I’m SO excited to have historical romance author Katharine Ashe visiting my blog today. Katharine writes the most gorgeous books, and she’s got the readers, the awards and the accolades to prove it. On top of that she’s a truly lovely lady – I’m a huge fan, as you can probably tell!
Like many traditionally published authors, Katharine is also venturing into the world of indie publishing. She’s got a new book out and she’s here to tell us all about it in a truly delightful blog post.
Ghosts
I love romance. Like many of you, I am a romance addict. But there’s something else I must admit to adoring too.
Ghost stories.
Let me be clear: I am not a big fan of monster horror. With a few notable exceptions, I steer clear of stories that are designed to scare the tuna salad out of me. In fact, that’s an allusion to one of my favorite monster stories ever, Leonardo, the Terrible Monster by the brilliant Mo Willems, which is a children’s book. See my point? I’ve a far too nervous soul to welcome truly frightful creatures into my imagination.
The adult monster stories that I do love are always stories of deep emotion and even sometimes a degree of tragedy, for instance, the love story between Joss Whedon’s Buffy and Angel, or Mary Shelley’s gorgeously profound Frankenstein. I adore those tales not for the terror and violence, but for the pathos — the deep, powerfully human experiences the monsters have, and their achingly real desire to be human themselves.
Why do they long to be human when as monsters they have such immense power over mere humans? It’s simple.
They want to be human so that they won’t be alone in the world.
I love to be alone, to spend solitary days writing or taking long walks on the beach or in the woods, pondering, dreaming, you name it. But being alone is different from true loneliness. And true loneliness breaks my heart each time I encounter it. We humans are social creatures. Loving creatures. Most of us need other people because in order to live we need to love and be loved.
Which is why when it comes to spooky, I am very fond of ghost stories. There’s just something about that impossibly intimate yet uncrossable boundary between the living and the once-living that tears at my heart and makes it ache.
I don’t think I’m alone in this. Take Ghost, the smash hit movie from 1990. Why was it so popular? Well, it’s a romance (of a sort) starring a very famous trio of actors (one of them with really, really nice abs and pecs, and I’m not talking about Demi). But it’s also the story of her grief and loneliness, and of his pain for her. Their love is simply too powerful to release so swiftly, especially when she is still in danger.
That’s why I love ghost stories. A story of danger combined with deep emotion and the sheer tragedy of that profound divide between those who love each other but can’t do anything about it grips me like nothing else. Every time I read or see that kind of story, I can’t stop thinking about it. I want to fix it! I write romance, for gosh sakes. I need happy endings! I want love to triumph over tragedy EVERY SINGLE TIME.
Which is why I wrote Captive Bride, my Regency ghost novel.
Miss Beatrice Sinclaire and Lord Peter Cheriot, the man she has hopelessly loved in secret for years, fight against time to save Bea from a terrible curse. A ghost with a tortured soul has trapped them in a haunted castle, and he is demanding that Bea marry him by All Hallows’ Eve. But dashing Lord Cheriot knows a thing or two about heartache, too, and he’s not about to let Bea come to harm.
Spooky? A bit.
Nail biting? One or two.
Romantic? You betcha.
Sexy? Delectably.
A great big happily-ever-after at the end? Ohh, YES.
Award-winning author Katharine Ashe is the author of six novels and one novella set in the Regency era and a professor of medieval history. This is her first (and possibly only) ghost novel (she only has ten nails to bite off, after all).
What is your favorite way to be spooked? Ghosts? Goblins? Vampires? Werewolves? The grocery bill? Katharine will send a copy of Captive Bride in e-book format to one randomly chosen commenter.
Happy Halloween!
Read an excerpt from Captive Bride: http://www.katharineashe.com/books_ghost.html
Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/cpukwcz
Nook: http://tinyurl.com/clgvsva
Most other e-book formats (including iPad/iBooks) and PDF: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/245099
Vanessa, here. Doesn’t Katharine’s new book sound wonderful? I have it downloaded onto my Kindle, all ready to go. It is definitely at the top of my TBR list! So you lucky readers, give Katharine’s question a whirl for a chance to win a copy of Captive Bride!
And there’s one more day left for the Alpha Male Blog Hop. Just click here for my post and to enter the contest!
Hmmm… What spooks me?… I have a very over active imagination! So anything too scary or too real just gives me horrible nightmares! :0/ But I do like a little spook.. As long as it has a great storyline and a happily ever after!.. I would probably have to go with ghosts or vampires, paranormal wise I am partial to fallen angels. Best of both worlds.. All in all good but with a bad boy side!
Bad boys pretty much always do it for me too, Maycee. The ghost in CAPTIVE BRIDE fits that description well!
CAPTIVE BRIDE does look wonderful. I don’t like to be spooked too much. I do enjoy ghost stories though.
Then CAPTIVE BRIDE may be just the story for you, Mary. A little tiny bit spooky but mostly really, really romantic. 🙂
I haven’t see a horror film in years, having given them up in my late 20s, so I guess many things would frighten me (although probably nothing would frighten me more than credit card bills – yikes!).
Agreed, infinitieh, LOL!
My boss. Just the thought of him on the way to the office gives me chills and send my heart pounding. Vampires or werewolves doesn’t scare me, specially if they’re hot looking, I’ll be willing to offer my neck for them to bite. 😀
LOLOL! Thanks for the belly laugh, Lory! And good luck with those sexy vamps and wolves!
