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In Would-Be Witch, the family magic seems to have skipped over Tammy Jo Trask, but when her locket, which holds the soul of the family ghost, Edie, is stolen, Tammy has to find her inner witch. So she begins spell-casting with disastrous and humorous consequences.
Here’s a snippet of an exchange between Tammy and Edie from early in Would-Be Witch.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I stole a glance at Edie’s exquisite face. With porcelain skin and high cheekbones,
she was prettier than a china doll. She wore her sleek black hair bobbed, either straight or waved, depending on her mood and her outfit. Her lips were painted a provocative cherry red today. Rumor had it that Edie had inspired men to diamonds…and suicide. It was generally accepted in my family that one of her jilted beaus had murdered her, but she never shared the details of the 1926 unsolved New York homicide of which she’d been the star.
“How are you?” I asked.
“I’m dead. How would you be?”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. I had no idea. Was it hard being a ghost? Was it boring? She was very secretive about her life, er, afterlife.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
So I have a couple of questions for you. Please answer one (or both) in the comments section for a chance to win an autographed copy Would-Be Witch, the first novel in my Southern Witch Series.
1) What’s the best or most unusual thing you’ve heard about being passed down in a family?
1) What’s the best or most unusual thing you’ve heard about being passed down in a family?
OR
2) Have you or has anyone you know ever encountered a ghost?
Best wishes,
Kimberly Frost
P.S. For more details on Tammy Jo, Edie, & the SouthernWitch series, please visit my website at:
http://frostfiction.com/
48 comments:
Okay...admitting this means I watched an episode of Rock of Love, but a girl gave Brett Michaels a two-dollar bill and said that it had been passed down in her family. Lame...yes...still it was unusual.
Also, I lived in a home in Rhode Island that I am fairly convinced was haunted. Every member of my family had eerie encounters. It was an old three family home. My brother lived on the third floor and they were often awakened in the middle of the night by hearing someone walk from the entry way into the livingroom and then into the kitchen. The steps would then go back to the livingroom and always stop at my brother's door.
My uncle woke up one night when he felt something sharp poking his foot. He insisted that he heard a voice say "Stop! He's awake!"
Something happened on each floor to each of us.
Thanks for the contest. Looks like a great book, and the cover is exquisite!
Kelly
kalea_kane(at)yahoo(dot)com
I grew up as an Army brat, which translates into moving around a lot. There was an old house we stayed in while my dad was stationed at Ft. Hood, Texas. I absolutely would have sworn was haunt by the previous owner's ghost. I was in the 4th grade at the time and would listened to the neighbor kids talk about "Honey, the ghost". I use to think I could see her floating up in the corners of the ceiling. I remember laying in bed at night, thinking if I just breathe real soft, not let any body parts hang off the bed and didn't make any noise, the ghost wouldn't know I was there. When I think about that time, I laugh at myself now.
fantasydreamersramblings [at] gmail [dot] com
I have your book on my wishlist but I am not sure when I will get a copy! It looks great though!
Most unusual thing I heard about being passed down in a family has got to be a skull. Not just any skull but the composer Joseph Haydn. I am British but live in Austria and heard the story when on a tour of the palace his worked in most of his life.
Apparently when he died they placed him in the local church but someone stole his skull at some point. It was handed down through the family and eventually (if I remember right) was given back to the church to go back to his body.
As for ghosts...well I was in the Edinburgh underground vaults and there was someone or something blowing on my neck and chest. Seeing as there was no draft that I could find and nobody human was doing it I am pretty sure it was a ghost.
Yes, I have encountered a ghost...Briefly (thank god) I was sleeping in my bedroom and I woke up and saw my mom in the hallway (my bedroom door was open) or so I thought it was my mom ...she didn't move or say anything (Something told me that it wasn't her). I closed my eyes and when i opened them again she wasn't there. When I spoke to my mom the next I asked her she had woken up at 3am she said she was sleeping...so that's my brief unusual encounter...
I have never seen a ghost of know anyone that has. It would be an interesting thing to see. I can't think of anything being past down in my family other then my grandmothers ring.
Hi Kimberly
I believe in ghosts because when I was a kid my cousins and I saw a ghost. I was spending the night at their house, which was haunted, and the five of us kids saw the ghost on the stairs going up to the third floor. It was a very old house in Pennsylvania that had a history of ghost sighting. My cousins didn't live there very, long only a few years.
This has been added to my to look for list. Gotta love the cover..and the snippet of smart-a** dialogue won me over.
Can't answer the first question as I am an Air Force brat as well as being retired Air Force and we moved all of the time, so not much was really kept. Furniture and photos from my maternal grandmother and that's about it.
