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!