Daily and Monthly Winners at the Moving Party!

My month long Moving Party kicks off today at Mia Marlowe's Blog. Every day, there's a chance to win a signed book and an opportunity to sign up for three other monthly drawings. Hope to see you there!

If you've clicked to follow me here as Emily, thanks so much. I hope you'll also follow my Mia Marlowe blog.

A Ghost Story

Many of you know I used to be an opera singer. Today, I'm bringing you an author who used to be a ballerina--Erin Kellison. She's a fellow Leisure Lady who offered to stand in for me here while I'm indisposed. (I should be coming home from the hospital today, so I'll be sure to pop on and let you know I'm ok!) Please give Erin a great Blog Tourista welcome! And now, my blog is yours, Erin.
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First of all, a big thank you to Emily Bryan for sharing her blog with me while she is away. My hugs and best wishes go with her. As for readers of her blog, I’ve got two books, Shadow Bound and Shadow Fall, ready to give away to a blog commenter.


I love ghost stories. And I hate them. They scare me, and worse, my imagination has a tendency to play with them long into the night, hours from the original telling, until the structure and the content of the story has shifted just enough to dig at my deepest fears. Those nights, I sleep with the light on.

My head has been working on one particular ghost story for years: The ballet, Giselle. A long time ago, way back when, I used to be pretty serious about ballet. I wasn’t crazy about modern choreography; I wanted story ballets. Actually, I just wanted the stories. But of all the ballets, Giselle entranced me the most.

Giselle is a tragic love story in the first act; an eerie ghost story in the second. Once upon a time, I got to be one of the wilis, the bitter spirits of broken hearted women who populate the woods in the ghostly second act of the ballet. They trap men wandering the woods at night and condemn them to dance to their deaths. It’s a nightmare in black and white; the deep, still forest and the insubstantial bright spirits waiting to torture passersby. Myrtha, the wili queen, will point at the next victim, you, then circle her hands over her head, will dance, then cross her wrists before her, until you are dead. You will dance until you are dead. Creepy, no? The victims beg the wilis for release, but one by one we would literally turn a cold, ghost-white shoulder.

The setting could easily be my Twilight, a between place of magic in my Shadow series. Twilight is about beauty, inspiration, and nightmare. In Shadow Fall, my heroine is Annabella, a ballerina making her debut in the lead role of Giselle. The story of the ballet plays a huge role in Shadow Fall, a dark fantasy, mixed with romance.

What are your favorite ghost stories?
Back cover blurb for Shadow Fall:

Sacrifice
Custo Santovari accepted pain, blood, even death, to save his best friend. But a man with all his sins just isn't cut out to be an angel.

MysteryOne moment he's fleeing Heaven; the next, he's waking up stark naked in Manhattan. In the middle of a war. Called there by a woman who's desperately afraid of the dark.

ShadowIt gathers around Annabella as she performs, filled with fantastic images of another world, bringing both a golden hero and a nightmare lover.

WolfHe pursues her relentlessly, twisting her desires even as she gives herself to the man she loves. Because each of us has a wild side, and Annabella is about to unleash the beast.

Buy links for Shadow Fall:

Amazon
B&N
Books a million

A bit about Erin:
Erin Kellison is the author of the Shadow Series, which includes Shadow Bound and Shadow Fall. Stories have always been a central part of Erin Kellison's life. She graduated summa cum laude with a degree in English Language and Literature, and went on for a masters in Cultural Anthropology, focusing on oral storytelling. She lives in Arizona with her two beautiful daughters and husband, and she will have a dog (breed undetermined) when her youngest turns five.

You can contact Erin though her website, http://www.erinkellison.com/, where you can also sign up to receive her newsletter, but also

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ekellison
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/erin.kellison

Buy links for Shadow Bound:
Amazon
B&N
Books a million

Emily here again. Thank you, Erin for being such a great guest host today.

Be sure to leave a comment or question for Erin for your chance to win one of her terrific books!

Hot Dish Friday!

In Northern Iowa, hot dish is what you have when you take all your left-overs, mix them in a caserole pan, pour a can of cream of mushroom soup over it and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. I'm sort of doing that with my blog today. Sorry.

Fridays are my usual day to post at The Chatelaines. If you haven't given this group blog a try I urge you to pop over. It features CL Wilson, Jennifer Ashley, Joy Nash, Gerri Russell, Bonnie Vanak, Cindy Holby and moi. Today I'm talking a little about my novella in A CHRISTMAS BALL. I've been so heads down working on STROKE OF GENIUS, this release has snuck up on me. As you can see, it's coming fast. (And as you can also see, you can click on the corner of this countdown widget and grab the code for it. If you decide post it on your blog, you will have my undying gratitude! Let me know you did and I'll build a link to your site!) You can pre-order your copy on Amazon!

Writing a novella was a different experience for me. 30K words seems so short when you're used to luxuriating in 90K. That meant things had to pop. It was a little like writing a romance haiku. Every syllable counts.

Now I'm writing at a 10 page a day pace. For A CHRISTMAS BALL, my recovery from cancer surgery slowed me to 2 pages a day. But this is a special story for me because while I was dealing with uncertainty and a good deal of pain, slipping into the world of A CHRISTMAS BALL was a respite. An affirmation that joy and beauty and love was stronger than what I was going through at the time.

And paradoxically enough, my editor says it's the funniest thing I've ever written.(No, it wasn't drugs! I was off pain meds by then.)

Last Monday, Tessa Dare came to visit and those of you who left a comment had a chance to win a copy of her book. I'm pleased to announce that Booklover1335 is her winner! Congratulations. Please contact me through my website with your mailing info and I'll see that Tessa gets it!

And while we're on the subject of contests, my CHRISTMAS IN AUGUST is still running. Please drop by and enter for your chance to win your choice of my backlist.

So that's all in the blog frig for now. The DH and I don't have plans to explore any more harbor islands this weekend (No need to make a "Spectacle" of ourselves again any time soon!) We're going (involuntary shudder) shopping. But we're shopping for him, so it's all good. (I know, I know, I need to overcome my shopping anxiety. I'm working on it!)

Have a lovely day and a weekend filled with everything that pleases you. (And if you care to share what things that might be, please feel free!)