Cate Masters's Blog, page 36

PA Horror Stories: Midstate ghosts

  The history of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School has long intrigued me. Shortly after moving to Carlisle, I caught a documentary about the school on PBS and it stuck with me. So much so that I had to write a novel about it, placing two fictional characters in these actual events.

This is a photo I took of the historical marker near the former school site located on the Carlisle Barracks.

If you're not familiar with it, it's one of several facilities across the country that sought to "civilize" Native Americans by forcing youngsters away from their families to live in these institutions. Very sad.

Even sadder to drive  past the headstones in the small graveyard in the Barracks. About 170 children and teens died while at the school. One, Lucy Pretty Eagle, is said to still walk the grounds. She died at the tender age of ten. You can read more detail about the school and Carlisle's general history here.

Here's a photo I took of the graveyard. People still visit to leave small offerings on the headstones of the children. Some students, like the world famous athlete Jim Thorpe, managed to get through school and live successful lives. Thorpe attended in the early 1900s. The stories that really struck me were of the first students at the school's opening in 1879, those who had no idea what to expect, who were punished for behaving as they were brought up to behave rather than an "American."

Another photo I took in a local museum. This group shot is nearly life-sized, so that when you view it, you feel like the children are staring back at you. And the haunted look in their faces stays with you.

Another article mentions ghosts I'd never heard about before - the captured Hessian soldiers who helped construct the stone building near the Carlisle Barracks to house gunpowder, and which also served as a prison (later for "unruly" students as well). According to the article, one man who visited late at night said that rather stepping into the room that's now a museum, he was transported back in time to 1777 to a very active Hessian Powder Magazine room occupied by Hessians! The article has a few other interesting ghosts if you'd like to check it out.

I'll have another Halloween guest on Friday, so be sure to stop by!

Barbara Elsborg scares up some fun and goodies!

Barbara Elsborg


Cate: Please welcome Barbara to my special Halloween celebration. Barbara, please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Barbara: I’m insanely rich, beautiful, talented—oh no sorry, that was a dream. I’m a full time writer glued to my laptop to the despair of my husband. Difficult decision over what to save in case of fire, flood, tornado, avalanche… Better not confess to that one. I write contemporary and paranormal erotic romance and suspense stories with a mix of MF, MM and MMF and a touch of humor.


Cate: As you know, I’m a huge fan of your stories! What do you love most about Halloween?
Barbara: I love fun food! See pictures of my daughter’s creations! I’m always on the look out for different things to make. Or for her to make!


Cate: Those are so creepy-cool and fun! Do you have a favorite memory of a Halloween past?
Barbara: When my kids were little, I did a Halloween party in the village hall and made up a play with puppets. I made all the puppets too – witches and wizards and ghosts and built a theatre out of the climbing frame. 25 kids age 7 to entertain and it was the best party I ever did!


Cate: Impressive! Have you ever had an unusual experience you couldn’t explain?
Barbara: Getting pregnant. I’ve no idea how it happened. Twice too! Amazing.


Cate: Ha! No comment. :) What frightens you the most?
Barbara: Those films when you know the monster-vampire-werewolf-shark is waiting to get the hero or heroine and I can’t watch.


Cate: I hear you! Ever gone on a ghost tour? Or ghost hunting on your own?
Barbara: Are you crazy! I’d totally freak out. I’ve done the Jack the Ripper tour and that was creepy enough. I can’t cope with the idea that I might see a ghost.



Cate: Any favorite Halloween recipes you’d care to share?
Barbara: Not a recipe as such but I saw a great thing on the internet the other day – put jelly – gello is it? – into straws with the bendy bits and when it sets, you warm them and squirt them out and they look like worms. Yum. Or not.



