Cemetery Ghosts and Another Lexa & Julie Update

Abel's Hill on a pretty Spring day

Abel's Hill Cemetery on Martha's Vineyard dates back to at least the 1700s and to my knowledge is one of the oldest cemeteries on the island. I have so many ancestors buried at Abel's Hill that it can be a bit eerie to go there and see my last name on what feels like every other stone.

The cemetery is the setting for a key scene in The Ghosts of Aquinnah so I thought I would share a few cemetery ghost stories for today's post. While I was unable to find any ghost stories about Abel's Hill, anyone who has been there on a foggy and dark evening can tell you that it's a safe bet that there are some ghosts hanging around there at any given time.

All of these stories involve cemeteries in Connecticut, which was my father's home state.

The entrance to The Green Lady cemetery (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The Green Lady cemetery is no longer in use, but the old headstones remain on the small plot of land in the town of Burlington. Visitors to the cemetery have reported a greenish figure appearing around the tombstone of Elisabeth Palmiter, who drowned in a nearby swamp while searching for her lost husband during a crippling winter storm in the early 1800s. Many believe Elisabeth now haunts the land as the Green Lady.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Gunntown Cemetery is located in the town of Naugatuck, in a rural area that is surrounded by woods. Visitors to the cemetery have reported sounds of music and children's laughter coming from the woods in the middle of the night, with the noises growing louder and louder until they seem to be coming from inside of the cemetery itself. Others have said they have received calls on their cell phones while in the cemetery in spite of the fact that they have no cell service in the area. The calls have no number listed with them and no one on the other end of the line when the phones are answered.

Union Cemetery (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Union Cemetery in Easton is reportedly one of the most famous haunted cemeteries in the country thanks to its resident ghost, The White Lady of Union Cemetery. The lady is said to glide through the cemetery and around the tombstones wearing a white nightgown or wedding dress. Visitors to the cemetery have reported hearing disembodied sounds of a woman sobbing. In addition, a man reported driving past the cemetery on Route 59 late one night when a women in white suddenly appeared in the road in front of him. Unable to stop, he struck the figure. But when he got out of his truck, she was nowhere to be seen. Numerous drivers have claimed to have seen the ghostly woman in a white dress while on Route 59 at night.

Some have speculated the White Lady is the ghost of Harriet Seeley, who is buried in the cemetery and had a son who preceded her in death in 1853. Those who believe the ghost is Seeley suggest that the White Lady is roaming the cemetery searching for her dead son.

Do you know of any haunted cemeteries? I would imagine there are quite a few!

I want to say thank you again to everyone who has signed up for Lexa and Julie's Dream Destination Blog Hop! Lexa and I are totally overwhelmed by the response and so grateful to those who have donated to our prizes. I am including an updated list of prizes here along with the sign up list. You guys totally rock!

Current List of Prizes

Ebook copies of our books The Ghosts of Aquinnah & Soul Cutter

A 5 page critique from Lexa's agent Michelle Johnson of Inklings Literary Agency

A query critique from Michelle Johnson

An ebook bundle from my publisher Ink Smith Publishing

An ebook of Champion in the Darkness by Tyrean Martinson,

A digital copy of The 13th Floor Complete Collection by Christine Rains

An ebook of Drowned Sorrow by Vanessa Morgan

An ebook from M. Pax
A Kindle copy of BESTEST. RAMADAN. EVER. by Medeia Sharif 
An ebook from Nicki Elson - winner's choice of Three Daves, Divine Temptation or Hans & Greta

A Kindle copy of The People We Used to Be by Madeline Mora-Summonte

A 5 page critique from C. Lee McKenzie

And finally, the Realms Faire is in full swing and prizes are going like crazy. Visit M.Pax here for a full list of ongoing events and visit our Untethered Realms blog here to play Phasers and enter to win our Kindle grand prize!

Realms Faire & Blog Hop Update

This is going to be a fun week in the blogosphere as the Realms Faire is now here!

The Realms Faire is the brainchild of M. Pax, and she is hosting her second annual joust on her site all this week. Visit each day to cheer on your favorite knights and be eligible for daily prizes!

