This is a story. Maybe it’s even true.

My brother once told me I’m insane. He wasn’t spouting off the way bothers will with their sisters. He meant it. We don’t talk much anymore. Could be he’s right.  If he is, I’m not the best judge, I suppose.

The problem is that there’s always been something pressing in on me. Even when I was a girl, when I sat quietly, completely motionless— it’s not an easy thing to do, to sit without moving  —I’d feel a weight on my chest and back.

The same thing happens now and I wonder if there isn’t something inside me trying to get out, and that’s why I notice the pressure at all.  Once or twice I’ve asked friends if they feel that way too. But they just look at me the way my brother did that time. I’m careful about what I say anymore.

The thing is, what if they don’t notice because they’re never still enough to feel the chaos beating all around them?

My bedroom has a sliding glass door and there are nights when there’s no moon to be seen. Once when I was in bed, warm under the covers with the cat sleeping on my legs, I looked out the window and there was something looking back at me. I saw its eyes blink, and for half a heartbeat I felt like I was falling into a hurricane.

The county where I live is slowly, and sadly, becoming less rural. Every year, the city bumps up against the country with harsher insistence. Look at pictures from thirty or forty years ago, and there’s nothing but open space where now there are houses.

Old-timers notice the change, but newcomers don’t. How could they? They have a different picture fixed in their heads. They move here and the pressure is normal for them. They don’t see.

Those eyes I saw, they weren’t human eyes. The human eye doesn’t throw back light. The eyes weren’t close to the ground, and they were too high up to be a coyote. Besides, the coyotes and foxes don’t come that near the house. There aren’t any wolves around here and the eyes were too high up even for a mountain lion, which we do have.

When I saw them, the eyes, I mean, the pressure bore down on me like chaos. Trying to get out. Or maybe, I thought, as I lay there in bed, unable to move, maybe that sensation came from whatever was behind the eyes.

Later that night, I dreamed I saw a man turn into a wolf. If you think about it, that’s not so unusual. If you think you saw a monster, it makes sense you’d dream about it afterward.

At night, if there’s no clouds or fog, I can turn off all the interior and exterior lights and go outside, bundled up against the cold if it’s winter, to see a sky so filled with stars it takes my breath. I have to be careful to stand away from the nearest neighbor because they have exterior lights that dim the sky.

I look up at that sky and think about all the people who can’t see the world the way it used to be for every soul on earth. If you’d been alive a thousand years ago, you’d have seen too.

In the city, though, the sky is never really dark. But that doesn’t mean the stars aren’t there.

When you live in the country, you do see wildlife from time to time, but it’s important to remember that there are animals you shouldn’t see, and if you do see them, it means they’re sick. Rabies is endemic out here.

I was out one night watching Polaris, Casseopia and Orion, and since I’m human and see about as well in the dark as you, I didn’t see the dog until it was too late. Five hours in the ER waiting for the shot.

There’s this boundary, an invisible limit all of us bump up against, and we’re on the side that obscures what else is there. Too much light. Not enough of the dark. At the boundary the leading edge of chaos presses in.

You can’t see it, touch it or taste it or hear it, but if you stand still you can feel it. The chaos is all around us, pressing against us and trying get just a little more space. I wonder, sometimes, what’s going on beyond that light that blinds us to what’s bumping up against our lives.

On nights when the moon is full, for several hours silver light shines in my bedroom window and keeps me up, it’s so bright. Most city people don’t notice the sheer power of that cycle of light. You fall asleep with the moonlight shining in your window and when you wake up, the moon is in the western sky instead of the east.

Last night was the first night of the full moon, and I tossed and turned for a while with the light in my eyes. Eventually, I gave up and went outside. The chaos was there. Waiting for me, and I embraced that wide, dark sky of stars and moon.