Cate: My grandboys would love that. Tell us about your latest release, and where readers can find it online.
Barbara: Perfect Trouble – is the story of a wolf in hiding and a fairy who’s always in trouble. It’s due for release on the 15th November but can be pre-ordered now at a discount.
http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=2396


Cate: Care to share a blurb or excerpt?
Barbara: The Blurb!
Unwilling to forgo final respects even from a distance, Jinx sneaks to the funeral of a mother she hasn’t seen for fifteen years, and lands in the worst trouble of her life. The alpha of the Washburn Valley pack never stopped searching for her and now he has Jinx, he’s not going to let her go. She’s extraordinary breeding material—a super wolf in every way; fast, smart and an exceptional shifter—but she’d rather eat her own eyeballs than mate with him. She just needs to figure out a way to escape.
Jonah’s been in trouble all his life. The faery is currently under an indenture punishment for theft, but the idea of doing an extraction from the Washburn Valley pack fills him with dread. The wolves know his face, know he stole their gold and if they catch him, they’ll eat his guts, with or without ketchup. But saying no when he’s ordered north isn’t an option. His plan to get into the compound works, but that’s the only thing that does. He’s staked and wrapped in iron without even getting a glimpse of his target.
For a pair born to trouble, a shifter and a fairy could be perfect for each other, if only they survive long enough to do more than run.


Cate: What inspired you to write about the theme?
Barbara: I liked the idea of using the names Jonah and Jinx in the same tale – thought about how much trouble the pair could get into and the story ran from there. I like writing paranormal stories and it seemed ages since I’d had my last one published. As Jonah works for a paranormal agency, I thought I could write a mini series if readers like this one. Let me know!


Cate: Can't wait to read it. Anything else you’d like to share?
Barbara:  My husband cuts my hair but I just trimmed it myself and I’ve made a mess of it. Oh – did you not mean that?


Cate: You always look great!You lucky readers - Barb has a giveaway!
Barbara:  Because Perfect Trouble isn’t available yet, I can’t offer a copy of that but I’d like to offer one lucky commentator an ecopy of any one of my paranormal books. See my website for details  www.barbaraelsborg.com  


The Consolation Prize
Falling For You
Lightning in a Bottle
The Misfits
Fight to Remember
The Small Print
Just One Bite


Cate: Thanks for being my guest, Barbara! Hope you have a happy Halloween!

