Wild Spirits of the Hollow
Lea Ryan Genre: Contemporary fantasy/Supernatural fiction Publisher: NightLark Publishing Date of Publication: 08/28/2018 ISBN: 1721041397 ASIN: B07DN3CH9H Number of pages: 163 Word Count: 43000 Cover Artist: RL Bender Tagline: An ancient evil is murdering residents in the isolated village of Mistwalk. Can Shannon survive long enough to save them all? Book Description: Shannon lies to almost everyone she meets. When she gets lost and winds up trapped in an Appalachian valley village, her lies don’t get her far. Mistwalk Vale may look like a fairy tale, but nightmares lurk in the shadows. Villagers are dying grisly deaths, their bodies reduced to bones and left in the streets for their friends and family to find. Worse, some people suspect that Shannon is involved. They accuse her of coming from the tribe of vicious earth witches down in the hollow. A man named Owen believes Shannon is innocent. He tries to protect her as best he can, but there’s only so much he can do. She feels herself falling for him, despite her plan to leave as soon as she gets an opportunity. Caught between angry mobs and an ancient darkness, she will be forced to fight for her survival. Can she save herself and the village before evil consumes them all? Amazon Excerpt from Chapter 1 I stood at the edge of the trees, staring at the light deep within the forest. Between it and me, a sea of shadow concealed the underbrush and all that lurked there. This forest, like many other forests, would have its insects, snakes, tangles of who-knew-what, maybe wildcats or some other thing ready to pounce on and maim me. After hours of walking along a secluded, mountain highway, my brain was thoroughly scrambled. I knew enough to know that, and I knew enough to not fully trust what I was seeing. It might be a lie, the light, a mirage conjured by some desperate part of my mind. I'd told enough lies to others, why not myself? A fantasy of stumbling upon a cabin with friendly occupants swam through my mind. They’d have food left over from dinner, a plate they’d be happy to hand over to someone who really needed it, and I did really need it. Lunch was a distant memory, as well as the Skittles from my backpack, my bottle of water. If I made it anywhere alive, I would really have to reevaluate my packing priorities. I sighed. Unless I wanted to sleep next to the highway, that light was my only hope. I adjusted my backpack straps and stepped into the trees. I plodded through the darkness in high tops that weren’t made for terrain any more intense than a mall floor. I also regretted wearing shorts and a t-shirt because there was no trail, only weeds and trees and rustling sounds made by small animals nearby. All the while, the light in the distance remained bright, burning my eyes, but I kept my sights on it because that was hope, even if it never seemed to get any closer. I kept my mind off my creepy surroundings by considering who I would be for the people who awaited me. Had someone picked me up as I attempted to hitchhike, that lucky individual would’ve had the opportunity to hang out with a model, who was on her way to Miami. Everybody likes to hang out with famous people and people who are about to be famous. I’ve noticed this before. When I tell them whatever version of the story I’d concocted for the evening, their eyes would light up as if I had offered to take them along to fame and fortune. The model story was my go-to. I was lanky and odd looking in a way that some people found attractive or interesting, at the very least, plausible model material. This was not the person I would be in the cabin. I didn’t have the energy to keep up the behaviors that went along with that lie. Models didn’t eat substantial food. Models ate iceberg lettuce and drank lemon, cucumber water. My model did, anyway. There in the woods with possible food ahead of me, there was no way I could keep that up. I didn’t care what food someone shoved under my nose. The idea of grilled opossum made my mouth water. Boiled weeds? Fine. I'd eat anything. I tried to come up with another story, but the most compelling at that moment was my own. Broken car. Girl wandering the woods in hope of finding food and shelter. I was filthy and growing filthier by the minute. If I had scissors in my backpack, I would’ve chopped off at least half of my long, brown hair just to get rid of the tangles. That evening, I wouldn’t have to fake a look of utter desperation. So I let the story be what it was. About the Author: Lea Ryan is the author of several books and stories. She writes about the strange and the dark, as well as the light and love and strives to immerse readers in vivid fictional worlds. She currently lives in Indiana with assorted family members and various pets. Her website and blog can be found at www.LeaRyan.com. Website and blog - https://authorlearyan.wordpress.com/ Newsletter Signup - http://eepurl.com/dvlSxn Twitter https://twitter.com/learyan1 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lea.ryan.12 Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4113839.Lea_Ryan Tour Giveaway 2 paperback copies
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 The Familiar Magick Tale Collection is available now. Each book can be read as a standalone. This urban fantasy collection follows the Merrick family and their familiar Lauralei, once a witch, now serving her sentence as a cat familiar. Each book is 99c and they are all available in KU.