In addition, Angela Brown is hosting a Masquerade Parade, Samantha Geary is holding a Collective Stage Performance, River Fairchild has a big Dragon Hunt going on, Gwen Gardner has a bunch of authors on trial in the Stockade Brigade, Laura Eno is running a Castle Jumble, and Christine Rains is hosting the irresistibly titled Drench-a-Wench and Soak-a-Bloke. All of these great hosts are offering individual prizes for their respective events, so there are tons of chances to win.

As if all that isn't enough, the Untethered Realms blog is holding a Phasers game every day this week. We at Untethered Realms got together to offer a Realms Faire grand prize of a Kindle or a huge bundle of UR author ebooks, so we are really excited to have everyone join us! You can enter to win through the Rafflecopter form at the bottom of this post.

Thanks to everyone who has signed up for the Dream Destination Blog Hop and Giveaway that Lexa Cain and I are hosting together in December. Our Linky List will be open all month so if you'd still like to sign up on the entry form below please feel free.

We are super excited to announce the prizes we have lined up for the giveaway so far.

Ebook copies of our books The Ghosts of Aquinnah & Soul Cutter

A 5 page critique from Lexa's agent Michelle Johnson of Inklings Literary Agency

A query critique from Michelle Johnson

An ebook bundle from my publisher Ink Smith Publishing

An ebook of Champion in the Darkness by Tyrean Martinson,

A digital copy of The 13th Floor Complete Collection by Christine Rains

An ebook of Drowned Sorrow by Vanessa Morgan

An ebook from M. Pax
A Kindle copy of BESTEST. RAMADAN. EVER. by Medeia Sharif 
An ebook from Nicki Elson - winner's choice of Three Daves, Divine Temptation or Hans & Greta

Major thanks to Michelle, Ashley at Ink Smith, Tyrean, Christine, Vanessa, Mary and Medeia for these generous donations. If anyone else if interested in donating a prize, we'd be thrilled to include it. The more, the merrier! 

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Enjoy the week at the Faire! :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Lexa and Julie's Blog Hop!

I am skipping my Friday Faves today because I am excited to announce my first ever blog hop!

The brilliant Lexa Cain suggested that she and I host a blog hop together to celebrate our book releases in December. My The Ghosts of Aquinnah will be released on Thursday, December 5 and Lexa's Soul Cutter will be released the next day on Friday, December 6. Lexa came up with the idea and the art work and I am thrilled to be able to hop on board and host with her.

So here are the details on our hop:

To celebrate the launch of their books
Soul Cutter and The Ghosts of Aquinnah
Lexa and Julie invite you to a
Blog-hop and Giveaway

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Beaches of Hawaii? Slopes of Vail? Cancun, Paris, or Rome?
Where is your Dream Destination?

On Dec 5 or 6, post about your Dream Destination
(with blog-hop badge and links to Lexa and Julie's blogs)
Go to Lexa and Julie’s blog to enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway
and from Dec 5 - 8, use the Linky tool to visit the other bloggers
to see the wonderful places they want to visit.

Prizes to be announced.

 Anyone who’d like to donate a prize, please contact:
Lexa: laura.6eg@gmail.com  or  Julie: juliflan@yahoo.com

We are still working out the details on prizes but we will definitely be giving away copies of our books. And if anyone would like to donate copies of their ebooks to include as prizes we would be thrilled to help spread the word about your work.

To participate in the hop please sign up on the Linky List at the bottom of this post. We hope you'll celebrate with us!

And speaking of celebrations, for this week's Celebrate the Small Things hop I'm celebrating the blog hop! I am super-excited about hosting a hop for the first time. But I also have a few other things:

1) I won books in giveaways hosted by E.J. Wesley and Yolanda Renee. So fun! I won a paperback copy of the Death by Drive-In Anthology from E.J.'s Coffin Hop and an ebook copy of Sunrise by Kody Boye from a giveaway on Yolanda's site. Very cool surprises to get in my email. :)

2) I am so grateful for all the encouraging and wonderful comments left on my IWSG blog post this week. If I didn't already know how lucky I was to be part of such a kind and supportive group of people that would definitely have convinced me. Thanks to all!