#2 would be a definite YES. I have run into ghosts/spirits or at least experienced evidence. My maternal grandmother is with me pretty much all of the time. I feel her presence, especially when making decisions and in my happy or sad times. She's a comfort.
When I was stationed in England, I worked part time in a pizza shop and a ghost of the woman who had lived in the house was still there. She would open doors that had been shut and my boss swore she helped put pizza boxes together. Friendly helpful ghosts are always a plus.
Should I win:
VWinship at aol dot com is my email address or my blog is http://iyamvixenbooks.blogspot.com/
What great stories, you guys! Thanks for sharing them. :)
I love the cover and the book sounds great.
Me and my family have had a few encounters with ghosts. My mom used to see a little boy standing at the end of the hall, both in the house they lived in when I was born and the house I grew up in. She had 2 girls, me and my sister, no boys. In the house I grew up in I saw a woman standing in front of my closet wearing an old fashioned dressing gown. There are a few other stories but thats a couple of the shorter ones.
bacchus76 at myself dot com
There was supposedly a ghost living in a couple of the dorms where I went to college, but I never experienced anything. I don't know of any unusual items passed down through the years either. Either way, I'm looking forward to reading your new book!
Hi Kimberly :)
Look at all the super stories everyone is telling us thanks to your great questions! I hope you are enjoying your day here. I thank you for spending it with us.
I have not seen a ghost and would probably scream if I did. I'm not as tough as I pretend to be.
In my family there is nothing really passed down. :( Maybe I'll start something hehe!
cheers xoxo
I dont know of anyone that has encountered a ghost. I thought I might when I was young but dont really remember if it was my imagination or something I really saw. Thanks for the giveaway.
fmd518@inbox.com
I grew up in a house in Southern California that was declared to be haunted by a team of parapsychologists from UCLA. There was an old mirror fixed to a door at the end of the hallway, and members of my family would occasionally see a man and his small white dog step into the mirror. Of course, it was years before any of us mentioned what we'd seen to each other because we all thought we were imagining things!
My Mom saw Alice of the Hermitage several times as a child. (Murrells Inlet SC)Alice was/is looking for her ring that her father threw into the ocean.
Please enter me in the contest
1) What’s the best or most unusual thing you’ve heard about being passed down in a family?
My dad gave me a mustache cup that his father gave him and I'll give it to my son. It's in perfect condition and has a little lip on it to keep men's mustaches dry in the 'olden' days when they drank coffee!
OR
2) Have you or has anyone you know ever encountered a ghost?
I didn't actually see him straight on, but saw movement to the side many times or in a mirror after my dad died.
We had a 'resident' ghost when we first got married. I didn't see him but he made his presence known by little pranks. He would contantly move things and after we looked for them they would be right back where they were at first.
I always felt him behind me which is an eerie feeling. One time my husband filled the tub for a bath then went into the kitchen to fix a snack. When he went to take his bath the plug had been pulled and set on the side of the tub. When we moved we invited him to come with us to the new place and I think he did because within a week things started to go missing again. He may still be there because the last time we moved we forgot to invite him along.
I have never encountered a ghosr, nor do I know anyone who has.
Looks like a terrific book!
I have a tiny little Koine Greek-English dictionary that belonged to my Great-Grandpa Joe. He was a German immigrant farming a little homestead in northern Montana. Never underestimate a poor rural farmer, eh?
My Mom used to see ghosts when she was younger. She would wake up in the middle of the night and see a face at the foot of the bed. She calls it the "death face." It always meant someone had died or was going to die, and she always recognized who it was even though she says the death face doesn't look like that person. She doesn't see them much anymore, thank goodness. I can only remember her seeing it once, and she was a wreck for weeks afterward. She never would tell me who it was.
"Encountered" might be a bit strong, but here goes. In the mid-90s, I lived with my boyfriend Rick and "the thing in the basement" (ie, punk rock guy who rented a room down there).
I was at home one day, not feeling well, drifting halfway between waking and sleeping. I heard the front door open and close, then someone clomp across the wood floor in work boots and go down the basement stairs.
"Oh," I thought, "the thing in the basement is home. How unfortunate. Soon it will become loud." But it never did become loud. When I got up a bit later, I looked outside. No cars. And the only footprints in the snow where those of the boyfriend and the thing from the basement leaving the house...
The presence was that of Rick's dad, who'd been dead about 20 years. Others reported sitting on the couch in the family room in the basement and hearing someone come in the front door, walk across the floor and down the stairs, and then... no one there.
no i not seen a ghost, but my mother swears that a angel or ghost or something touched her face, when she was real sick, and she said, it/whatevre told her everything was ok
and when she went back to dr, the tumor was gone
my mother, REFUSES to lie about anything
and lets see not really, nothign handed down, due to my family, is into breaking everything in house when PO'ed
but i do have the wedding picture frame of silver, that weas connected togher with 2 wedding bands in the middle of the frame, which moma tried to destroy after a conversion with my dad
im a southern gal, lol so this would be a great book to read!!!!!!
so please pick me,
i mean, enter
The night my father died, he visited me and my older sister (and I don't know who else in the family), both of us over a thousand miles away from him and this after we already learned of his passing.
