Today is Halloween, otherwise known as Samhain to those less conventional folks. Samhain marks the end of summer and the beginning of winter. It is the New Year for Wiccans and/or pagans. It’s also thought to be one of the two times during the year (the other time being Beltane May 1st) when the veil between the worlds is thinnest. For those of us who wish to honor our dead on this day,  it’s traditional to set a place at the dinner table for your departed loved ones. Participants eat in silence, in honor of those who have been silenced by death.

Since Samhain is also a time when many believe that it’s easier to foretell the future, participating in divination is also an appropriate way to spend the evening. Tarot cards, pendulum use, crystal ball gazing, scrying, tea leaf reading – there are endless possibilities for divining your future. A friend of mine (who loves Scrabble) suggested tossing scrabble tiles and seeing whether any particular words are formulated. A truly unique – and fun – idea!

So what do you say? Samhain is here. It’s  time to reach out and make contact with departed loved ones, spiritual guides, angels, or any being not of this realm. That is, if they don’t reach out to you first! In my book Between Light and Dark, one of the characters is contacted by her dead sister on Samhain. Rather than being a frightening event, it ends up being a joyful, healing one. I know it will be the same for you as well, should you decide to make contact with the other side.

What do you plan to do with this day/night? What ancestor will you be honoring? What answers will you be seeking for your future? Lest you think this is  all just too serious for you…well, please know that I enjoy having fun on Halloween just as much as the next person. Our family has plans for some serious trick-or-treating. And yes, I will be dressing up! What fun and frolicking do you have planned?

As a special gift from me to you on All Hallow’s Eve, I will be drawing a card for each person who comments. And I will post a very brief message message for you from….well…let’s just say, the beyond….

Happy Halloween! Merry Samhain!

Eager for more witchy goodness? Visit my website for information about Between Light and Dark and Darkness Rising, my Hidden Circle Coven books. And don’t forget to mosey on by my blog where I discuss all things paranormal.

Update: Okay, I think we have a clear winner in the annual Cynthia Eden pumpkin contest.  Pumpkin B pretty much won by a landslide, and, yes, pumpkin B was designed by the hubby.  He appreciates your votes!  🙂

Hi, everyone!  Today, I wanted to post a list of the winners from my Month of Monsters.  Many of these winners have already been contacted by the authors giving the prizes. So, if you’re a winner, and you’ve either (1) already been contacted about your prize or (2) already received your prize, then you don’t have to do anything.  If you have not received info on claiming your prize–and your name is on this handy-dandy list–please send an email to cynthia@cynthiaeden.com. In the email, please give me your mailing address and tell me the prize that is yours.

And here’s the list…

Vivi’s ebook of her backlist…Sayde Grace and Breiab

The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker…Hales

ARC of Eternal Hunter…Cybercliper

Angie Fox book (either The Accidental Demon Slayer or The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers)….Cybercliper

Drawn Into Darkness…Angela

Midnight Cravings…Morning Glory and Barbara Elness

Belong to the Night…Edie

ARC of The Better Part of Darkness…Melissa T.

Anam Cara…Edie

Ties that Bind…Kathleen

Choice of any Cynthia Eden book…Joye

Belong to the Night…Minna

Denise Agnew book…Nancy

Mutual Desire…DARKREADE

Stolen Heat…RKCharron

Mystery prize pack…Lyoness2009

$15 Amazon.com gift certificate…Tamara Shurling

Helen Scott Taylor Book (The Magic Knot or The Phoenix Charm)…Sue R.

What You Can’t see…Brandy

Cascadia Wolves: Standoff…Nancy Gilliland

Winners to be announced soon for these prizes…

Nicholas, The Lords of Satyr

Seduced by Shadows

Also, I wanted to giveaway 2 copies of IMMORTAL DANGER…those will go to Stacey Smith and Linda Henderson.

Thanks to everyone for visiting during my Month of Monsters! And, don’t forget, the fun isn’t over yet! Be sure to stop by tomorrow.  Elissa Wilds has a very special surprise for every commenter.  A perfect surprise for Halloween!

And, now I need your help on a not-so-urgent matter.  🙂  My husband and I carved pumpkins last night–yep, that means our annual pumpkin face-off.  Which pumpkin do you like better? Hmm?