3) It's Friday and the weekend is here. Enough said! 

Happy weekend, all. :)

IWSG and the Brenton Point Ghosts

It's hard to believe it's time for another meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group, but here we are on the first Wednesday of November. The IWSG is hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh and this month's co-hosts are CD Coffelt, Tina Downey, Isis Rushdan, and Michelle Wallace. Also, the group now has its own website which is a fantastic resource for writers.

My novel The Ghosts of Aquinnah will be released on December 5, which means it's now officially less than one month away! I am super excited but also feeling totally nervous and insecure about the release. I'm insecure about marketing and insecure about the book itself. I'm afraid everyone will hate it or worse that no one will read it so hating it won't even be an option.

I had all these same insecurities when Polar Night was released and I thought that I would do better the second time around. But if anything I am now much worse and the insecure voice in my head is having a field day freaking me out.

But I am going to do my best to shut my insecure voice up and focus on the joy of being able to share this book. Here's hoping I can keep that voice quiet. It's loud and obnoxious, so I may need to gag it or smother it with a pillow. :D

Brenton Point (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

For this week's ghost story I am traveling to Newport, Rhode Island, which was once the summer destination of choice for America's wealthiest families, many of whom built mansions and lavish estates along Newport's shores.

Brenton Point State Park in Newport is located right on the shore and reportedly has exquisite scenic views. But in spite of this beauty, the land itself was not very friendly to those who chose to live there.

Wealthy attorney and amateur archaeologist Theodore Davis built an estate at Brenton Point in 1876 and filled his mansion with artifacts he had taken from the Middle East while on exhibitions to find King Tut's tomb. Many claimed that these artifacts were cursed by the spirits of the Pharaohs, and the curse seemed to play out as first Davis' windmill and then his stables caught on fire and burned to the ground. 

While Davis rebuilt the windmill and stables, he was reportedly never happy on the estate from the time he moved in until his death in 1910. The property was vacant for 13 years following the death until it was purchased by Milton Budlong. The Budlong family was also miserable on the land and Budlong's children refused to live there after his death in 1941. Finally, after years of being left derelict, a fire destroyed the mansion in 1960.

The state of Rhode Island took over the estate in the 1960s and turned it into the park it is today. The ruins of the stables remain in the park and visitors have reported hearing voices and the sound of galloping hooves in the area. Many park visitors have heard a horse clopping up behind them while walking along the paths of the park, only to turn around and find no horse in sight. In addition, visitors have reported hearing ethereal voices in the gardens and around the site of the windmill.

Many rangers who work at the park refuse to enter the old estate grounds after dark. I figure if even the rangers don't want to be there, I probably wouldn't either. Although I think it would be interesting to visit during the daylight hours and see if I could hear those horses' hooves myself. :D

Happy IWSG day, all!

Interview with Glynis Smy

Another quick post today just to say that I'm excited to be interviewed at Glynis Smy's site for her Getting to Know the Author feature.  It was fun to chat with Glynis about the actors I would choose to play my characters, among other topics. You can find my interview here.

If you don't know Glynis, you should definitely check her books out. I read Ripper, My Love and it's a fantastic read. Glynis writes historical romance and she's super-talented. In addition to interviewing authors each week, Glynis also runs The Virtual Bookcase, where she showcases different books in a variety of genres. In short, Glynis is awesome. :D

I will see you tomorrow for the November IWSG! Please stop by and visit me at Glynis' place.

Diamonds and Dust Cover Reveal

Hello and Happy Monday!

I've submerged myself in working on guest posts for my blog tour for The Ghosts of Aquinnah, so I just have a quick post today to share the cover of Diamonds and Dust by River Fairchild. Isn't this cover beautiful? It's always fun to help spread the word about a new book from one of my fellow Untethered Realms members. Congratulations to River!!

Magic is real. So is betrayal.

Two heirs. A Kingdom of dust on a troubled world. One might resurrect it. One might destroy it all.