Danielle Monsch: 12 Days of Halloween

From about mid-October until Christmas was always a magical and much anticipated time when I was young. 
Probably not an uncommon statement from a kid. My mom should have been a party planner, because our house was always decked out for the season. We were the house that people do that double-take with, because looking only once wasn’t enough to take it all in.
Mom’s favorite holiday was Halloween. Since I’m a fantasy/paranormal writer, it’s safe to say that rubbed off on me, and with kids of my own, I enjoy Halloween in a completely new way, with my kids excitement about dressing up and their enjoyment in the *fun* scares.
While her favorite might have been Halloween, Mom excelled in overall holiday planning. My mom was a generous lady. She never liked cooking, but she loved to bake the holiday pies and cookies and other goodies that come with the season, and everyone who knew us came away during the holiday season with loads of culinary delights. If you ask me to name my favorite food ever, it would have to be Mom’s pumpkin pie.
It’s probably because this time was usually so joyous that one memory sits there, lumpy and misshapen and not a fit with the rest.
Don’t ask me how old I was, but I came down the stairs one night – going to get some water I think – and Mom was on the couch, staring at the Christmas tree. The packages weren’t under the tree yet, which was odd since Mom tended to put them under as soon as the tree went up (Mom is not a last minute shopper – in fact, I’m pretty sure her shopping is done in July.) Now I haven’t believed in Santa ever, so it was no question in my mind about who presents come from.
What set this memory in my mind so sharply was my mother’s face the few moments before she realized I was in the room. At the time I didn’t have the words or the emotional knowledge to name what emotions were in play. All I knew was it wasn’t good.
Several years later we were talking, and in the way of conversations everywhere, somehow that night came up, and I asked Mom what was going on.
She confided that when I saw her, the reality of our situation was none of us kids were going to get Christmas presents. It had been a bad year with lots of doctor bills and not as much work as they hoped to get. Maybe they would be able to get a practical clothing item, but certainly nothing beyond that. Then she told me that a couple days after I saw her that night, her uncle heard about our situation. Without her or my dad asking, he went out and got presents for us kids and told her that it was his early Christmas gift to her and he would not accept any money or repayment.
Mom told me she cried while she wrapped them. She told me it was the best gift she’d ever gotten.While my childhood would never fit in a Dickinson narrative, there were a few years there where we did with minimal, so hearing after-the-fact that no presents was a possibility didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me was the lurch in my chest at the thought of it as a near reality. That didn’t make sense – after all, we were several years past by then, and I was a grown person who understood economic realities. 
That lurch, though, was real. And as time has marched on, I think I understand the reason for it, just like now that I’m a mother I understand the look on my mother’s face that night. The holidays were a safe and sacred time. The rest of the year – okay, it’s life, and life happened. But in my memory, the holidays were apart from that, not touched with the ickiness that could happen at other times.
If I didn’t get presents that year, I think that safety and warmth that the holidays (or the thought of) always caused would have disappeared. I wouldn’t have had that protective bubble anymore that helped get me through bad times, and the loss of that would have been a greater tragedy than not getting a doll under the tree.
So while Toys for Tots was not responsible for me getting presents that year, I recognize in a deep and personal way the very good work they are doing.
Toys for Tots is my favorite holiday charity. There are many excellent charities I celebrate and give to, but this time of year my thoughts and my wishes are for the kids who are not in the best circumstances and are in danger of not having a gift under their own tree. It’s not the material item that matters (though it’s always nice to get a great gift, right?) What I never want them to lose is that safe warmth that should categorize the holidays, a warmth that sometimes might be the only thing that gets them through the rest of the year.
Which leads me to the 12 Days of Halloween!
12 Days of Halloween is my (and many other excellent authors) way of having a great time and celebrating the beginning of this wondrous time of year – with giveaways and gifts and raising money for Toys for Tots!
What is involved?
First! My novel Stone Guardian (http://www.daniellemonsch.com/dani/books/stone-guardian/) is on a very special sale. From now until Halloween, it is half-off with part of the proceeds going to Toys for Tots! So you get a book for cheaper than usual, and a chunk of the money will be going to an amazing cause! Huzzah!
And on the other side, I’ll be sharing lots of giveaways! Ebooks (donated by many generous authors) gift cards, swag sets, a Coach (!) bag, and finally…
An iPad Mini!
Yes, you read that right – an iPad mini with a special Entwined Realms designed cover set is the grand prize.
So if you are interested, please keep up with me at twitter (www.twitter.com/Danielle_Monsch) facebook (www.facebook.com/DanielleMonschAuthor) or my blog (RomanticGeekGirl.com) with all the ways to win.
Let’s celebrate the beginning to this great time of year, have a great party, maybe win some stuff, and most important of all – support Toys for Tots and make sure they can help a lot of kids this year!

PA Halloween Horrors: Eastern State Penitentiary

One of the most haunted places in America is here in Pennsylvania - Eastern State Penitentiary. I'm glad it's closer to Philly than Harrisburg. It. Is. Creepy!

The penitentiary has been abandoned a long time, but not uninhabited. There are supposed to be many, many tortured souls who linger there. Though the Quakers who built it intended it to be a spiritual place where sinners could do penance (hence the title 'penitentiary') rather than simply serve prison time, guards apparently had more sadistic ideas. You can read more about that here.

During their incarcerations, inmates were forced to remain separate from everyone else. Their one scheduled hour a day outdoors, they spent alone.

Maybe that's why they come alive when people visit. Though some inmates were supposedly visited by spirits during their stay - Al Capone, for instance, was said to have been haunted by James Clark - who Capone murdered during the infamous St. Valentine's Day massacre.

During the year, an average of two dozen paranormal investigations happen there. Almost every single one finds evidence of spirits. That's pretty rare.

The penitentiary remains open to the public. Many who go there claim to hear weeping, giggling or whispering. Many have caught evidence on film, and other instruments such as thermometers register rapid drops in temperatures before an activity. Some see shadow people. Some who challenge spirits to move objects, as in the video below, have their challenges accepted.

I'm not brave enough, but if you'd like to take a Halloween tour, you can order tickets. If I ever go, I'll opt for the daytime tour!

Oh, and a little real estate tidbit for you... from my stint working in the press office for the Pennsylvania Department of State, I learned that in Pennsylvania, realtors aren't required to inform buyers if a property has a tainted past. Whether the past owners were haunted, or even murdered. The only information they must pass along pertains to the property's structural soundness or other physical defects relevant to the property's value. You can, however, do your own research. :)

Have you ever visited Eastern State Penitentiary? Or a similar haunted facility?


