And Now a Word From My Sponsor: Me

 I know that Friday is not my usual blog day, and don't worry. There should be my regular post come Monday morning. BUT I had to announce that I have a new story out and it is now available at Kindle World!!!!

A short time ago, my friend and fairy godmother, Terri Reid, told me that Amazon was giving her Mary O' Reilly series its own World, and then asked if I would like to help launch it by contributing a Mary O' Reilly fan-fic. Would I like to contribute? DUH.

Fan-fic, as those of us who are into it know, consists of stories written and posted by rabid fans who can't wait for the author's next work. Or who had a story they wanted to tell using someone's else's characters because the story is so suited to them. Fan-fic readers are a community of people who are, well, obsessed with a particular author's universe. (World? Sometimes its a whole universe, honest.) And I have long dabbled in the art of writing works that concern someone else's creation. Because when I like something, I am an uber-fan-girl. I'm sure I'm not the only out there.

So a couple of months and some twenty-eight thousand words after Terri first contacted me, my story has popped into life in the Kindle World collection, along those of five other seed authors whose work is also available. 

My story is called A Scattering of Bones and concerns Mary O' Reilly, Bradley Alden, two ghosts who are afraid to talk to the police, and a jumble of bones in an unmarked grave. 

You can find this story either by going to the Kindle Worlds store (look under "New and Popular") or by looking under my name on Amazon. It's short, as all of them are, so knock yourself out! Terri just released Frayed Edges - maybe these will help tide you over until the next genuine Mary O' Reilly story becomes available!

And please, if you read my story (any story of mine) and like what you find, please, please, please leave a review at Amazon. I'd be indebted.

Perceiving Ghosts - And How They Look

In my third Bridgeton Park Cemetery book Drawing Vengeance (no spoiler ahead), there is a scene where Michael Penfield is looking out the bookstore window and sees a handful of dead people out on the street. I based this scene on the experience of someone I know who sees dead people, as M. Night Shyamalan so famously put it. I will not include the names of any of the folks I will write about here out of respect for their privacy, but what I put down in this blog will be details of sightings as they were told to me. That aside, the first gentleman I write about who can see the dead told me about various places he has run into them: a party, a storefront window, a home a block or so away from his home, even in his own house (this one followed him there: YIKES!) We did a book signing together and I believe he mentioned being able to see "a dead someone" across the parking lot adjacent to the book store where we were situated. 

Since the book signing took place in the neighborhood where Steve's bookstore is, and where Cassie and Michael and Nick and Eloise frequent the Ice Cream Shack for burgers and sundaes, I guess it only seemed natural to let Michael start seeing dead people on these same streets. Like the gentleman who did the book signing with me. 

I know another person, also a man, who told me that he sometimes sees dead people around the hospital close to his house. He's seen them sitting on the bus stop bench, or wandering through the parking lot, or just walking around the front of the building. He did give me an interesting tidbit about his sightings: he told me that when he sees them it's a very quick glimpse. Even just a flash of a glimpse. But it's enough for him to see the entire person and register gender, clothing, even facial expressions. I thought that was interesting because between these two guys that see spirits, the actual perception is different: one sees them for a length of time, the other only gets a quick shot of the ghost. But both are able to give me explicit details about what they've seen.

I know a woman who not only sees them but can hear what they are saying, if they actually speak. She has described being passed by a dead woman who was mumbling to herself the whole time. You might say, but that could have been any crazy person out on the street. Yes, it could. Unfortunately, the woman I know was standing in her own house when this mumbling ghost went past her. Where she was coming from, where she was going, and why she was in the house is anybody's guess. Glad I missed out on that!

When I first started writing the Bridgeton Park Cemetery series, I was worried about depicting how my psychic characters perceived ghosts, but as I've gotten farther into the field, I'm beginning to realize that those who can see spirits don't necessarily all see them in the same way. The dead might appear with or without sound; they might show themselves for an extended period of time or just for a split second. I've been told that they can also project the way they choose to be seen: the gentleman in the first paragraph told me about a house that is haunted by a little girl, but he knows that the little girl is the spirit of a woman who was in her '90's when she died. In the Mary O'Reilly series, my friend Terri Reid has her ghosts appear the way they did at the time of their passing, which makes sense. In the show The Dead Files, psychic Amy Allen will sometimes mention that the spirit "is showing itself" to her in a particular way even though she knows that is not how they may have appeared when their lives ended.

What this all tells me is that I have quite a bit of freedom when it comes to writing the ghostly characters presented in my books. They can appear older or younger. They can be scary with dripping wounds and faces filled with terror, or show up as any average man or woman who just happens to be dead. And I'm so glad for that sense of freedom - because I think that Cassie and Michael are going to run into all sorts of things as the series progresses.

Simon Says: Read Reid Now

Normally, I fall in love with a writer's books and then work on meeting that writer, at a signing or a convention or maybe just through an exchange of letters. This time around, though, I met the writer and then fell in love with her work.

Back in June, I wrote a little column about venturing into self-publishing with e-books, and I mentioned this writer by name: Terri Reid. Well, I finally had a chance to try one of her books and to say that I devoured them would be inaccurate only because the word "devour" doesn't really cover how quickly I jetted through her entire series. So far. I don't normally do this, but I'm going to use this space for my review of book 7 in her Mary O'Reilly series. And if you do what the title of this post says and read her work, I dare you to disagree with me! (This review is also online at Amazon, as is a much clearer picture of the cover artwork.)

Secret Hollows, Terri Reid

Reviewed by Ophelia Julien

Secret Hollows, Aching Hearts

There was no accident or whimsy on my part when I chose to review book seven in Terri Reid’s Mary O’Reilly series instead of any of the earlier ones. I read the entire series in a sort of mad marathon over the course of two and a half days, and I see that I am not the only one who felt the need to comment on this one. Except for the first book, Loose Ends, Secret Hollows has engendered the most reviews. There are good reasons for this.

Ms. Reid is a skillful story teller and the Mary O’Reilly series shows that to the best effect with plot threads that begin in one book, get picked up in another, and are resolved in yet one more, all while new threads are introduced at the same time to keep readers coming back for the next installment . In that regard, Ms. Reid is, I must say, a very talented but evil little minx. There is no leaving this series once hooked. The characters become good friends and the world of Freeport, Illinois becomes a great place to hang out and solve murder mysteries.

Because these are paranormal mysteries, there are always ghosts involved. I have long held the belief that everyone has a ghost story, and it is this premise that makes the Mary O’Reilly books work. As opposed to some small-town murder series where one begins to wonder if half of the town is seriously engaged in bumping off the other half, one citizen at a time, the murders presented here are connected to cold cases as well as to murders that have been incorrectly solved. It is great fun to follow Mary and her companions, both living and dead, as they sort through clues, deal with danger, and still have time and energy to work on affairs of the heart.

Secret Hollows, however, is the heart-breaker of the bunch. Any serial killer who targets children deserves any and every hell the victims’ parents can dream up and dish out. The murders in this story are doubly moving because the reader is given the opportunity to know these young and innocent victims as real children whose lives were taken by a monster. And just to add to the poignancy, a story arc that began a few books back reaches its inevitable happy-but-so sad resolution here. I knew it was coming; I was just hoping it wouldn’t.

Don’t wait. Treat yourself to these books yesterday. I only reviewed number seven, but do not skip the first six because 1) you need the background to appreciate the depth of this particular story, and 2) the whole series is one helluva a ride.

Ms. Reid just got herself a new fan-girl.