Book 1: https://amzn.to/2LOu2mc Book 2: https://amzn.to/2PrW1KI Book 3: https://amzn.to/2OODVmI Book 4: https://amzn.to/2PtZnwF 
Psychological Suspense
Date Published: 08-04-2018
Laurie Brandon isn’t crazy. It’s a bout of panic that has her muttering indecipherable sounds and crying out like a mad woman, an attack brought on by her infant daughter’s sudden disappearance from the town’s annual Apple Festival. Not insanity. She needs help to save Emily. Someone has to see that, do something.
But her recent history of psychosis coupled with witness claims that Emily was never at the festival with Laurie isn’t helping her credibility. Neither is recent suspension from her job as a school teacher over stability concerns. Perhaps most damaging, though, is Laurie’s insistence that her ex-husband, Jake, had something to do with the child’s disappearance. Any sane person knows a dead man can’t run off with a baby.
The town sheriff believes Laurie is, at best, unreliable and possibly something much worse. But Laurie knows what she saw. She knows other things, too, details too hard to believe and even harder to accept. Now, she needs to convince someone – anyone – that Emily is in danger before the sheriff locks Laurie away permanently.
About the Author
Christine Barfknecht has a passion for weaving the darkest bits of the human psyche into page-turning fiction. She’s been crafting stories since before she printed her first word and credits her overactive imagination to a lifelong love of reading. She seeks out books that keep her hiding beneath the covers at night or turning pages long after her eyes begin to cross, and strives for those qualities in her own writing.
Christine lives in rural Wisconsin with her husband, children, and pets where she is also a virtual bookkeeping entrepreneur. In addition to reading and writing, she enjoys gardening, crafts, time with family, and traveling. APPLE OF MY EYE is her debut novel.
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 As head of Nightbird, Sybil Crewes is working 24/7 to keep America safe from zombies, demons, and other unearthly creatures. Her ultimate goal is to end the curse that turned her into a vampire, but first she needs to destroy The Necronomicon, the infamous book of the dead. Unfortunately, Sybil's archnemesis, The Reaper, uses the book to raise an army of zombies. When she finally retrieves The Necronomicon, Sybil not only runs into hideous, dangerous zombies and werewolves, she’s also haunted by her disturbing past, which goes way back to the 1770s. A deadly race against time to destroy The Necronomicon emerges as the gates of Hell open. Will she be able to stop evil before it spreads around the world? Review: Sybil Crewes is out to retrieve the Necronomicon, so she can stop being a vampire, but it’s not going to be easy. There was plenty of action to keep you entertained and lots of supernatural creatures for fans of the series. I would recommend it.  As far back as she can remember, Cynthia has been listening to exciting stories told by her mother. She grew up reading books from Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, and Philip K. Dick, among others.
It was Cynthia’s mother who inspired her to start telling—and writing—her own stories. Ms. Fridsma’s writing career started after a handicap in 2014—she has a tremor in her right hand, numbness in the fingers, and pain in her wrist. She had to give up her other creative outlets, such as photography, computer programming, and gave up on juggling, so focused on what she could do rather than what she couldn’t do. Besides writing, she sometimes plays guitar—in Jimi Hendrix style. Cynthia lives with her husband and two pet bunnies in Amsterdam.  We are going to be running new promotions for authors through Twitter, starting August 1st 2018. Each day of the week we will post a special promotional opportunity.
Monday Madness - Massively discounted or Free books Teaser Tuesday - Teasers to upcoming releases - must be within one month of posting Hump Day Recommendations - My reading recommendations Throwback Thursdays - Back catalogue series promotion Freaky Fridays - Horror books You can contact me through the contact page or email me at skgregory@hotmail.com if you would like to promote your book. It is all completely free. I prefer to promote horror, fantasy and sci-fi, but will consider most books. No young children's books or non-fiction please. You can follow the account @storyteller_skg to keep updated. I will promote up to five books a day. 
Psychological SuspenseDate Published: 08-04-2018
Laurie Brandon isn’t crazy. It’s a bout of panic that has her muttering indecipherable sounds and crying out like a mad woman, an attack brought on by her infant daughter’s sudden disappearance from the town’s annual Apple Festival. Not insanity. She needs help to save Emily. Someone has to see that, do something. But her recent history of psychosis coupled with witness claims that Emily was never at the festival with Laurie isn’t helping her credibility. Neither is recent suspension from her job as a school teacher over stability concerns. Perhaps most damaging, though, is Laurie’s insistence that her ex-husband, Jake, had something to do with the child’s disappearance. Any sane person knows a dead man can’t run off with a baby. The town sheriff believes Laurie is, at best, unreliable and possibly something much worse. But Laurie knows what she saw. She knows other things, too, details too hard to believe and even harder to accept. Now, she needs to convince someone – anyone – that Emily is in danger before the sheriff locks Laurie away permanently.