Carolyn Jewel is the author of this story (which you may or may not have liked. It was a risk, I totally understand that. I had a professor once who said he preferred his students to take risks, and that if we did and crashed and burned, that was OK. So here I am, at Month of Monsters wondering if I’ve crashed and burned. If you got this far, maybe not.) She writes paranormal romance for Grand Central’s Forever line. My Forbidden Desire (June 2009) is book two of a series Ms. Jewel supposed to be naming pretty soon. (Got any good ideas?) She is working on finishing up the third book now. Or, she would be if she wasn’t doing this blog. Demons and witches! Get your demons and witches here.

Carolyn (okay, me! it’s me!) also writes historical romance. Indiscreet is an October 2009 release from Berkley Sensation. (In stores now!) I got a very pretty cover and I hope it’s not too jarring to see that kind of cover on this kind of blog. With this story, you get a Regency hunk, a unusually educated young lady and the Ottoman Empire. Plus England. All in the same book. How can you resist? (Please don’t.)

Third novel in the DEEP IS THE NIGHT trilogy by Denise A. Agnew

Thanks so much to Cynthia for inviting me to spend some spooky time with all of you. 🙂  Like her, I love October and Halloween.

One thing that usually spurs me toward writing stories with a paranormal bent is the fall season. For some reason I seem to be at my best during the fall, when the leaves are crisp, the air is beginning to cool, and the sun goes down earlier and earlier as the days pass.

As a grade school student, I loved to dress up Halloween day and participate in the parade of costumes around the school. (Do they do that anywhere anymore?) Trick or treat was so much fun, and so was consuming all the candy. These days I celebrate Halloween by holing up with dim lighting (usually spooky candles), a heaping bowl of popcorn, and several spooky movies.

So, it stands to reason that I love to write novels of spine tingling romance, sex, and danger. When I wrote my vampire trilogy at Ellora’s Cave DEEP IS THE NIGHT (DARK FIRE, NIGHT WATCH and HAUNTED SOULS), I wanted to scare the beejeebers out of my readers, plus thrill them with steaming hot romance.

Though I’ve never seen a ghost that I know of, I believe hauntings, ghosts and other extraordinary phenomena do exist. I was allowed to read pretty much whatever I wanted from a young age, and I believe I was about eleven when I first read The Exorcist and Audrey Rose. Not to say I didn’t find them absolutely scary, but I also found myself wanting to write stories that gave people that same forbidden, scary thrill. Call me twisted, but the paranormal creeps into many of my stories with great regularity even when I don’t plan it.

I’ve written about ESP (Sins and Secrets is one such novel, as well as Dangerous Intentions and Treacherous Wishes), otherworldly dimensions (Clandestine and Hideaway are but two of my tales that deal with other dimensions), hauntings and ghosts. In my life I’ve had a few bizarre things happen.

Writing something that scares the reader’s pants off is my ultimate thrill. Why? Probably for the same reason any other writer must write what he or she loves. It is difficult for most writers of paranormal romance to pinpoint every facet of why they write romance with a twist. Perhaps it starts with what the writer experienced as a youth.

As a child, I loved to read Poe. My television preferences ran to Alfred Hitchcock, Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker and The Twilight Zone. Strange for a girl scared of so many things. While I appeared timid on the outside, my mind preferred a more adventurous realm. I could have the thrill without getting more than a chill, unlike the poor fools experiencing danger. Within the sphere of the paranormal is a belief that it can’t touch you if you caress it first. If you create the monster, you can control and kill the monster. If someone else writes the beast, then you’re in trouble.

Once I reached my teens, Gothic novels held my attention. From that point forward, I loved the combination of love and mystery and sometimes horror that these tales offered. Hence, my current enjoyment of Dean Koontz, Stephen King and Anne Rice.

These days I write stories that skirt the edge of gritty, nasty horror and the terrors of everyday life. I want my readers to fall in love and still be scared witless. I want pseudo reality to slither into the reader’s living room and bite them on the behind. As my audience, the reader should be gripped with a creeping sense of apprehension that gathers force until the frightful ending.