Archaeologist David Alexander investigates the cave where his father disappeared and hurtles into another world, one filled with magic and bizarre creatures. The mad ravings in his father's journals of icemen and dragons may not be fantasies after all.

Convinced his father may still be alive, David begins a treacherous journey to find him and discover a way home. Along the way, he encounters a few unlikely friends. A Dreean warrior, a beautiful thief and a satyr join him as he searches.
David's arrival into this new world sets off an explosive chain reaction of events. Faced with powerful adversaries and few clues, he may not get the chance to rescue his father before disaster strikes, condemning both of them to death. Or worse.

Diamonds and Dust will be released on December 9 and is already available for pre-order at the following links:

Barnes & Noble
Kobo
Apple

Find River at her blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter

I hope everyone had a great weekend and has a great week ahead. :)

Favorite Cat Rescues, the Realms Faire, and Friday Celebrations

Since National Cat Day was this week I thought I would share some of my favorite cat rescues for this week's Friday Faves. These organizations all do amazing work!

Best Friends Animal Society

As I've mentioned before, writing for Best Friends changed my life and signing up to volunteer for them was one of the best decisions I've ever made. Someday I hope to visit Best Friends in Kanab, Utah and take a trip to Cat World which is, in their words, "a place where cats rule."




Tabby's Place 

Thanks to Best Friends I got to know the amazing people and cats of Tabby's Place in Ringoes, New Jersey. Tabby's Place is a cat sanctuary dedicated to bringing hope to cats in hopeless situations. They care for numerous special needs cats and are known for finding forever homes for cats thought to be "unadoptable." I wrote a story for Cat Fancy about three kittens who were rescued by a US marine in Japan and came clear across the world to Tabby's Place, where they ultimately found a home with a woman in Pennsylvania. Tabby's Place is an extraordinary and one-of-a-kind place.

Juanita: One of the darling cats available for adoption at Tabby's Place

Ohio Alleycat Resource

Located here in Cincinnati, OAR is a low-cost spay/neuter clinic for cats that also runs a cat rescue. The clinic has performed more than 6900 spay/neuter surgeries so far this year, cutting down exponentially on the number of unwanted cats and kittens in our area. The rescue, which houses as many as 90-100 cats at any given time, has taken in more than 200 cats and adopted out nearly as many so far in 2013.

Ashley, a long-haired beauty currently waiting for her home at OAR

Purrfect Friends Cat Rescue

Another Cincinnati rescue, Purrfect Friends is an all-volunteer organization which relies on foster families to care for their rescued cats. The Purrfect Friends won this Game of Thrones fanatic's heart when they named a group of adorable kittens after GoT characters. Little mother of dragons Daenerys is still waiting for her forever home.

Daenerys

Paws & Claws Animal Rescue

Paws & Claws is based across the river from Cincinnati in Northern Kentucky and is another rescue that relies entirely on foster families to house its animals. The tireless volunteers of Paws & Claws operate under the motto "one by one until there are none." While they are not limited to cats, they always have numerous cats and kittens available for adoption.

Simba, one of the Paws & Claws kitties waiting for a new home

Moving on from the kitties, I want to thank everyone who participated in my October giveaway. Jossie at Dreaming of Publication won the Polar Night ebook and $10 Amazon gift card. Enjoy, Jossie!

Instead of a monthly giveaway in November I am participating in a mega-giveaway with my Untethered Realms buddies as part of this year's Realms Faire. The faire will be held from November 11-15 and there will be lots of fun, lots of prizes, and lots of chances to win. Visit host M. Pax here for more details and stay tuned for info on our big prize!

For this week's Celebrate the Small Things hop I was hoping to be able to celebrate the Bengals beating the Dolphins last night and going to 7-2. Unfortunately that didn't work out, to the surprise of none of us who follow the Bengals. If there's one thing the Bengals excel at it's taking the wind out of fans' sails.

But they're still in first place and my Buckeyes are rolling at 8-0 so I'm celebrating a fun football season so far and keeping my fingers crossed that the rest of the season will bring more to celebrate.

Also, it's been a long and tiring week here so I'm mostly celebrating the fact that the weekend is here. I hope everyone has a great one. :)