You might want to watch these ghost hunters interact with former penitentiary residents:






Be my Halloween guest!

Now that the Decadent 1NS celebration is ending today, I'd love to host some Halloween guests. If you're the author of a paranormal, that would work best, but everyone's welcome! Just shoot me an email at cate.masters AT gmail.com.

Visit tomorrow for a special Halloween guest!

Celebrate the Book!

Today, Oct. 19th, I'll be one of many authors participating in the Celebrate the Book event in Carlisle, Pa., sponsored by Bosler Library.

This year the venue has changed to St. Patrick's School at 85 Marsh Drive, in Carlisle, and is a one-day event from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Click here for directions.

Bestselling authors Maria V. Snyder and Jennifer Armentrout are scheduled to attend, with Dr. Eben Alexander as this year's featured author. Sunbury Press, which this summer released my collection of short stories, Wild Life, is among attending publishers. You can view the entire list here. And check out the schedule and more at Celebrate the Book's site.

I'll have a few other books available - my paranormal Dead to Rights, my historical Follow the Stars Home, my contemporary fantasy Surfacing, and my contemporary Rock Bottom.

I hope to see you there!

D.L. Jackson shares a peek at her 1NS WIPs!

So here we are, our two hundredth milestone, or 1NightStand story, has been reached and we’re celebrating here at Decadent. My first 1NightStand, Cinderella Wore Combat Boots was initially written as a single, stand alone. After several readers asked me for more, some more persistent than others, you can let go of my arm now, I decided to write Gunny and Lissa’s story. In the 1NS, Being Prince Charming, you witness the destruction of a marriage and the quest of one Marine to recapture the love of the woman he lost.To celebrate, I’m giving you a peek at some of my works in progress, my contracted story, Being Prince Charming and several in various writing stages, Waking Beauty, The Princess and the Frogman, which are almost completed and Beauty and the Brigadier, which is in the planning stage. So, that being said, I bring you the WIPs for my 1NS mini-series, Military Fairytales. 
****A word of caution, these are unedited snippets.****
Being Prince Charming
Lissa left and never came back, going home to where they’d been high school sweethearts, even if her family had long since moved on. Gunny crumpled the divorce decree and tossed it in the trash, refusing to hold onto the one souvenir he’d retained from his marriage with Lissa. Gone were their wedding pictures, the dishes, pots and pans, everything that had made their off-camp apartment a home, including the woman he still loved. He surveyed the room. Except for a few pieces of outdoor plastic furniture, it was as empty as his life.No matter how he tried, he couldn’t wrap his mind around the finality and accept it. Marines didn’t give up. He picked up his bags and walked out the door, not bothering to lock the door behind him.Anyone who wanted it, could have the remnants of his life. He’d finally retired from the Marine Corps, and thanks to Cori, he’d secured a job working for Sol’s company, Protect and Serve. Not that it mattered, without Lissa he had no reason to care, but it would help him to get by until he could figure out how to get his wife back.Make that ex-wife.And he would get her back. Eventually she’d come to her senses. No one could turn love off. He’d be the one to know. His heart ached constantly for the woman he’d once had. He’d been an idiot not to listen to what she said, to put the Corps before her. Hindsight being twenty-twenty and all that, he decided it was time to man up, improvise, adapt and overcome.He strode up to the unsexiest vehicle a man could own, a fifteen year old minivan with rusty doors, a black cloud of smoke that followed wherever he drove it, and a driver’s side door wouldn’t open. He tossed his bags in the back, and climbed over the passenger seat to take his place behind the wheel. He patted his pockets and extracted the key, wondering why he even bothered to remove it from the ignition. A thief would be doing him a favor to steal it.
Waking Beauty