The weirdest thing I've heard of being passed down to family members was a mummified baby body.
Margay
I definitely think I lived in a haunted house. We moved to a house that had never seen kids when I was 9. The house was built in the 20s and a guy had passed away in the house.
Weird things happened. Like the stairs would move as if someone were walking up them--the dog would sit at the top of the stairs and growl as if an intruder were around.
And apparently I would tell my mom things about the ghost. One of my brothers (younger) would talk about an old man being around the house, in the house, when there was no way possible.
And my grandmother and I decided to have a seance once. We closed all the doors and windows and made sure everything was locked up tight. Halfway through the heated seance, a candle flame went up really, really high and then the candles all went out at once. It was unexplainable.
I must be boring. :( I've never had a ghost experience and I've never heard of anyone handing down something unusual :(
Haven't met any ghosts yet, and nothing unusual in our family that I know of, unless they aren't telling.
my step father swears at one of his jobs there was a ghost. Can't remember the exact story but it had something to do with a welding helmet flying across the room.
No ghosts that I know of yet. AS for getting passed down, there's a baptismal gown and the family china.
Kimberly, I'm so excited about your book. It looks like a keeper!
We've passed down quilts, jewelry, dresser sets and a particular gorgeous fan in our family. The fan is under glass now.
Ghosts? Yes, I've encountered quite a few in my homes, and I see them in downtown St. Augustine all the time.
Congratulations, Kimberly!
Light,
Nancy Haddock
La Vida Vampire
Last Vampire Standing
I can't answer the 1st question because my family has passed away or I have never met them.
The answer to the 2nd question is, Yes! My 2 yr. old (almost 3) daughter has encountered both my mother, my husbands mother, and my grand father who have all 3 passed away. She was held by my mother when she was 3 days old... my mother passed away when she was 2 mths old (which was when she was held by my grandfather, who passed away a week after my mother's funeral) However, she has never met my husband's mother who passed away when he was 10.
We were lying in bed one night when she just decided to wave and say "Bye Grandma, bye Grandpa, see you later." Just out of nowhere... it was her 1st time even saying those words... and we don't speak them around her. I asked her who she was talking to and she pointed to the window and said they were leaving now and will see her later..... I was freaked out!!
She has being talking to them occasionally ever since (especially on her play phones). I have been becoming less weird about it. Thinking it's her imagination - linking with her cartoons, and books I read her, but who knows!!!
Thanx for the contest!
My Dad passed away some years ago and three years later, my Mom was very ill and we were all around her the evening that she passed. My young niece, 6yo, was sleeping in my parents room. When she got up the next morning, before she knew that my Mom had passed, she told us that she seen Granddaddy that night. My sister replied, "really?" My niece said, "yes, mommy, he was in the closet and when I asked him what he was doing, he said, it's ok honey, I'm just here to get your Grandma."
I have another story about my 2yo daughter and my Dad's passing.
I would love a chance to read your book.
thanks
ceashark at aol dot com
I have never personally encountered a ghost, but my hometown, Sunnyvale, California, is famous for having a haunted Toys 'R' Us store. Apparently the ghost was somebody who worked for the Murphys, the founders of the city, and lost his arm in an accident and bled out. He is supposedly a benevolent ghost, mostly playing tricks,taking toys off the shelves and so forth. I never visited the store when I was little, but now it would be cool to find a pretext to go there.
Would-Be Witch sounds so great and I have it on my wish list...hopefully, I will be able to get it soon.
I cannot think of any unusual items being passed down in our family. The most exciting that has been passed on in our family is my Grandma gave my brother a cuckoo clock that he loved from the time he was a little boy. He was thrilled when she gave it to him.
I do believe in ghosts but I have never encountered one.
Congrats on the release of Would-Be Witch!
Love the cover!
Wish I had a ghost story but the best I can think of is my mom saying a relative of hers lost something important and she swears her dead father came to the foot of the bed and told her where t look and first thing in the morning she found it.
We have this carved replica of a horse and carriage all decked out that they used to use in parades in Sicily. It's been passed around for many years in my family and unfortunately one relative use to let his kids play with it but I now have it on my shelf and will pass it on to my daughters (they'll have to take turns too lol).
1) What’s the best or most unusual thing you’ve heard about being passed down in a family?
