Lisa McCourt Hollar: Halloween Frights Teaser

As the Spooktacular Halloween Giveaway nears its end, Lisa McCourt Hollar joins us to share her Halloween favourites, what creature she would most like to be, and a short story from her horror short-story collection, HALLOWEEN FRIGHTS. 

Lisa McCourt Hollar

Lisa McCourt Hollar resides in Ohio with her husband and children. Always busy writing she writes not-too-scary-stories for children 10 and under and horror stories for teens and adults, as well as dark poetry.

Favourite Halloween Prank:

I have to pick a favorite? I don’t know. Every Halloween my step-dad would set up a dummy at the dining room table and dress it up like Frankenstein. He had a mask. One day we came home and my mom reached for the mail that was just by the dummy’s arm and it grabbed her wrist. My step-dad had taken the dummy away and put the costume on. I don’t know how long he waited for us to get home, but my mom’s reaction was priceless. I think that is my favorite.

 

What was your favourite costume you ever wore?

A witch. It is the only one I ever wore as a kid. It was a hideous mask, green face and huge wart. Then I topped it off with a pointy black hat and a long black dress. I was scary, I can tell you that.

 

Which Halloween creature would you most like to be?

I think a vampire. Vampires are sexy and hot, but dangerous. (My daughter is sitting next to me and she says I would never be a vampire if those are the requirements, lol. And she thinks werewolves are better. She is so Team Jacob. I of course am Team Jasper. Eat her and be done with it, lol)

 

Scariest thing that's ever happened to you:

I hit a boy with my car. He’s alright now, but it was very scary. I can tell you, you never want to go through anything like that. I can still see him running into the road, trying to break and realizing it wasn’t going to happen and then having him under the tires. I lost it. I screamed OH MY GOD, over and over again and my daughter had to tell me to get out of the car. I later found out that the woman that came and took my hand and prayed with me while we waited for the ambulance was his aunt. I will never forget that. I’m even crying now, writing about it.

How do you spend Halloween nights?

Trick or treating with my kids, so if anyone thinks they are going to get sweets at my house, they are mistaken.

Halloween Frights is collection of Halloween stories and other paranormal tales. It starts with my poem, Joe's Night Out and includes such stories as Happy Halloween, Taxidermy Nightmare and Dolly. The collection concludes with Vampire's Hollow, a new story that proceeds events in The Legend Of Greystone, which is to be released in 2012.
  

Excerpt:

Joe's Night Out

Moonlight fills the graveyard, lighting the way,
For Psycho Joe, who's come out to play.
It is Halloween night, his favorite time of year,
When souls of dead friends are sure to be here.

First to dig up, his friend Crazy Bob,
Whose head is missing one or two cogs.
Bob, who is awake, crawls from his grave,
A gleam in his eye of the mentally depraved.

When he'd been alive they'd been the best of friends,
Until one deadly night when he'd nearly lost his head.
But on his shoulders, Bobs' head remains,
With the blade of a sword halfway through his brain.

The result of an accident, or so Joe explained,
He was aiming for his arm, not the inside of his brain.
But Bob didn't hold it against his insane friend,
Who is dangerously close, to losing his own head.

Then they looked for Sally, whose mind had come unglued,
the day she found her husband wearing her red, high heeled shoes.
She didn't really mind that he'd borrowed her dress,
Or even that he'd left her razor a mess.

She'd always suspected he liked to wear her things
And once even caught him, trying on her rings.
But Sally loved those high heeled shoes

And the size of his feet stretched them beyond use.

Sally didn't think her actions were too rash,
When minus his feet; he went out with the trash.
And at her trial, Sally didn't bat an eye,
When jurors tired of insanity pleas, sentenced Sally to die.

Her first Halloween, back from the dead,
She ran into Joe and the friends that he led.
Last on his list, his pal, Loony Lou,
Who'd once given Joe a recipe for cat belly stew.

Lou was a culinary with an acquired taste,
Specializing in cat guts and chopped eyeball paste.
But he bit off as they say more than he could chew
And choked on a piece of Fido cordon Bleu.

When the four friends were together at last,
They headed into town, for their annual blast.
Joe has a new recipe he wants to share with Lou,
One that involves cutting up pieces of you.

Want more?

 

Halloween Frights on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Halloween-Frights-ebook/dp/B005PA94U2

 

Halloween Frights on Smashwords:  

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/91462

You can read her blog at http://www.lisamccourthollar.com

Follow on twitter https://twitter.com/#!/jezri1

Spooktacular Halloween Giveaway:

With Halloween just around the corner, I've teamed up with eight other authors for an international blog hop. Join us in the Halloween fun while these talented thriller, horror, paranormal, and YA fantasy authors tease us, thrill us, and share their darkest fears.

This spooktacular event starts October 1st and runs until Halloween. There are well over 50 books to giveaway (mostly ebooks but some paperbacks as well) so there are lots of chances to win! 

If you like books that scare, books that bite, books you have to read with the lights on, we've got your Halloween scare covered! 

To enter visit:

http://angel-haze.blogspot.com/2011/09/halloween-blog-hop.html  

Happy Halloween!