Pumpkin A (Note the stylish ear-rings)

Pumpkin B (Ah, the nice details!)

What’s your pumpkin pleasure?

Have a wonderful Halloween! If you’re taking the little ghouls out, be safe!

(One last note, a great contest is being held over at Bitten By Books–one of the prizes is an ARC of Eternal Hunter.)

Or, well, a message from me.  🙂 I hope you’ve been enjoying my Month of Monsters–I’ve sure been having fun reading all the posts and comments!  And, guess what? For Halloween, we will have a very special treat! Elissa Wilds will be here, and this is the treat she will be offering every commenter…

“As a special gift from me to you on All Hallow’s Eve, I will be drawing a card for each person who comments. And I will post a very brief message message for you from….well…let’s just say, the beyond….”

Very cool, Elissa.  Thank you!

So be sure to check in on Halloween so that you can get your message.

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I wanted to post a few quick notes…I’ve gotten in bookmarks for ETERNAL HUNTER and HOTTER AFTER MIDNIGHT (mass market re-release). I also have posters for ETERNAL HUNTER. If you’d like any of these items (while supplies last!), shoot an email to cynthia@cynthiaeden.com and I will send you some promo goodies.

Tomorrow, I will be posting a full list of all the winners from my Month of Monsters. Be sure to check out the list to see if you’re one of the (many!) winners.  I might even throw in some extra prizes.

And now, I wanted to share a little paranormal story with you. It’s short, and sweet.  🙂  I call it Premonitions. Here we go:

Read the rest of this entry–>

HOST: Today I have as my guest, Ceto, mother of all sea monsters and a frightening monster in her own right. Please help me welcome Ceto to Monsters of the Month.

(Audience claps as Ceto is carried onto the dais by her majordomo, Concord, a large jellyfish. He carries her in two of his tentacles as the rest walk him across the floor. Concord sets her down on the Love Sac chair we’ve brought in to mimic her customary sea sponge throne.)

HOST: Welcome, Ceto. Thank you for joining us.

CETO (twin mermaid tails rippling between red, blue and purple): Monsters of the Month? That’s why you’ve brought me here from my underwater palace? Are you serious? A monster? You think I’m a monster???

HOST: Oh… Um, you don’t? I understand you’re the mother of all sea monsters, from Scylla to Medusa, and, according to author Judi Fennell, the Kraken as well.

CETO: (arranges a red velvet corset more comfortably over her “shell-fillers”) Well, yes, that is true. Every leviathan you can come up with is mine. And I’m very proud of my children, but not the bad rap they’ve gotten in your mythology. I just tried to be the best mother I could.

HOST: So what happened with Kraken that he went after the hero of In Over Her Head and tried to kill him?

CETO: See? That’s where you’ve got it wrong. Krak wasn’t trying to kill Reel. He wanted to play with him.

HOST: (taken aback) That’s, um, not quite the way I heard it.

CETO: Well, of course you didn’t. Where would the story be in that? Honestly, the poor child was bored and went in search of a new friend to play with. That’s all there was to it. Trust me, if I’d wanted to create a problem for Reel, I wouldn’t have picked Krak to do it.

HOST: Yet you got involved with the villain of the second book in the series, Wild Blue Under, to cause more havoc.

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Research and the Paranormal

I love research. It’s one of my favorite non-writing things to do. And when I’m procrastinating or stuck on a book, it makes me feel like I’m actually doing something productive!

My romantic thrillers, which rely heavily on the law, forensics, criminal psychology and law enforcement procedures are relatively easy to research. I can talk to cops, FBI Agents, coroners, psychologists, and others for answers to my “what if” questions. I have forty-one books to refer to, plus a dozen or so websites I can rely on for accurate information. I read true crime which gives me an insight into real investigations; I participate in classes and law enforcement drills to help put myself in their shoes; I can watch dozens of cop shows, both fictional and reality based. Between all of these resources, coupled with my imagination, I can come up with a believable romantic thriller.

But as is common for many authors, we like variety. Growing up, I read a lot of mysteries and suspense novels but when I hit my early teens, I found I also loved the creepy and paranormal. Stephen King, Dean Koontz, John Saul—they might be classified as “horror” but I considered them paranormal suspense—on the dark side. I was also probably one of the few high school students who read Edgar Allen Poe because I wanted to, not because I had to.