In my writing, I combat monsters. Monsters that have a form, no form, a name or no name. Most prominently they are ghosts or spirits, or an indefinable something that lurks just at the edge of the protagonist’s conscience…waiting to erupt onto the cinematic screen of my page. An awareness of danger, hiding or dormant but not dead, is enough to give anyone nightmares. If I can take that horror and attach it to the excitement, confusion, and heated sexuality of romance, then I have a story with beef. In my DEEP IS THE NIGHT vampire trilogy (Ellora’s Cave www.ellorascave.com), I made sure that vampires weren’t the only thing lurking in the night to scare the characters. I wanted a sense of dread, a fine edge of uncertainty in my fictional Colorado mountain town of Pine Forest.

In a pure horror tale, I might let the protagonist be eaten by the monster. In paranormal romance, I want the hero and heroine to battle the monsters and still come out the victors. As a bonus, they find love with each other. Ahem…the hero and heroine…not the monsters. Love that can span the centuries, defy the space time continuum, or even the final shadow of death is love going the extra mile. Think about it. A romance story without barriers isn’t very exciting. Throw in some major conflict and the hero and heroine have to resolve their problems to come together at the end. Toss in something otherworldly and they have more to fight and their love will becomes stronger.

By letting myself experience the adrenaline of beating the evil, the ghost, or the monster, I have conquered. I have kicked the dragon’s butt, and I’m taking names. The icing on the cake is the love.

Meltdown, to be released October 12 at Liquid Silver Books.

Therefore, if you enjoy your romance with a paranormal twist, I suggest you stop by and check out my buffet of paranormal romance at www.deniseagnew.com. My next story with a hint of paranormal is MELTDOWN (Liquid Silver Books www.liquidsilverbooks.com October 12), which also features a hot firefighter! I have other stories coming up in 2010 that are sure to make your spine tingle.

Will I continue to write paranormal when it is no longer the toast of the town? The answer is simple: I have to write it. I have no other choice. I have so many spooky stories running around in my head that if I don’t write them I will simply explode. And that’s a whole ‘nother horror story, indeed.

So, because I’m in the mood to hear about haunts, tell me yours! I’m dyin’ to hear a good rip snorting scary or weird experience. I’ll pick the story I think is the scariest and you’ll win a paperback of my choosing from my backlist. I’ll announce the winner at the end of the day.

Uh…maybe you’d better sleep tonight with the light on, eh?

If you were going to make a top ten list of monsters–well, who (what) would you put on that list?  My list would probably go something like this:

10. Freddy Krueger (So scared me when I was a kid. Guess how many nights I kept my lights on?)

9. Michael Myers (I do consider him a monster–what do you think? I mean, he can’t *just* be a man–no way could a man like through all that!)

8. The Wolfman (And you know there’s a new Wolfman movie coming out…)

7. King Kong (Come on…didn’t you cry at the end of the movie, too?)

6. Hannibal Lecter.  (Scary because he could be a real guy.)

5. Spike (Monster, but so sexy.)

4. Frankenstein (Another monster that made me care, and cry, dang it!)

3. Pinhead from Hellraiser (Gah! Just looking at him creeped me out, but later, if you were brave enough to follow a few of the Hellraiser films, you learned his back story–yep, he did a character evolution through Hellraiser.)

2. The Phantom (I’ll confess to having a bit of a crush on the Phantom.)

1. Dracula (He’s the king!  The immortal king.)

Okay, that’s my list. My top ten monsters. Is there someone that should have been on the list (but isn’t)?  Who would you put on your best monster list?  I’ll pick one commenter to win a copy of the paranormal anthology, BELONG TO THE NIGHT.

Update:  Thanks to everyone for sharing your monster treats with me! Some of you have made me so very hungry.  🙂  The winner of any autographed Cynthia Eden book is…Joye! Congrats, Joye! I’ll be contacting you with prize claim information.  Thank you all for the treat talk!

