Go Into The White Forest by Adam McOmber

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Jodi Lustig

The stores have been pumpkined out for ages, but Halloween is really around the corner now. Time to curl up with a book that suits the season. Reading The White Forest was like curling up by a dark fireside and having a cup of spiced cider. A definite page-turner in lush detail with just the right amount of eerie and spook to make the lily-livered and horror queens happy.

Author Adam McOmber knows his way around the Victorian era. (And he knows it the way booklovers like best: through its stories.) The White Forest’s Jane Silverlake is beset by misfortunes shared by many of her literary sisters: she is motherless with an eccentric distant father and lives far away from polite society. (London, of course.) Her only refuge comes in the friendships she forges with her neighbors, Madeline and Nathan, and it is with them that she discovers the joys of wandering the heath.

Like childhood, the fragile economy of this triumvirate can only last so long. The young women’s feelings for Nathan strains their relationship. But Jane’s secret powers—an unexplainable gift that allows her to see the souls of man-made objects-—may be the greatest threat to them all. The more conventional Madeleine finds them terrifying. Nathan has developed an interest in the occult on his own, joining a cult led by Ariston Day, a charismatic mystic. Day encourages his followers to explore dream manipulation with the goal of discovering a strange hidden world, a place he calls the Empyrean.

When Nathan disappears, Jane soon realizes that her powers may be the key to finding him …

To say more than that would be probably be criminal in any era. The White Forest offers all the pleasures of the historical and fantasy genres it fuses. The recovering academic in me knows the supernatural element is especially fitting in a novel set in the Victorian era, when there was a great deal of interest in the occult, perhaps most famously manifested in the Spiritualist movement that was a source of friction in Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning’s marriage. But to enjoy The White Forest no special knowledge or secret powers are required. Only a love of a good yarn and gorgeous, atmospheric writing.

Prom Dates to Die For

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Dani Stone

Grab your date, spike the punch, head out on the dance floor and beware the un-dead, it’s paranormal Prom time.

Prom Dates to Die For: Paranormal Prom Stories is the latest anthology from Buzz Books, USA. The compilation features 5 young adult authors who deliver more than just the typical dance drama. They’ve created other worldly mayhem!

From Amazon: In Kelly Parra‘s “Darkness Becomes Him,” teen supernatural hunters are hired to save a prom date hungry for souls. -

Heather Dearly introduces us to a young reaper haunted by a past she doesn’t remember in “The Bone Flower.”

A prom queen seeks justice and revenge in Lena Brown’s, “Every Breath You Take.”

Aaron Smith gives us a loner musician called to save his classmates from an enemy only he can see in “A Kiss at the Threshold.”

Jenny Peterson‘s heroine gets much more than she wished for on her prom night and 18th birthday in “Tonight, You’re Mine.” Frightful, fun and unforgettable.

Get ready to slice the congratulatory cake. It’s release day. Now available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble!

Ghost At Work, The Spiritualist

Posted on October 1, 2008 by malenalott

In celebration of the ghouliest month of the year, we’ll be spotlighting paranormal books each week in both our Books in Bloom and Reviews. To kick off October, we’re beginning with two solid reads to kick start the boo season. -AB

Ghost at Work by Carolyn Hart (Hardback, mystery, release: Oct. 21st)

From the publisher:

Bailey Ruth Raeburn has always been great at solving mysteries. Why should a little thing like her death change anything? In fact, being dead gives her more of an opportunity to be on top of events. … if anybody needs a little help, it’s Kathleen, the pastor’s wife. There’s a dead man on her porch, and once the body is discovered, the pastor is sure to become a suspect.

Uncharitable people might call it meddling, but Bailey Ruth knows Kathleen needs her help! As a member of Heaven’s Department of Good Intentions, Bailey Ruth goes back to earth to extricate Kathleen from a dire situation. If Bailey Ruth has to bend a few rules to help Kathleen save her family, Wiggins, her fussbudget supervisor, will make sure it all turns out right in the end.

The Spiritualist by Megan Chance (Paperback, in stores now)

Sometimes truth is the greatest illusion of all.

In a cold January morning in 1856, Evelyn Atherton’s husband is found murdered after attending an exclusive séance. Having “married up” into New York society, Evie herself is the immediate suspect. Ostracized and vulnerable, she knows that to clear her name she must retrace her husband’s last steps. And so, joining forces with her husband’s best friend–and the only Manhattan lawyer who will accept her case–Evie dives into the mysterious underworld of the occult.

Before long, the trail brings them to a charismatic medium, Michel Jourdain. Evie’s instincts tell her the smooth-talking Jourdain is a charlatan–and her only hope for exoneration. But getting close to Jourdain means embracing a seductive and hypnotic world where clues to murder come through the voices of the dead.

Caught in a perilous game in which she is equal player and pawn, predator and victim, Evie finds there is no one to trust, perhaps not even herself. As her powerful in-laws build a case against her, and with time running out, Evie must face the real ghosts of her past if she is to have any hope of avoiding the hangman.