There’s something these authors have in common: I can buy into their stories. I can believe that a deranged clown is living in the sewers. I can believe that a golden retriever can be a genius. I can believe that a house can be haunted by an evil ghost. And I most certainly can believe in a psychopath who buries his victims alive.

I was thrilled when I sold my Seven Deadly Sins series. Why? Because I had wanted to write these books for years. I first came up with the idea in the summer of 2003—I planned on writing the first book as soon as I finished THE PREY. But I sold THE PREY, and focused on building an audience for my romantic suspense.

Still, the series haunted me. I had 150 pages written and I loved the story. I really wanted to write it. At the same time, I don’t know if I had the skill or the discipline to finish it six years ago.

When I sold the book to my publisher (Ballantine) I had four romantic thrillers still contracted to write. I itched to write the series, but needed to wait. I started collecting books on the paranormal to add to my then-small collection.

But I didn’t seriously think I was researching. The books I bought—like LILITH’S CAVE, THE BLACK ARTS, and ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HELL—were as much out of interest in understanding supernatural events than for my series. In fact, being a paranormal story I figured I could just make everything up in my head, make up my own rules.

While there is some truth in that—paranormal authors do a lot more world-building than contemporary suspense authors—I had a fundamental problem. I had to believe it. I had to believe what I wrote, that it could happen.

As a Catholic, it’s pretty easy for me to believe in Heaven and Hell, demons and angels, good and evil. But as an author, I know that readers would be disappointed with a dues ex machina conclusion, so I made the conscious decision to not have angels swoop down and save the day. Are they helping? Maybe—but it’s more like the, “You need to read the signs” type of help using the basic philosophy of “God helps those who help themselves.”

I had to be able to sit down and not only imagine the Seven Deadly Sins as demons released from Hell by an evil occult, I had to figure out how it could be done, why they would do something so dangerous, and how it can be stopped. I had to believe that, while not necessarily plausible, that I could set up a world that I believed could actually exist. A world that I believed might even exist now.

My obsession with research grew. I bought books on witchcraft, demons, exorcisms, and the seven deadly sins in modern times. And even though I’m not specifically writing about ghosts, because I believe that ghosts exist, I needed to understand all the “rules” related to ghosts and when they manifest themselves and why.

I now have more books on the supernatural than I have a crime and punishment!

THE MATRIX is one of my favorite movies. When Morpheus explains to Neo about what The Matrix is, he says that the Matrix is still based on a world where there are rules. Some rules can be bent, and some can be broken. Thinking of my world-building in that way, I was able to establish a set of “rules” that worked for my idea while also keeping it grounded in the real world. I use forensics, I have a Sheriff who is a major character, I using police investigations. In fact, whenever I got stuck, I relied on what I knew well: crime and forensics. I took my favorite part of writing romantic suspense and joined it with my favorite part of the supernatural: the battle of good vs. evil, the endless possibilities, the imagination that goes into taking our world and twisting it just a bit to make something just a little different, a little more dangerous, a little scarier than the real world.

Is it any surprise that THE STAND by Stephen King is my all-time favorite novel?

The first book of my Seven Deadly Sins series (ORIGINAL SIN) is in production and I set-up a world that I’m locked into for the rest of the series. There’s something really scary in that—what if I screwed it up? What if it doesn’t work but I don’t realize it yet? It’s kind of terrifying. And as I write the second book in the series, I have to make sure I don’t contradict the rules I established in the first book.

When I was lamenting this problem to my mother, she said, “But it’s paranormal. It’s not real.”

Hello?!? I believe this stuff! I have to or I couldn’t write it. It’s why I’m writing about demons and not shape-shifters; witchcraft and not time travel. I’m sometimes jealous of the authors who can wholly suspend reality and create a completely different world with completely different rules. Maybe I’m just too grounded in this one to give it up. And it’s really nice to know that I have fifty-seven books on my shelf to reference.

I’ll be back later today to answer any questions, and I’m giving away a copy of my anthology, WHAT YOU CAN’T SEE, which has the story that is the prequel to my series.