Over the weekend, my son had his annual Halloween party.  Oh,  yes, there was much old-school Halloween merriment to be had (apple bobbing, sack races, slamming a bat into a pinata pumpkin).  And, of course, there were also treats. Monster treats.

Um, that would be part of a frozen Kool-Aid finger floating in there.

The night before the party, Jack and I were busy making the monster treats.  At Halloween, my pigs-in-a-blanket always *magically* become Mummy Dogs.  I can also make a mean Boo cake, complete with gummy eyeballs and worms for a mouth.

My goal for this week is to make a witch’s hat out of Rice Krispies treats.  Oh, the delicious goodies!  At Halloween, I consider it a free munch time (cuz, you know, there’s always so much candy going around anyway), and there are SO many goodies that I love to eat.

What’s your favorite monster treat for Halloween? It can be a special dish you make yourself or a favorite candy you buy from your friendly grocery story.  Tell me, and I’ll pick one commenter to win her/his choice of any Cynthia Eden book.

And while I’m blogging, I wanted to be sure and mention the Dangerous Fun that will be starting soon…

Update:  Time to announce the winners!  (And wow, there sure were some good ghost stories posted!).  Keena picked the winner of ANAM CARA…and the lucky winner is Edie!!  The winner of TIES THAT BIND is Kathleen! Congrats, ladies!

Once upon a time, as I toured a castle in the English fog, I looked up and saw a medieval re-enactor standing on the battlement, looking over the tourists gathered in the lower bailey. The authenticity of his costume was impressive, and then some. His tunic was a dull red, worn at the edges. His chain mail looked more like pewter than bright steel, and his battered helm obscured his nose and hair.

Curious as to why he was standing there alone, I pointed him out to the guy standing beside me. “Is there an English heritage event today?”

The man frowned at me, puzzled, so I pointed upward. “The re-enactor.”

He looked up the wall, then back down at me. “Who?”

I looked back up at the man, standing there in his tarnished armor. “Nothing,” I muttered and followed the tour group deeper into the castle. I saw the “re-enactor” several more times during the tour, but kept my observations to myself.
To this day, I still wonder who—or what—I saw that day. A random re-enactor? A ghost? Or did my imagination just go wild?

I will never know, but I always tell it as a ghost story simply because I love tales of haunt houses, restless spirits and things that go bump in the night. The spookier the better. So it’s no surprise that my book ANAM CARA and its sequel, TIES THAT BIND, have a ghost. The restless spirit is an underlying presence rather than active participation in the plot, but I like that he’s there, hanging out and protecting of the family who lives in the castle.

My current story is set in the fall, and though including All Hallow’s Eve would be anachronistic, I do have a scene in which someone foolishly tells my hero’s daughter a ghost story that will keep her up all night and spoil my heroine’s plans to get closer to her new husband.

The tale is a made-up one of five sisters who didn’t get along in life and now squabble in death, but for fun, I’d love to include a real-life ghostly encounter to round out the story.

If you want to play, leave a comment and a story. One commentator will win a copy of ANAM CARA just for leaving the entry (I’ll draw a name at random on Friday and announce the winner, who can chose an digital or print copy). I’ll also give away a copy of TIES THAT BIND when it comes out on Dec. 18 to the person who leaves the best ghost story.

I’m looking forward to some scary tales.

Keena Kincaid had a degree in medieval studies, which should explain why she sometimes spends a rainy afternoon reading the Domesday Book or the Oxford English Dictionary. After careers in journalism and public relations, she set out to write a medieval murder-mystery with a minstrel sleuth. At some point, her hero opted to woo the local innkeeper instead, and the murder-mystery transformed into an historical romance—a lucky break for the intended victims and her career. In addition to her debut book ANAM CARA, she’s written ART OF LOVE (the story of Abelard and Heloise the way it should have been) and TIES THAT BIND, which will be released Dec. 28. You can find her Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, http://keenakincaid.com/ and her blog, http://www.typosandall.com/.