EXCERPT
Chapter One Laurie September 18, 2018 I’m not crazy. I know what I saw. With a wave of dizziness, I hunch forward, my head hanging low, my palms pressing against a cool, hard surface. The evening sky blackens before my eyes and the chill in the air raises goosebumps on my arms despite my fleece lined sweatshirt. I can’t think straight, can barely breathe. The silhouette in the darkness…that posture, poised to take action… I didn’t need to see a face. I’d know that stance anywhere. But it isn’t possible. I chew on my lip, try to gnaw the panic away. It has to be possible. I saw with my own eyes. I can’t just stand here and wait, need to do something, find help. No one will believe me, though. It’s hard enough for me to believe me. It won’t help that everyone seems to think I’m out of my mind. A tingling sensation shoots through my head like a strike of lightning and heat spreads through my body, starting in my head and washing through my chest. My heart beats so fast I fear it will burst. I remind myself to breathe. It’s just a panic attack. I’ve had plenty before and right now, it’s no wonder. Soon it will be over. I’ll be back to normal, get help, make someone believe me. Someone will help. They have to. Breathe in, one, two, three. Out, one, two, three. A fog settles in my head, sprinkling over my mind like chalk dust. I find myself gasping, my heart racing faster and harder. This symptom is new. I blink, trying to focus on the brick surface of the street but it’s a blur. The dust is growing thicker, an eraser materializing, brushing over my mind and randomly choosing which memories to wipe away. Not my memory. I must remember. My palms slide farther over the surface of…a table, counter…I’m not sure, but it’s rough like a sheet of unfinished wood. I lean hunched over it, struggling to breathe as I peer beneath my arm to look behind me. Emily. My sweet baby girl. She sits in her stroller, kicking her feet and cooing at the plush doll in her chubby fist. Cold flushes her cheeks pink, but the fleece bonnet tied beneath her chin keeps her head warm. She’s here. She’s safe. I think. I’m not entirely sure. The fog is getting thicker, her image waving in and out as if it may not be real. I have no way of knowing. In this state, I can’t trust my eyes. Maybe I can’t trust what I saw before either. No. That was different. Not panic induced. Real. A high-pitched shrill slices my skull, piercing my eardrums before fading to a crackle. Light flashes, then dozens of white stars appear. “Laurie?” A voice slices through the static. I force myself to stand up straight and blink. Lights swim before a backdrop of blackness and voices echo around me. Screaming. But in a happy way. The scent of grease lingers in the air, mingling with a sweet and spicy smell, like sugared cinnamon. The lights twirl and I blink again. A Tilt-a-Whirl spins, masses of people passing in front of it. My eyes are drawn to one man, not because I know him but because he looks like a marionette, his arms outstretched, pulled by strings. My gaze follows the threads to four little dogs, Teacup Pomeranians, the kind Jake would never let me have. “Ankle biters. Useless yippers.” I hear the rage in his voice, the unwarranted anger I’d become accustomed to. “Food for real dogs, that’s what they are.” That’s my translation, the clean version with every other word removed. “Laurie, are you okay?” That voice again, soft and feminine, though drowning in background music. I bring my vision in, notice a woman standing on the opposite side of a counter before me. I know her, Rochelle, a good friend of my mother’s. Two pies sit on the counter between us and she holds a wad of bills in her hand. A cool breeze brushes my skin, whisking the aroma of the pies toward me. Apple. A memory washes over me, replacing Rochelle’s current image with one of her in my mother’s kitchen from many years ago. I see Rochelle pressing dough into pie tins, hear my mother counting with me as I measure sugar and sprinkle it over a huge bowl of sliced apples. “One…two…” I’m five years old and wearing my favorite apron. Mom made it for me, complete with an embroidered apple on the chest. In front of me mom’s apple shaped clock ticks on the wall. Except for Christmas it’s my favorite time of year, being with mom in the kitchen and baking pies for the festival. I blink, focus on Rochelle. Present day Rochelle. I remember. The Apple Festival. I’m in a booth selling pies to support the school. I brought Emily. My friend, Josie, came too. I look beside me, but Josie isn’t there. She must have stepped away. Rochelle is still staring at me, her eyes wrinkled with concern. I force a smile and straighten my back, pulling myself off the countertop. “I’m fine,” I tell her. “Just getting a migraine.” I can’t tell her the truth. Everything I love is already in jeopardy; Emily, my job. Thanks to Jake, rumors of my supposed insanity spread over town as quickly as softened butter over a slice of bread. I’m fine. I am. Postpartum psychosis, the doctor called it. My-wife’s-an-effing-nut-case, Jake called it. Ex-wife. Almost. He forgets that part. As I blink my thoughts away and hone in on Rochelle, I can’t help wondering what she thinks of me. Does she believe I have a migraine or is she waiting for the right moment to make an emergency call to the mental hospital? “You scared me for a minute there,” Rochelle says, handing me the