My name is Chief Warrant Officer Alexandria Larson. I fly an Apache as one of the elite Nightstalkers. If you are reading this, I probably didn’t make it back from Afghanistan alive. Know that I entrusted this document to a chaplain on the installation I was stationed out of, who was to contact Madame Eve at 1 Night Stand for directions where to send this, in the event something happened.I needed you to know why I stood you up.This was my third deployment, but everything felt wrong from the moment I set my boots down on Khandahar airfield. It was why I enlisted the help of an online dating service. I wanted to experience love on my terms—if only for a night, and if I made it home, I promised myself I would.All my life I’ve pretended to be someone I wasn’t, but if you are like me, you know what I’m talking about. The, don’t ask, don’t tell policy of the military, prevented me from coming out as a lesbian for many years. Even after it was lifted, I felt I couldn’t come clean about who I was—at least not to Uncle Sam. Being one of the few female combat helicopter pilots for the Army came with a cost. Silence.It was hard enough to earn the respect of my peers, and as you read this, you’ll understand more why I did what I did. I’m only sorry that I never got to meet you. I knew from the moment Madame Eve contacted me and told me about you, that you were all I ever dreamed of. Smart, beautiful. And my heart ached that you were alone—like me. I wanted to kiss you. Hold you. Your picture...I’ve carried it with me since I received it in the file from the dating service.
The Princess and the Frogman
“I asked you not to judge me. It’s not crazy, considering all I have to lose. I have to make this one night count. I may never have another chance. So, what was that question again?”Amanda sighed. “Your ideal man?”“Tall. Handsome.” Elizabeth closed her eyes. “Let’s see...he’ll have dark hair, a stomach I could do the laundry on, or lick chocolate from. His smile will be enough to make me drop my panties and....” She smiled. “And?”“Hung.” Elizabeth looked over at Amanda and winked.Amanda choked on her drink, spewing it across the beach shelter. “Excuse me, miss virgin. Hung?”“Yes. If I’m going to have sex one time in my life, I want a big....” Elizabeth lifted her hands in the air and stretched them about a foot apart.“Right. Are you sure?”“Yes. Put it down.” She leaned back and rested her eyes again, listening to the waves and the squawks of the birds above.“Got it. Big dick.” Amanda started typing and suddenly stopped. “Oh, good lord.”Elizabeth cracked an eye and studied her best friend. “What?”“I think your order just came in with the tide.”“You’re kidding.” She sat up and began to scan the beach, not seeing anything that looked like what Amanda mentioned. She did spot a little old man in a Speedo two sizes too big, wrinkles hanging over the fabric, making it appear smaller than what it really was. The baggy ass and leg openings where his junk partially hung out, gave away the fact it didn’t fit him, but blech..the guy was about ninety, and she so didn’t need to see that after just having lunch. Bitch. Seriously? “Ha, ha. Very funny.”“I assure you, I’m not kidding. I just creamed my bikini bottoms. Not over there.” Amanda reached over, gripped her under the chin and redirected her gaze to the left. “Look at that. Come to mama.”Walking down the beach in a black and red wet suit with the top peeled down to hang around his hips, a set of fins in one hand and a snorkel in the other, was the man she’d just described. “Holy shit. I want that one. He’s perfect.”
As for the final one I listed, Beauty and the Brigadier is in the planning stages and well, no snippet as of yet. Not to fear, I have a feeling this one is going to be a knee-slapper. What else happens when you put together a fifty five year old, single, jaded, one-star general, with an aging forty something, has-been super-model? This story, with more a more mature hero and heroine will hopefully showcase my playful side. Because some people just take themselves too seriously and need to loosen up.
GIVEAWAY


Thanks for stopping by today. I’m giving away one of my e-books in the 1NightStand series, Seducing Liberty and a tee shirt with one of my Decadent titles, in either M/L/Xl or XXL. 

All you have to do is leave a comment under this post. 

I will draw a name from my virtual hat on October 21st and announce the winner.

Be sure to enter the Rafflecopter to get in on other great prizes during our “Celebration Bash” Good Luck!



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More goodies for you

The Decadent 1NS celebration's still going strong! I hope you'll visit me over at Barbara Elsborg's blog, where I'm giving away one of my 1NS stories. Don't forget to enter Decadent's fantastic Rafflecopter giveaway! You can find it below.

Although my blog tour for Betting It All has been moved to December, Decadent set up a short blog tour for my historical. Today I'm at For the Love of Bookends, sharing a few interesting tidbits about 1906 San Francisco. You can also enter to win an ebook of any of my backlist titles through the Rafflecopter there.

