Happy October!

My favorite month of the year! My birthday is October 28th and Halloween follows shortly after, so can’t beat that. 😉 Not to mention I’m on vacation starting this Friday night. YAY!

A few personal notes: I recently signed a contract with an amazing practice in New England and I’M SO EXCITED (and terrified)! Life is definitely going to get interesting next July, LOL, but I’m looking forward to getting out there and doing my thing. Also, I’ll finally be getting back to first round edits on VERMILION LIES so you’ll have it on time in the Spring.

Have you watched THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE on Netflix? I am absolutely loving it so far (currently three episodes in), so I figured I’d share my own (TRUE LIFE) haunted house story for your reading pleasure. 😀

A Haunting in Southeastern Massachusetts

So I grew up in a haunted house as a child.

And I thought it was completely normal.

My family moved into a little cape in southeastern Massachusetts (in the same city where the infamous Lizzie Borden hacked her parents to death) when I was around five years old. They were quite excited to finally have their own home after immigrating from the Azores, Portugal and apartment hopping since I’d been born. The house wasn’t in the greatest condition, but my dad planned to renovate both the interior and exterior over the next few years.

Too bad he couldn’t get rid of the ghosts!

Let me get one thing out in the open first: I’m not super sensitive to the paranormal (certainly not like my sister, who experienced far more in this house than I). Since my family moved out of this house when I was in high school, I’ve literally never experienced another supernatural occurrence. The ghostly presences in this home were so strong even others sensed it. I do think there’s a gradation when it comes to these things, but I’m no expert, so that’s that.

It all started with the persistent pacing. I didn’t notice it at first, since my sister and I were kids running around making noise all day, but it was most obvious at night—someone kept walking up and down the stairs. The house was over a hundred years old, and yes it was creaky and constantly settling, but these sounds were just a little too rhythmic. If I was downstairs, I could hear people walking around upstairs when no one was up there. It was constant, back and forth, then it would stop for a period of time. My mom kept pawning it off as an old house, but I wasn’t convinced.

Also, the entire upper level of the house was always cold, especially the upstairs bathroom, no matter the time of year. One of my cousins (also only a child at the time) would completely flip out if he was left alone upstairs, screaming about the evil up there. Even though I didn’t think my ghosts were evil, I knew they were real, although I poked fun at him a little.

My sister and I would often hear voices at night. We both shared the same room and sometimes someone would whisper right along with us. We would both shut up immediately, holding our breaths and listening hard. The voices weren’t loud at all, barely audible really, and usually in different languages we couldn’t understand. One night, we heard a baby persistently crying. It terrified my sister so much, she dragged my mom into the room, and yes, even my mother heard it. She checked all the windows, and although it was the middle of winter, she told us it came from a neighbor’s house down the street. Bullshit! But she seemed entirely unsettled before she went back to bed.

Our ghostly residents liked to play tricks on us, too. Again, this all happened on the upper floor, where the blinds randomly dropped with a terrifying crack. This happened constantly. My mom kept saying it was because the blinds were old, but c’mon, really?! I think not. I used to sit at my computer, listening to a cassette tape on the radio, when suddenly it would shut off. I would hit play again and literally stare at it, waiting. Right before my eyes, the “stop” button was pushed, as if by an invisible hand. I guess my spectral roommates didn’t care for the music!

What else? My father (a believer) later told me he once heard a tremendous crash downstairs one night, as if someone had knocked over the hutch filled with glasses and porcelain dishes. Terrified, he went downstairs to investigate, thinking someone had broken into the house. To his relief, he found nothing—everything was in its place and all was silent. He was positive he hadn’t imagined it, and it still stumps him until this day.

And last, but certainly not least, when I was ten we adopted an adorable German Shepard named Legend. She was sweet, playful, and loved to run around the house, like any happy dog. However, she often leapt over the front gate (a standard chain-link fence) and would do so if riled up enough. She lived five glorious years before she one day leapt over that fence, chasing a motorcycle, and ended up struck by a car.

I was fifteen at the time and devastated. My dad was even moreso, because he loved Legend very much. There were a few days of silence after her death, but then we started to hear it.

Her running.

It would always happen randomly at sundown. We’d be sitting downstairs in the basement, watching TV or playing video games, when a loud gallop would suddenly resonate all around the house from outside. The noise was thunderous in the basement, and it sounded just like Legend running circles around the perimeter–the way she used to when she was alive and well. This went on for weeks. My dad was stunned and a little scared, but soon it stopped. Oddly enough, my mom never experienced it.

My sister also had an incident with the ghostly Legend, where she was folding laundry upstairs (where else?) and sensed something four-legged racing at her. When she looked up, something pushed her, like a dog’s front paws and she fell back. Of course, nothing was there, but she sought me out, terrified and in tears. At first, I didn’t believe her—none of us had ever been physically touched by anything preternatural in the house. But her tears quickly convinced me otherwise—why would she lie about something like that?

So that’s a quick overview of my haunted house experience (although looking back at this blurb, maybe not so quick, ha!). My sister later saw a psychic medium who told her a young boy of about eight and an elderly woman were our ghostly residents. The elderly woman died in the upstairs bathroom (where else?) but the psychic wasn’t quite sure about the young boy. The medium believed the pacing and cold patches were thanks to grandma, while the blinds/radio stints were the little boy’s shenanigans. The medium apparently knew all about it, which is a curiosity in itself, but hell, I could believe that.

Why not? After living in this house, anything seems possible!

Halloween Giveaways!

Check out these fun giveaways I’m participating in. 😀

Check out the October KU Giveaway! Our Romance Authors are sharing KU Books. Read for FREE! Even better, we’ve pooled our funds to offer an awesome giveaway! It’s just our way of thanking our loyal readers.

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Who doesn’t love Halloween? Scares from ghosts and winds rattling branches, and urban legends abound, the perfect excuse to cuddle with a significant other, even a boyfriend of the book variety. Oh, and let’s not forget the candy! Which is why we’re celebrating with a CHOCOLATE & BOOK BOYFRIENDS HALLOWEEN GIVEAWAY!

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Until next time…

HAVE A HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Best,

Linda