The great horror writer, Ramsey Campbell, said recently that, in his opinion, writers should make a point of reading outside the genre in which they normally work. I concur wholeheartedly. You can become jaded and even a little one dimensional if you don't spread yourself about a bit.
For me, when I'm not reading horror, I frequently grab an historical novel. I can't be doing with bodice-rippers or heaving bosoms and maidens fainting all over the place (probably because their corsets are cutting off the oxygen to their brain).
Step forward Shehanne Moore. When she's not reading historical fiction, she frequently picks up a ghost story or a horror novel. I like to think it's that muse that sits at her shoulder while she creates the gutsiest, sassiest heroines in some of the strongest historical storylines it has been my pleasure to read in recent years. This week, she's launching her latest - The Writer and the Rake. You can get a flavour of the story later in this post.
Now, she takes over my blog to talk about one of her favourite topics. Ghosts.
Take it away, Shey!
Do ghosts wander the face of the earth? (Asks she on a
horror writer’s blog.) And if they do,
would they be welcomed? I guess that depends on the writer. Noel Coward
certainly turned the idea into a farce in Blithe Spirit, when the dead wife
turns up.
Daphne du Maurier did something quite different with
Rebecca. Rebecca may not appear as a
ghost but her presence clings to every scene. And there is no doubt she casts a
huge shadow over her husband, Max. And
yes, I welcome both these ‘spirited’ ladies because I find them much more
interesting than the wives currently in situ, although I might not say that if
they came to tea.
Ghosts are said to be restless spirits and the interesting thing is that they exist in every culture, ancient ones especially. Look at the
idea of Halloween being the Day of the Dead, where people left spaces at the table for their
loved ones who were no longer with them.
Ghosts are invariably bound up with the idea of an
afterlife—blame the Greeks for the Underworld, and rivers that we cross. But
what if we don’t? Because also invariably, ghosts have unfinished business.
The heroine of my new release
is not a ghost but she does go to bed in 2017 and wake up in
1765. And, after her initial, ‘it’s a dream and think of the book she can write
from this, scenario’ she comes to the conclusion that her ex fiancé has
murdered her in her sleep, after she moved into his spare room with a random guy, in a bid to get her name
off a joint mortgage. (As you do.) The afterlife, of course, isn’t what she
thinks—how do any of us really know what it might or might not be?—but she is
certain that the possibility of getting back to haunt her ex isn’t that daft.
Just think about the kind of ‘dead’ person you might be here in terms of
unfinished business. Is there anyone you would want to haunt and why?
While there’s not any ghosts in the book, I suppose that the
spirit of the hero’s first wife—where did I get this idea about wives?—hangs
over him. I never thought about that when I was writing it. But he never loved
her, she hated him, but his family insisted on the match when he was too young
to argue. Okay and he’d er… got a servant into trouble. Because of that he’s gone
to hell in a handcart since. Her clothes, her shoes, are all lovingly kept by
their son, Fleming, who resembles her in every way and consequently is the
daily reminder that everyone holds him responsible for her death.
As if that’s not enough about ‘ghosts’ in someone’ s life, because let’s
face it, we don’t need to see or feel them, they don’t even need to be there,
for the dead’s influence to taunt and haunt from beyond the grave, her sister, Christian,
went and married the hero’s old uncle. Why? So she can stop him inheriting what
is rightfully his, of course. And not just that. She has the ’hots.’
To say
is saying how much he is capable of sinning, because he’s
plenty sinned against.
Here’s an extract
from where Brittany, having fallen out a first floor window and broken a
priceless Ming dynasty vase in a bid to escape the carriage she thinks had come
to take her to hell, does a quick bit of re-thinking. You can tell that despite the title of this
post she’s not welcome….
Thank you so much Catherine for asking me to your wonderful
blog. I am a huge fan of your wonderful horror books and your blog.
“Wife? Mitchell?”
As Christian spoke, Brittany
strove to look composed, serene. She’d fallen down the rope, somehow broken
that vase, nearly broken her neck, except she couldn’t break her neck. She’d
already been murdered by Sebastian. These things were bad enough. Had she
mentioned that Mitchell Killgower was transfixed with horror?
