Cover Reveal: When Stars Will Shine @BakerPromo @emmamitchellfpr @TheQuietKnitter

When Stars Will Shine is a collection of short stories from your favourite authors who have come together to deliver you a Christmas read with a twist.

With true war tales that will break your heart, gritty Christmas crimes that will shake you to your core, and heart warming tales of love lost and found, this anthology has something for everyone. And, with every penny made being sent to support our troops, you can rest assured that you’re helping our heroes, one page at a time.

From authors such as Louise Jensen, Graham Smith, Malcolm Hollingdrake, Lucy Cameron, Val Portelli, and Alex Kane, you are in for one heck of a ride!

Cover Reveal:

PRE-ORDER ON AMAZON

A Note From Emma Mitchell:

As the blurb tells us, When Stars Will Shine is a multi-genre collection of Christmas themed short stories complied to raise money for our armed forces and every penny made from the sales of both the digital and paperback copies will be donated to the charity.

Working closely with Kate Noble at Noble Owl Proofreading and Amanda Ni Odhrain from Let’s Get Booked, I’ve been able to pick the best of the submissions to bring you a thrilling book which is perfect for dipping into at lunchtime or snuggling up with on a cold winter’s night. I have been completely blown away by the support we’ve received from the writing and blogging community, especially the authors who submitted stories and Shell Baker from Baker’s Not So Secret Blog, who has organised the cover reveal and blog tour.

When Stars Will Shine is available for pre-order now and will be published on 9 December 2019.

There isn’t anyone in the country who hasn’t benefited from the sacrifices our troops, past and present, have made for us and they all deserve our thanks.

It has been an honour to work on these stories and to create this anthology and I hope you enjoy reading the stories as much as I have.

Book Review: The Widow of Pale Harbour by Hester Fox @HesterBFox @HQstories

A town gripped by fear. A woman accused of murder. Who can save Pale Harbour from itself?

1846. Desperate to escape the ghosts of his past, Gabriel Stone takes a position as a minister in the remote Pale Harbour, but not all is as it seems in the sleepy town.

As soon as Gabriel steps foot in town, he can’t escape the rumours about the mysterious Sophy Carver, a young widow who lives in the eerie Castle Carver: whispers that she killed her husband, mutterings that she might even be a witch.

But as strange, unsettling events escalate into murder, Gabriel finds himself falling under Sophy’s spell. As clues start to point to Sophy as the next victim, Gabriel realises he must find answers before anyone else turns up dead.
Buy the Book: UK & IE

Review:

After reading The Witch of Willow Hall last year, I was desperate to get my hands on The Widow of Pale Harbour. Witchy books, especially at this time of the year, are like a drug to me. 

Like the her first book, The Widow of Pale Harbor is hauntingly addictive. Hester Fox has an incredible way of drawing you into her locations, making you feel like you're right there witnessing what's happening in the characters' lives. 

This book is definitely not a roller coaster, but I was prepared. The Witch of Willow hall was slow but steeped in mystery, and this book is no different. Don't be fooled by the slow start, you might think you have the plot figured out, but I can almost guarantee you'll be wrong. If you allow yourself to get lost in the atmosphere of this book and you'll really enjoy the experience. 

I found Sophronia (or Sophy as she's called) to be such a wonderful character. She was hated and maligned by the townspeople but remained a kind and graceful soul. A perfect match for the grieving minister, Gabriel. It was a joy to watch the two characters develop as the story progressed.

If you're a fan of Edgar Allan Poe, then you'll love this book as the mysteries scattered throughout are directly related to his poems and they add another delightfully creepy layer to the book. 

Murder, mystery and romance, The Widow of Pale Harbour is everything you could possibly want in a book at this time of the year. Put on the fire and get comfy because once you start it you won't be able to put it down! 

Blog Tour: Inspiration Behind The Dead of Winter by A.B. Gibson @ABGibson1 #LoveBooksTours

Four young professionals pick the wrong weekend to visit a popular Pumpkin Patch Bed and Breakfast. It’s the last day of the season, and the weather and the farm are picture-perfect. Ma and Pa Winter are the consummate hosts, and they immediately win over Dillon, Tara, Josh and Julia with their homespun authenticity. Like the thousands of other visitors to Winters Farm and Orchard, the four are eager to pick apples and pumpkins and take the challenge of the Giant Corn Maze. But Ma Winter has other plans. A scary moonlight hayride spirals into a frantic twenty-four hours of deception and mayhem, and the group find themselves unwilling participants in a horrific family tradition.

Guest Post by A.B. Gibson:

Write what you know––to a point.

For fifteen years, my partner and I owned a destination farm near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Ours was one of those family-friendly places where one could pick apples in our three-thousand tree orchard, pick a pumpkin off the vine in a five-acre patch, and take the challenge of the Giant Corn Maze. It was a lively place in the fall, when over a thousand people a day would visit each Saturday and Sunday. During the week, elementary schools kept us busy hosting their field trips, and everyday school busses would line our long driveway. Our farm had a wholesome reputation, so church groups and civic organizations brought their members regularly for group fun.

But I was desperate to put on a scary attraction. I’d been a consultant to a Fright Festival in another state for several years before we dared host our own “Haunting Season,” and I was aware of two great fears of putting on such an event:  liability issues, and that it would be lame.

Our intention was to offer a full-throttle scary experience, and I started out with the premise that things are the scariest when they seem real. We didn’t use animatronics or static scenes displaying preposterous gore, as was so common in Halloween events. OUr hayride path wound its way around the same farm our guests would have visited during the day, and to encounter a graveyard or a mad scientist’s lab on the property would have been neither believable nor scary. What we did instead, was startle.

Getting the timing right every bit as important to a creating a successful fright as it is to a memorable comedy routine, and our secret was tight choreography. Each jump, scare, and rip of the chainsaw was done in precise order, by the same actors, and exactly the same way every ride. Our Moonlight Hayrides always started out lame, and just when folks would get bored, our tractor would break down. That’s when the fun began. After terrorizing the wagon for several minutes, actors dressed as clowns with chainsaws would pick unsuspecting customers (They were always plants––see above fear of liability.) and drag them off the wagon into a cornfield, where they would scream their bloody heads off. Yes, we auditioned people for their screaming skills.

On a flight to Los Angeles one day, I had the idea for a screenplay. What if four young professionals pick the wrong weekend to visit the farm? And what if the farm’s owners weren’t as hospitable as we had been? And what if their chainsaws were equipped with real chains?

The screenplay got delayed, but in the meantime I used the plot for my first horror novel, The Dead of Winter.