 

 

Halloween Blog Hop

With Halloween just around the corner, I've teamed up with eight other authors for an international blog hop. Join us in the Halloween fun while these talented thriller, horror, paranormal, and YA fantasy authors tease us, thrill us, and share their darkest fears.

This spooktacular event starts October 1st and runs until Halloween. There are well over 50 books to giveaway (mostly ebooks but some paperbacks as well) so there are lots of chances to win! 

If you like books that scare, books that bite, books you have to read with the lights on, we've got your Halloween scare covered!

Here is a list of the participating authors (and their links):

Nicholas Olivo
J.L. Murphey
J.D. Stroube
Lisa McCourt Hollar
Weston Kincade
Douglas Durow
Jim Bronyaur 

Nina Perez
Angel Haze 

Scroll down to enter!

Prizes:

Bloodletter by Angel Haze (Thriller)

Thou shalt not kill.

A contradictory message written in blood at the scene of a young woman's murder. Within days, another body surfaces with a similar calling card and, to Detective Ramon Faust and Criminalist Kelly Garret, it's clear a deadly game is underfoot.

As the rash of horrific crimes continue, a phone call unearths a shocking revelation: Nakeita isn't the first city the elusive killer has left his mark. The Bloodletter, as dubbed by the media, has played his deadly game before.

Delving deep into the most terrifying case of Kelly's career, threatening phone calls and flashbacks of a forgotten near-death experience challenge her sanity and the lives of everyone she loves.

Legacies of Talimura: War of the Witch by Angel Haze (YA Fantasy)



Debonair, a witch from the Unspoken-of Lands, has meddled in the forbidden practice of magic and created an army of nightmarish proportions. When sixteen-year-old Astanyx and his two best friends return from a hunting trip to find their small town of Polca reduced to smoke and ash, they find themselves thrust into a battle for which they haven’t been trained.

With the help of his comrades, including an esteemed warrior, one of the last great wizards and a princess they’ve sworn to protect, Astanyx must fight to unite the kingdoms of the humans, dwarves and elves. He must ask forbidden questions that no one wants to answer, questions about Talimura’s dark history. As Debonair’s brutal warriors lay siege to the kingdoms, Astanyx is driven to pursue a fateful quest for a blade powerful enough to defeat the malevolent witch before she destroys the three kingdoms and unleashes an unspeakable ancient evil.

 Imperium by Nicholas Olivo (Urban Fantasy)

Vincent Corinthos leads a triple life. As a secret agent, he handles paranormal threats; as a god, he protects his followers from evil forces; as a stock clerk, he keeps the back room of an antique store tidy.

When one of his fellow agents goes missing, Vincent begins with the usual suspects. His investigation reveals that Boston’s latest supernatural threat is also waging war on his followers, and has diabolic intentions for the city’s paranormal citizens.

Now, with the aid of a new partner and a gremlin, Vincent must locate the missing agent, defend his followers and learn the identity of his adversaries before they can revive a malevolent force that’s been dormant since World War II.

 Zombie Apocalypse: Redemption by J. L. Murphey (Horror)

Dr. Donna Cairn is a genetics researcher for the Center of Disease Control. When the CDC issued the Zombie Apocalypse Alert, she discounted it as a way of advertising hurricane preparedness. When a conspiracy buff working with her in the silo speaks to her about the debunked Hapgood theory of Earth Crust Displacement, she again discounts it as just that some wacko, paranoid rambling. But when radiation levels after the Japanese earthquakes starting rising, all bets were off.

Simple dog bite patients are dying from a mysterious fever. Bodies start coming up missing from the morgues across the globe. When the death count reaches over one quarter of the world’s population dying due to this new plague, the CDC sends their best virologist, Kit Seger, to help Donna in her quest of finding the virus in her converted missile silo laboratory in Nebraska.

The dead have risen and hunger for human flesh. She never believed in zombies before, but now she believes in them. Can she and Kit find the cure before mankind becomes extinct? How do you cure people who are already dead? And better yet, how do you kill the dead?

Can it be that Donna’s unborn niece and nephew are the answer? With the earthquakes rumbling, zombies at the gate, and time running out will they find what they are looking for? Man can only hope.

Caged in Darkness by J.D. Stroube (Urban Fantasy)


A witch raised in a cage of darkness...

Savannah Cross was born into a life of isolation and abuse. As a child, she witnessed her parents perform acts of malevolent evil, and now feels permanently tainted by their dark deeds.

When a coven discovers a tear stricken child, wounded on their elders lawn, they offer her a sanctuary she has never known. Savannah spends the next several years shattered, continuously looking over her shoulder, waiting for the darkness to claim her.

On her 16th birthday, Savannah’s life takes a drastic turn.She is consumed by overwhelming power that forever alters her emotionally and physically.

She must choose between two loves; the one who taught her to smile or the darkly seductive stranger who tempts her towards another path. Savannah must decide between the coven that was her haven and another one vying for her initiation. Just as Savannah begins to grasp what fate has in store for her, an evil looms over her loved ones; coming to claim an unbreakable debt.

How will she choose and survive the greatest evil she has ever witnessed... long enough to have a choice to make?

