party has been about paranormal creatures so far. Ahem. I’m switching things up just a wee bit today. You see, I have two ARCs that I want to give to one commenter.

I have an ARC of DEADLY HEAT:

And I have an ARC of DEADLY LIES:

DEADLY HEAT is the second book in my romantic suspense series, and DEADLY LIES is the third.  Want to win them both?  I’ll pick one commenter to get both books…just tell me the name of the scariest book you’ve ever read–or the scariest movie you’ve ever seen.

See…simple!! Have a fabulous weekend!

Hi, everyone! So, if you follow me on Twitter, you know that I am a crazy Martha Stewart fan. Maybe it’s because I’m not really crafty or because I can’t really cook…but when holidays roll around, I have to watch my Martha. She gives me tips and makes me believe I *can* be crafty (and I am going to try one of her recent tips later today). So, today, I’m turning over my site to Martha (okay, not really, but wouldn’t it be crazy awesome if she were guest blogging?).

First up…let’s take a quiz.  Courtesy of the Martha Stewart site, find out just how well you know America’s Most Haunted Sites.

Not sure what you should be for Halloween? Martha knows. Take her quiz and find out.

Want some scary make-up for Halloween? Again, Martha has you covered with how-to tips.

Want some graveyard ghosts to turn your yard into a full-on scarefest?    Want the kiddies to decorate pumpkins–without a carving mess?

And, dude, having a party? Then here are some free online invitations for you.

It’s Martha madness, and I love it!

Thanks for having me, Cynthia!  And during such a fun month!  Just to make it a little more fun…2 lucky commentors will win a prize!  Your choice of any of Cynthia’s currently available paranormal novels or anthologies. 

Now, on to the fun stuff…ghosts!

One of my patient’s clued me into UCSF’s haunted history.  I’ve been a sonographer at the medical center for many years and have taken call there for more than I care to remember, which means I’ve spent time in the long, lonely hallways at every hour of the day and night. 

If you think about it, hospitals are prime locations for haunting when you consider the monumental suffering and death that occur there on a daily basis.  And anyone who has worked at a hospital can attest, they can be rather cold, eerie places when they quiet down.

I can’t remember how the conversation with my patient veered into the subject of ghosts (you’d be surprised what my patient’s and I talk about. I must have one of those tell-me-your-darkest-life-stories faces), but he was quite knowledgeable and adamant. 

He was a kidney transplant patient, and what we call a “frequent flier”, someone who has stayed at the medical center off and on for years over the course of treatment. 

Here’s what he told me.

The ninth floor and the thirteenth floor are the common places to see ghosts.  But he most often saw them on the ninth floor, and always late at night, when the nurses were clustered at the nurse’s station and not wandering the floor or in and out of patient rooms.

The ghosts were dressed like patients, in patient gowns and pants, walking the halls and wheeling an IV pole, looking just like every other patient…until they disappeared by walking right into walls where they vanished into nothing.

Other rumors:

It is rumored that women who have died in childbirth haunt the Intensive Care Nursery.  (Both Labor and Delivery and the ICN are on the fifteenth floor of the hospital.)

It is rumored that so many children haunted the then-eighth floor pediatric unit  it had to be exorcised.  (Pediatric ICUs are on sixth and seventh floors now.)

My experiences:

One night while on call in the wee hours of the morning, I was waiting for an UP service elevator in the empty, silent halls of the hospital.  The elevator stopped on my floor going DOWN.  The doors opened to reveal an empty wheelchair.  No one else.  Creepy.  I let the elevator go.  It went to the basement and returned to my floor without stopping.  Doors opened.  The wheelchair was gone.  Really creepy.

Another night at about eight o’clock, my coworker and I were waiting to leave for the night.  The light switch in our work area has a very distinctive and loud ‘click’ when the switch is flipped to turn the lights out.  She and I were both sitting there when the sound echoed and the lights went out.  The lights in the hall stayed on.  The lights in the closet stayed on.  The lights in the exam room stayed on.  I looked at her. She looked at me.  At the same time we said, “Did you do that?”  

When we checked the light switch, we found it had not been flipped.  There was no one else in the department.

Can’t say that’s much in the way of ghost stories for someone who’s spent as many hours in that hospital as I have during all those crazy hours.  Then again, I also thought those patients who were talking to other people who weren’t there were experiencing drug side effects, and those patients who were seeing auras or dogs or clowns or dead loved ones that weren’t there were hallucinating.

Now…I’m not so sure.

Which makes me wonder…in that altered state between the conscious and unconscious, do the medicated patients connect with or touch an alternate/parallel realm?  And if they do, do they reach it via the medication or in spite of the medication?  Do they forget (as is common with ICU patients) because of the effects of the medication?  If they retain scattered memories, are they simply drug induced psychosis or real and dismissed as side effects because they are unexplainable?

Do you have ghost, other-worldly or even medically induced experiences to share? 

Remember…2 lucky commentors will win their choice of any of Cynthia’s currently available paranormal novels or anthologies!

A triple RWA® Golden Heart finalist, Joan Swan writes sexy romantic suspense with a paranormal twist.  Her first novel, FEVER, debuts with Kensington Brava in April, 2012.  Joan works as a sonographer at a top University Medical Center and lives in magnificent wine country on the central coast of California with her husband and two daughters.  When she’s not writing you can find Joan on her website at www.joanswan.com, blog www.joanswan.blogspot.com or haunting the Twitterverse www.twitter.com/ultraswan.