I'm getting my 'mwahaha' on with Yolanda Renee at her very fun Halloween event. You should check out all her guests this month!

Tomorrow I'll have another wonderful 1NS author here - D.L. Jackson. I hope you'll stop by and make her feel welcome.

The 1NS celebration continues with Arlene Webb

Arlene Webb is another fantastic and versatile writer. Her characters are so vivid, they practically leap off the page. I'm happy to have her here for the Decadent 1NS event. Check out more about Arlene at her blog: http://arlenewebb.blogspot.com/


Last Request
A Decadent 1NSAvailable at http://www.decadentpublishing.com/product_info.php?products_id=533&osCsid=hdmana51khc0lq5rr15a5sl3i5 Secrets:
Joan not only knows how to keep them, she hoards information. After all, blurting truths could prolong her life and that’s not something she’s willing to allow.
As a renowned journalist, exposing lies is Wesley’s job, but being honest extends to revealing his own agenda as well. He admits on the application he’s been asked to write a story kicking up any dirt he can on Madam Evangeline’s dating service.
Desires:
Joan has a reputation to uphold. Labeled a promiscuous monster, authorities shouldn’t be surprised her offer to finally tell them where the skeletons are comes at a price. One date, one night, one final fling.
Wesley doesn’t need one date, one night, a simple fling. Women eyeball him all the time. He knows some hookup service can’t find him his heart’s desire, a sweetheart to cherish for a long and committed lifespan, but he won’t make it a slam-dunk for them by saying otherwise.
Warning Notice:
If secrets stay buried and desire is feared instead of embraced, electricity will flow and not in a good way. About ArleneSci-fi, paranormal, suspense, indefinable, Arlene Webb is an author who adds sweet and spicy layers of romance.
She was born in upstate New York, land of cows, snow, drizzle and sometimes a ray of sun. Second oldest with four siblings, she spent childhood reading everything she could get her hands on. Adolescence found her questioning the validity of everything she read, along with acquiring the usual scars of high school.
Early twenties, she headed for the Pacific. A stop off to visit a friend turned into years in Tucson, Arizona. Arlene worked as a waitress, bartender, greenhouse worker, greyhound trainer, while swapping a pysch major for one in plant sciences at the University of Arizona. Fired for skipping employee meetings at restaurants, employee gambling at the dogtrack, refusing to use live rabbits as bait, it fell to planting cacti and bartending to pay her way through college.
Arlene’s late twenties found her running family owned greenhouses and florist shops in New York. When the reality of retail life became too mundane to handle, she began an obsessive love of creating more interesting worlds. Enter the Decadent giveaway through this Rafflecopter:

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Barbara Elsborg's got just what you want!

Barbara Elsborg's here to help celebrate Decadent Publishing's 1NS event. You lucky readers have a chance to win one of Barb's 1NS stories! It's no secret I love all her work. You will too. Find out more about Barb at her website or blog:
www.barbaraelsborg.com
www.barbaraelsborg.blogspot.com
How I love this cover - let me count the ways - or the feet! I'm thrilled to be part of Decadent Publishing's fabulous INS series. This is one of my two stories in the series. 

Just What She Wants


With a name like hers, Indiana Jones knows she ought to be adventurous and daring but when she’s tricked into taking a vacation on her own, and discovers she’s staying at a swinging resort, she wants to spend the week in her room. But the place is run by two of the most tempting men she’s ever seen. She could have just what she wants and no one would ever know.Marc finds it hard to see his partner Kyle in physical and mental anguish but if the guy won’t talk about it, what can he do? Finding a third might be the answer and he has just the woman in mind, unless she runs off before he can make her smile.Crippled and depressed, Kyle can’t even kiss his partner and wonders why the guy puts up with him. If only he could let the past go and move on. Maybe, just maybe, an intriguing guest will show him the way.http://www.amazon.com/Wants-Night-Stand-Series-ebook/dp/B00AJD05DK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1381611375&sr=1-1&keywords=just+what+she+wants
About Barbara
Barbara Elsborg lives in West Yorkshire in the north of England. She always wanted to be a spy, but having confessed that to everyone without them even resorting to torture, she decided it was not for her. Vulcanology scorched her feet. A morbid fear of sharks put paid to marine biology. So instead, she spent several years successfully selling cyanide. After dragging up two rotten, ungrateful children and frustrating her sexy, devoted, wonderful husband (who can now stop twisting her arm) she finally has time to conduct an affair with an electrifying plugged-in male, her laptop.
Her books feature quirky heroines and bad boys, and she hopes they are much fun to read as they were to write. Visit her:
http://www.barbaraelsborg.com/
http://barbaraelsborg.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/barbara.elsborg