I love being scared and watching movies that make me so tense that I anything little thing will scare me. I do stay away from any type of horror movies that is based on true events, like Blair Witch project and the one where kids came up missing in the Outback and are gory. I want my movies to be completley from someone’s imagination and know how to scare without being predictable. I love all things supernatural vampires, werewolves, shape shifters, demons, goblins, ghosts. Just about anything that will get my heart pounding and fear what’s going to happen without being too predictable or gory. I defintely prefer watching scary movies instead of reading them probably because I enjoy soliltude when I read, and I need to have someone with me to watch scary movies.
Ora, I’m the exact opposite. I’m such a wimp! I was a huge Buffy/Angel lover, though. I always felt that Spike and I had a future together!
Ora, I agree with you completely about the realistic horror stories. When I was a child the scary stories about real nasty people were much more frightening to me than the monster stories!
Well, the grocery bill has been pulse-pounding for weeks, so it doesn’t thrill me anymore. Werewolves, vampires, goblins, demons, they’ve been all turned into sexy and ultimately adorable and lovable creatures by romance writers…the only thing that still gives me the creeps is the McDonald clown!
LOL! I am SO with you on clowns, Mina. Hate them!
LOL, Mina! The McDonald’s clown makes me nervous too. My nine-year-old son has been telling me scary stories all week and I’ve let him tell me all of them (he’s reading them, so I’m happy about that!) except the clown story.
They’re sinister…
I love the ghost of men from the past that haunt the women of our time..best stories to read!!! A little creepy..a little exciting..a lot of wanting!!!!
Especially when those men can assume human form!
Me too, Dawn! The very reason I wrote CAPTIVE BRIDE. 🙂
can’t wait!!
My biggest fear is either dying by fire or drowning…I know…not quite what you had in mind…but a fear…none the less…lol
Sandy, I hear you. Both terrify me.
Sandy, I’m definitely more afraid of potentially real dangers than monsters, so I’m with you on this one.
Looks great! I love ghost stories and I especially love vampire/werewolf stories!
mygirls01@yahoo.com
I’m a wolf fan too, mygirls01. And I did adore Angel from Buffy. Dreamy sigh!
The cover to Captive Bride is simply beautiful! I would love to read this book 🙂
Although I’m in my late 30s, thunder and lightning storms still scare me. Especially when the electric goes out and I have to light candles in the house. I try to be brave and act like every noise doesn’t spook me because of my kids. I don’t want them to freak out every time the power goes out!
~Julie K (kornhsl@yahoo.com)
Julie, kudos to you for being so brave for your kids! You sound like a great mom. 🙂 I’m very nervous during serious thunderstorms, too, especially when there’s a threat of tornadoes. When I lived in Michigan my Michigan-born friends would stand out in the street during a tornado warning watching for it, while I’d be cowering in a deep, cement basement somewhere in total fear until the storm passed. :}
I can’t say that I liked to be spooked all that much, but when I do, it’s got to be with fairy tale monsters! I’ve been watching too much Grimm!
LOL, Ashley. I’ll have to watch that. Sounds great.
Thank you for your post and giveaway, Katharine. My favorite way to get the you-know-what scared out of me is to read the news. Which is not exactly along the lines of this discussion. But there you have it.
Mary Anne… ugh! Unfortunately, I agree with you on this one. :}
I love scary movies and hubby calls me an adrenalin junkie because I prefer the ones that are more suspenseful and cause you to jump out of your skin than the gory, slasher type films. The more suspenseful the better!
Suspense makes it scary, Lora, I agree! It’s like that old saying that a woman in a tight black turtleneck can be sexier than a woman in a bikini. Too much gore just makes me think of all those hard-working special effects and make up artists. Suspense, especially with great scary music, makes a film or book truly terrifying.
I hate to be scared. I enjoy some suspense in books but not down right scary.
I like your idea of being scared by my grocery bill. It’s is amazing how much food cost these days.
Lori, I don’t like much to be scared, either. I love to feel my heart pound and to be sitting on the edge of my seat, but from excitement rather than fear.
Ummmm—I don’t have a favorite way of being spooked. LOL I don’t like the feeling I get when I sense a presence, but I don’t see anyone. The hairs on my back is raised up. I do like ghost stories in historical settings. I wouldn’t mind meeting a friendly ghost.
I’m quite certain Lord Iversly, the ghost in CAPTIVE BRIDE, would not admit to being friendly, Bonnie. But those of us who’ve seen him in action know better… 🙂
Caspar the friendly ghost, Wendy the good little witch, the Munsters and the Addams family, are the scariest I would like.
I’m with you on that, Winnie!
I’m a big wimp & avoid scaring myself with the supernatural. A hair rising ride on a roller coaster would do me! Now that sort of spine tingling, goose pimple. down right shrieking experience I enjoy.
Linda, I’m a wimp when it comes to roller coasters too, I’m sorry to say!
Don’t like to be spooked. The book sounds good.
Me neither, bn!
thanks for a fun post! Umm… what scares me are the “realistic” scary movies. I can’t watch ’em… 28 days later, Saw… anything that looks “real”. But I do enjoy the over the top, dumb movies like Resident Evil or Scream 🙂
ooo love those realistic ones lol
Saw – yuck! I’m too faint of heart for that kind of movie.
Good afternoon ladies! Well since you are both on my FACEBOOK, i am sure you have seen my posts about my zombie obsession…So I will say Zombies. I love em. I can’t get enough of those gnarly, gross creatures. I even participate in a zombie walk in my state every year. Scary good time! But really, I love horror, and I do love a good Ghost story, and why not add some romance in the mix right? xoxo Tina
tsimon7275@gmail.com
Tina, how cool that you participate in the zombie walk! They look like so much fun.