Most unusual will be the coffee set we got from my grandmother, with as explicit instructions NEVER to use it. Didn't get any explanation about why not, but guess there most have been some reason for it otherwise it wouldn't have come with the explanation. We did have an accident when we moved in our resent appartment, and part of it got destroyed when the glass cupboard it was standing it just suddenly collapsed and the whole livingroom was full of glass. Some luck nobody was just then in front of the double glass door. Part of it is broken, and the rest is now certainly not safe to use...
What awesome stories everyone has!
I really never had an experience with ghosts. I felt like someone or something was watching me when I slept. I was about 10, but that could've been just because my mom left my door open a little at night and I read one too many Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden mysteries, lol.
There's really nothing that's been passed down in my family. Not unless you count a weird sense of humor?
That is a stunning cover.
My father always claimed that in his youth he stayed in a house where every night 'someone' sat on his bed.
My grandparents used to own a small country store, to get into town they would have to drive up a hill and past a cemetery...without fail the car would stall as it passed the cemetery and they would have to push it a short way before it would start again.
I'll answer the second question first. When I was in middle school, My friend swore she saw her grandmothers ghost sitting in the rocking chair she use to use. Then while I was on the phone with her, the radio turned on and the volume went up and down and changing channels but that radio was on the other side of the house then she was at. I could hear it on the phone and no one was home. She was frantic and hysterical, so I ran over to her house and she was so white and she couldn't even walk straight she was so scared. I took her to my house and waited till her mom got home. I never personally saw a ghost but I truly believe my best friend has. As for the first question, my great grandmother had a mini harp with gold and silver accents that she said was passed down the family. My great uncle has it now.
Your book looks really good and I LOVE the cover. I hope I get a change to be the first to read it!
Have you or has anyone you know ever encountered a ghost?
I have had an experience where ghosts pushed my car uphill. It's completely true. A school bus went over the hill and that's what the ghosts try to keep you from doing. What nice ghosts!
bridget3420(at)yahoo(dot)com
I had been thinking about a novel I wanted to write about my father's mother, who disappeared when he was 3. One night I woke up and felt her presence so strongly that I realized she was there, and she was telling me about herself in a very essential way - not the details, but the reality of herself.
I'm still working on the novel -
teabird 17 at yahoo com
I'd love to win your book!
Yes, I have had encounters with ghosts. When I was younger I used to see a little boy in my house and I named him "Him". He used to stand by my bed and stare at me. It was creepy because he never spoke nor he never blinked. Just that piercing stare that gives you the chills.
My mother swears she encountered the ghost of her brother after he passed away.
Great Cover! and this is now on my to get list! :)
No unusual things passed down but we did live in some haunted apartments a few years ago.
My little boy who was 4 at the time, said he saw a man go down our hallway...yep, we freaked and no one was there. Then I was pregnant with our second child and my hubby wakes up yelling. He had scratches on his stomach. We were moving a few weeks later. Two apartments over there was pictures flying off the shelves and a hand print that came out from inside the wall. We knew the maintanence guy and he painted over it, funny thing it wouldn't go away. He never went back in the apartment again. For true, it was freaky and there were cold spots in the hall, we didn't have vents in the hall.
Did some research on the area and from what we gathered it's not that far from the Alamo. People were proably buried there. It was really weird.
My husband's family lives in a house that is haunted. When we've been there, you can hear phantom footsteps on the stairs. Things turn on and they once saw a man in a top hat.
Deidre
I really do believe in ghosts. When I was 8 my grandmother passed away. Six months later I saw her. It made me happy, but a little scared to.
ayancey(at)dishmail(dot)net
Awesome cover. It might be somewhat embarrasing to admit but my sister and I had an experienced with the paranormal.
We always joke around that our house is haunted. So, on a Sunday afternoon during a cold winter, we came back from church and we were trying to open the door but the keys wouldnt work. I jokingly said, "Ghostie, please open the door." To my surprise the door open and gratefully we made it inside. I guess after that we did not really mind whether the house was haunted or not.
Thanks for the giveaway.
Sue
okibi_insanity[at]yahoo[dot]com
First of all, thank you so much for your interest in WOULD-BE WITCH and for your all the well wishes on its release!
Secondly, thank you for sharing all your incredible stories. :) I actually haven't seen any ghosts myself, but like the idea that nice ones are watching over us.
With such a terrific number of responses, I can't possibly only give away one book. So I'm going to give away 5!
I'll send the list to the powers-that-be at Yankee Romance.
Warm wishes,
Kimberly Frost
www.FrostFiction.com
What a fantastic response to your blog, Kimberly! Thanks again for being here, we sure enjoyed having you, and thanks also for the wonderful surprise of 5 books instead of 1!
Now, you know where to find us when your NEXT book is ready *grin*
cheers and lots of hugs,
Lemonitsa
5 , wow i got my finger toes crossed
gypsywitch36@yahoo.com
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