Giveaway! Barbara's offering a free ecopy of this 1NS story to a commenter. Tell her where you'd like to go on a vacation!
And don't forget to enter Decadent's giveaway through this Rafflecopter:
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Celebrate Decadent Publishing's 200th INS story!

Hard to believe, but after only two years, Decadent Publishing will release its 200th story in its very popular 1NS series.
What story will be the 200th release? It's a mystery for now. But Decadent's having a weeklong party, and you're invited!
I'll be hosting some wonderful 1NS authors, so be sure to visit this week to learn more about their stories.
Enter here (soon) for a chance to win some fantastic Decadent giveaways:

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Be my Halloween guest!

After the Decadent 1NS celebration has ended on Oct. 20, I'd love to host some Halloween guests. If you're the author of a paranormal, that would work best, but everyone's welcome! Just shoot me an email at cate.masters AT gmail.com.



Revised and re-released

My fun fantasy, Romancing the Hero, is now available from Smashwords and Amazon. It was great to revisit this story, first released by The Wild Rose Press in 2011. It felt like being with old friends again. But now the story has a new twist. I hope you'll check it out!




Jody Feather’s tired of only writing about romance...Readers love her delectable hero, Jake Emerson. He’s the kind of man who knows exactly how to please a woman. The kind of man who doesn’t exist. Jody’s too busy writing about delicious heroes to find one of her own. And never expects one to find her.
Jake Emerson to the rescue...When a man shows up on her doorstep claiming to be Jake Emerson, this would-be hero is everything Jody imagined him to be. Bonus—he brings out her forgotten flirty side, and makes her feel worthy of love again. She stops doubting his story, but does believing in Jake mean she’s lost her sanity? Or will it mean losing him for real?


I've also re-released my novel, The Bridge Between. For now, I've made it available for free from Smashwords (coming soon to Amazon). I've moved it under my other pen name, C.A. Masterson, because while it has some romantic elements, it's a mainstream novel. It's set in my hometown of Lambertville, N.J. The cover's a photo I took a few years back of the bridge between Lambertville and New Hope. If you download it, I hope you'll leave a review!



Addictions come in many forms, Jessie Moore learns—including relationships.
Working at the fledgling Philly Times newspaper with reporter Matt Cleary proves draining after their breakup. When a longtime friend dies of AIDS, she reconnects with her first love, Billy Black, who becomes a bridge back to the safety of her old life, and also to the origins of her artistic inspiration. But Billy drowns his worries in beer, threatening to drag her down too. After she rekindles their affair, Matt’s jealousy confuses her. Before she can truly give herself to anyone, can Jessie learn to be true to herself?
And as of today, my Christmas fantasy, Ground Rules, is now re-released on Smashwords. At this time, it's still chugging away on Amazon, but should be there tomorrow. I'll update the links on the Ground Rules page as they come available.



Can a bad boy angel and a dispirited mortal find a Christmas miracle together?Luke, newly promoted to Watcher Angel, has been watching one human too closely—Alice. Unfortunately, she’s his latest assignment. Good thing the ground rules forbid getting involved with a human.Alice Garner scores a great contract to illustrate a children’s book by a famous author, but lack of inspiration forces her to cancel her holiday plans. Alone on Christmas to meet her looming deadline, Alice wishes on her treetop angel for help. She wasn’t expecting an angel to answer, especially one as surly as Luke.As they try to restore Christmas cheer to another, Luke brings Alice more than inspiration. He reawakens her heart. Now Alice has to convince him he’s her greatest wish. With a little Christmas magic, can she convince him to break the ground rules and stay?
Whew! That's three out of four of the stories whose rights were returned to me. Done, yay! And I love them so much more now. I hope you will too. :)