New Book Reveal

I finally have a new book coming out! This one is a bit different as it is a short story collection and the theme is after my favorite holiday: Halloween. I decided on a short story collection because I had a few ideas in my head for Halloween themed stories, but decided none of them were really suitable for a full length novel.

For those of you who have been following me or know me personally, you probably know by now that I love Halloween, so this book is my tribute to it. Each story involves symbols or traditions associated with Halloween like witches, ghosts, and cemeteries or trick or treating and going to a haunted house. Like my other stories, I will be delving into some of the real history and traditions behind each story in both my blog and YouTube videos in the coming months.

I did send the collection to a few publishers and agents and got a ton of rejections! (Story of my life.) There are some I have not heard back from yet, but it has been over eight months since I submitted my queries, so I don’t think it’s going to be a yes. That means this book will be published on Amazon KDP and ACX too.

Unless I change it, the title of my book will be Killer Nights: Five Frightening Tales of Halloween. In the first tale, an anxious, elderly woman named Lillian receives a slew of mysterious trick or treaters who all seem vaguely familiar and say the oddest things. While she worries they mean her harm, she must search her memories to find the real reason they have come to her door. In the second story, Gina, Colin, and Travis are a group of urban explorers seeking to gain fame with a live ghost hunting show after disappointing progress on their previous videos. They choose a local, abandoned house that was once the site of grisly murders for their video, only to find the ghosts are hunting them. In the third story, a New Orleans woman, Tamara, has reoccurring dreams of being entombed alive. She has to trust in her family’s age-old beliefs in order to make sense of the dream and stop it from becoming true. The next story features Evelyn who goes to a local bar for a fun night after struggling with the sudden death of her husband the previous year. She meets a charming stranger, Josh, and takes him to her place on a whim. Evelyn and Josh are both hiding secrets that will make their night go from fun to deadly. In the last story, Brian, a bored, directionless college kid, goes with his parents on a trip to Ireland during Halloween. While he resists learning about the country’s culture and history, this will come back to haunt him when he is unwittingly thrust into the center of Ireland’s ancient festival of Samhain and the spirits that come out to play.

I am hoping to have this story published in September, so that everyone has a good read for spooky season. In my next post, I will be showing you my ideas for the cover art. And you all get a say in it! I will be taking a poll to see which cover everyone prefers.