“She is not—”
“But she is very, very nice, Aunt
Christian, the mother I never had, so we are all getting along . . .getting
along quite famously in fact.”
Brittany struggled to her feet,
dug in her pocket, fished out her fags. What a bloody awful thing it was being
dead. Even her fag was so bent, getting it between her lips was such a mammoth
task, it took three attempts. Five if she counted keeping her hand steady
enough to ping her lighter and suck long and hard, wreathing herself in
delicious, such needed smoke. She sucked even harder, while she considered her
next move. It wasn’t biting her nails, or being pushed into the carriage. She’d a new slant on the carriage. The fag was
just what she needed to find her cool and face down whatever these things were. She’d already come to
think, ‘ghoul one’ and ‘ghoul two.’ Mitchell made it ‘ghoul three.’
“Are you sure your new mother is nice, dear,
only . . . only she looks . . . Well, I really don’t know what to say.”
“Believe me, darling, the
feeling’s mutual.”
Mitchell‘s eyes were icy as polar caps. “May I say, for the benefit of
those who are hard of hearing, this woman is not—”
“Your wife?” The uncle’s shining,
silver cravat pin nearly pinged from his cravat. He grasped his cane so tightly
his knuckles were white as his hair. “I
should sincerely hope not. You know our terms and conditions on that. If this
is the best you can do, then we should redraw our will now. Unless you’re going
to try telling us she’s Fleming’s wife?”
“Well, Uncle, now that you come
to mention it. At sixteen, it is about time. Half the boys in the county, if
not the country, are already—”
“Oh, really? Mitchell . . .” Brittany took a
deep breath and pinged her fag beneath the withered hydrangea. The afterlife
wasn’t what she’d thought. If this wasn’t heaven, or hell, then it was some
sort of place of atonement. Look at all these ghostly shrubs and trees for a
start and those stone dragons poking out of the walls.
Ghosts
did wander the face of the earth. These must be the ones with unfinished
business who’d managed back. She wouldn’t rest till she’d done whatever it took
to do that and make Sebastian’s life hell. Mitchell would know the way.
Whatever this was about, put out her hand to the weary traveller and he’d owe
her big time. Besides why should she suffer all these stinging cuts to her
pride? She was the perfect homemaker. Look at all these rugs and pot plants
she’d bought for Sebastian’s. The ones he’d thrown at her when there were rows.
“All right, you win. So you were
right. Your aunt and uncle can’t take a joke, but are you really going to let
them talk to me like this? We both know I was locked in that room by . . . by a
certain person and that person wasn’t
you, my dearest. With hardly any clothes to speak of too? All for a joke? Hmm?
Fleming, what do you have to say? Let’s hope it’s interesting?”
“No, I never. How would I do that?”
“Very, very easily, darling. Don’t
lie to your great-uncle. It’s so unbecoming when he’s such a nice man.”
“You mean, Fleming, you never had any
clothes on either?”
Fleming flushed scarlet. “Uncle.
They took my clothes. They put me out wearing a bed sheet.”
“But, you just said to your great
aunt that your new mother was very nice. Well? Which is it to be? Are you lying
to me, boy?”
“She . . . she is nice, Uncle
Clarence. But, I didn’t lock her in my room. How could I?”
The Writer and the Rake
1765 had bugger all to recommend
it.
He saw
her coming. If he’d known her effect he'd have walked away.
When it comes to doing it all, hard coated ‘wild
child’ writer, Brittany Carter ticks every box. Having it all is a different thing though, what with her need
to thwart an ex fiancé, and herself transported from the present to
Georgian times. But then,
so long as she can find her way back to her world of fame, and promised
fortune, what's there to worry about?
Georgian bad boy
Mitchell Killgower is at the center of an inheritance dispute and he needs
Brittany as his obedient, country mouse wife. Or rather he needs her like a
hole in the head. In and out of his bed he’s never known a woman like her. A
woman who can disappear and reappear like her either.
And when his coolly
contained anarchist, who is anything but, learns how to return to her world and
stay there, will having it all be enough, or does she underestimate him...and
herself?
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Thank you so much for being my guest today, Shey!