bills in her hand. “Keep the change. For the school.” I force another smile and take the bills from her, my hands trembling with the aftereffects of my attack. I’m still trying to get my bearings, breathe in and out, slow the hammering of my heart. Rochelle hoists her purse on her shoulder, a huge tan bag that causes my shoulder to ache just looking at it. “You sure you’re all right?” I nod and force my mind to focus. My name is Laurie Brandon. I’m a second grade teacher. I’m in Jackson, Ohio at the Apple Festival. My hometown. I glance at the surface of the street where the booth sits, the brick street confirming my location. A few blocks away, lights illuminate the water tower hovering over the town, painted red to resemble an apple and embellished in a green leaf with a pipe protruding from the top as the stem. I live on Mountain Valley Road. My parents are Gary and Paula Barreau. Emily is nine months old. My heart rate slows and my body relaxes, the routine stabilizing me. I take a deep, long breath. I’m okay. Everything is fine. I’ll call the doctor in the morning. The medication she gave me has been working well. It’s just the extreme stress, my psychopath-almost-ex-husband worsening my psychosis, if that makes sense. I remember. There’s more. I let out a gasp. “I can tend the booth for you if you want to head home to lie down,” Rochelle offers. I don’t hear Emily behind me. It shouldn’t surprise me. I can barely hear Rochelle over the crooning country band a block down the street. Still, I spin on my heels to check on my daughter. She isn’t there. My eyes shoot left to right so fast the plywood walls of the booth seem to flail. Emily… She was there just a moment ago in her stroller, wasn’t she? I saw her. I looked behind me, under my arm… I thought she was there. My heart races again, my stomach turns, fog swirls in my brain. I can’t help questioning myself, replaying the day through my mind to make certain I brought Emily with me. I picture Josie in the booth and Emily right behind us in her stroller, just like I saw her earlier. It was today, wasn’t it? My breathing grows faster, intensifying the dizziness. I’m not sure. The fog needs more time to clear. I force a deep breath. In, one, two, three. Out, one, two, three. “Laurie?” Rochelle’s voice jumbles with my thoughts. I just need a moment to get through this and then everything will make sense. Maybe I’m remembering another day. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened. In, one, two, three. Out, one, two, three. But I spot something on the street. I lean in, force myself to study it, make sure of what I see. There is no mistaking; it’s Emily’s soft pink doll. If she wasn’t here, where did the doll come from? The next scream I hear rolling over the crowd is my own. 
Christine Barfknecht has a passion for weaving the darkest bits of the human psyche into page-turning fiction. She’s been crafting stories since before she printed her first word and credits her overactive imagination to a lifelong love of reading. She seeks out books that keep her hiding beneath the covers at night or turning pages long after her eyes begin to cross, and strives for those qualities in her own writing.
Christine lives in rural Wisconsin with her husband, children, and pets where she is also a virtual bookkeeping entrepreneur. In addition to reading and writing, she enjoys gardening, crafts, time with family, and traveling. APPLE OF MY EYE is her debut novel. Contact Links Website: http://www.christinebarfknecht.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christinebarfknecht1/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/@CABarfknecht Blog: https://christinebarfknecht.wordpress.com/  Thank you for joining us for Fae Folk. We hope you have enjoyed it. Stay tuned for the next event later this year!
 The truth is not known, beneath the sky of stars,
Whether they were of heaven or earth.” The Tuatha De Danann or the Tribe of Danu are said to be an ancient race of Gods who once ruled Ireland. They are described as being tall with pale skin and red or blonde hair. It is said that they arrived in Ireland over 4000 years ago and ruled between 1897BC and 1700BC. There are many tales of their battles. No one knows where they came from, but there is speculation amongst historians that they came from Norway or Denmark. They are said to have brought with them four treasures -
So what were the Tuatha De Danann? Were they Gods? Or Aliens? Or humans who had developed futuristic tech?  Leprechauns are mischievous creatures who guard a pot of gold. If a human can capture a human, then they can be granted three wishes. Often depicted as wearing green, they are popular in Irish culture.  Brownies are from English and Scottish myth and they are household spirits. They are supposed to come out at night and help with chores around the house. Homeowners would leave out gifts for them such as honey or cream. This myth is similar to the house elves of Harry Potter.  Gnomes are more than just garden accessories. Earth based creatures, there are stories about them from all over the world. They live underground and they can wield magic. Tiny in stature, they protect and care for the animals.
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AuthorI AM AN AUTHOR, BLOGGER AND A JOURNALIST. “Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.” 
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