 Halloween Frights by Lisa McCourt Hollar (Short-Story Collection)


Halloween Frights is collection of Halloween stories and other paranormal tales. It starts with my poem, Joe's Night Out and includes such stories as Happy Halloween, Taxidermy Nightmare and Dolly. The collection concludes with Vampire's Hollow, a new story that proceeds events in The Legend Of Greystone, which is to be released in 2012.

Invisible Dawn by Weston Kincade (Science Fiction)


To keep a promise and save his long-lost goddaughter, computer programmer Jedd Altran sacrificed everything, including his wife and newborn son. Now, they must pass through worlds far different than their own to escape the clutches of government killers.

In a world where rare individuals have evolved, the government kidnaps specific children to study and utilize their abilities. Madelin has been imprisoned in such a facility for thirteen years and suffers from medically induced amnesia. Facing a hopeless future, haunted dreams, and an invisible past, each morning is an Invisible Dawn and life holds no meaning, until she meets Jedd. Her newly discovered godfather becomes her beacon in tumultuous seas as they strive to find answers and allies.

On the run from PASTOR Agency’s first trained shifter, an egotistical man with power hungry desires, Madelin and her godfather find their lives intertwined with a broke Cajun gambler, an ex-mercenary in search of redemption, and a rebellious Vampire.

Can they survive nature's mysteries and humanity’s greed? Will they find salvation? Only a Darwinian victory will do, but even that may prove futile.

A Life of Death by Weston Kincade (YA Fantasy)



Certain aspects of life's journey go unquestioned by most people like the love of family and supporting friends, but many adolescents are lost in a tumultuous sea of storms, their journey through life a collection of daily hardships and twists of a metaphorical knife in the gut. With no clue whether a buoy or life raft will drift his way, Alex unknowingly seeks escape, meaning, family, a destiny, or even a shove in the right direction. Then, sixteen days of reliving people's traumatic murders and one research project teach him the meaning of love, fate, confidence, and purpose.

A paranormal coming-of-age mystery about one boy's pain and hardship endured in a small Virginia town. Losing a father and growing up with an abusive, drunk replacement is hard enough, but when you hardly knew the first because of his constant military deployment, it alters your perspective. As a seventeen-year-old high school senior, Alex Drummond learns the value of family and the meaning of dedication the hard way, but reliving people's horrendous murders does have its upside. Join him as he struggles to find his destiny, understand love, and discover what really happened to his father and the skeletons hiding within his small home town.

 The Ninth District by Douglas Dorow (Thriller)



The Federal Reserve has never been robbed.

FBI Special Agent Jack Miller, pulled into a high-profile case to mentor a new agent, finds himself in a clash with the toughest opponent of his career. The chase culminates in the bowels of the city, in the storm sewers and tunnels beneath The Ninth District Federal Reserve of Minneapolis.

 In the Corner by Jim Bronyaur (Thriller)



Three stories in Jim Bronyaur's debut book that explore the mind and supernatural.

When the Stars Fade - A geeky computer technician finds himself on the receiving end of a brutal beating when the stars, one by one, begin to disappear as something moves in from the woods. Is the dark movement here to save him? Or end his suffering?

The Second That Burns - Meet Trevor, an unlikely survivor of a horrific car accident that found him on the wrong end of a police chase. Now he carries the guilt and scars of living, desperate for death. His only chance at surviving is Dr. Philips. The question is – can Dr. Philips save Trevor before it’s too late?

The Wrong Side of the Tracks - Taking a road trip before his band, Butler, goes into the studio, Evan and his girlfriend, Barbara, hit the road. But the road they’re on is changing, literally. They soon find themselves in a small town where nothing feels or looks right… because everything keeps changing. Now they only have one thing in mind – getting out...

 Rebirth: The Twin Prophecies by Nina Perez (YA Fantasy)



High school sophomores Violet Ross and Jack Morrow don’t know each other, but they have similar secrets: she can feel the emotions of others and when he touches people, he can see their future. A tragic accident thrusts them into a world where they learn an even bigger secret: all the mythical beings they believed to be fictional are real.

Guided by prophecies predicting the end of the world, the mysterious Dr. Tesla - who leads an alliance of supernatural beings - helps Jack and Violet come to terms with this secret world, control the growing powers within them, and face an unspeakable evil determined to possess their very souls.





**Note: All books are available as ebooks. Zombie Apocalypse: Redemption, A Life of Death, and Invisible Dawn are also available in paperback to US Residents. Legacies of Talimura: War of the Witch is available in paperback for CAN residents.

This is the official page, the one and only place to enter our giveaway.

 

 

To enter, just leave a comment and give your first three choices. Add extra points (maximum of 5) if you:

+1 point: Follow my blog with Google Friend Connect
+1 point: Follow me on Twitter @AngelHaze7
+1 point: Follow the blogs of two of the participating authors (state which ones)
+1 point: Tweet about this giveaway and link back
+1 point: Blog about this giveaway and link back

For every 25 people that enter, I will add another ebook of Bloodletter or Legacies of Talimura: War of the Witch to the prize list.

Make a comment for each entry. Ends October 31st, 2011. Good luck!

Happy Halloween!