Guest Post: Author Theresa Meyers |My Need To Read

Well, slap me twice and call me Betty. I'm so freaking pleased to have Theresa Meyers visit MNtR today to talk about her favorite holiday (Halloween) and share a recipe for her favorite tea-time treat (Pumpkin bread!). Meyers's book, The Hunter, will be out on November 1--and believe me when I say you simply must read it, with all of it's steampunky, paranormal goodness.

-----------

Halloween has long been my favorite holiday. Yeah the holidays are great, but they really kick off with Halloween. Of course I have not one, but two people in my family with a birthday on that day. Wonder if that was meant to be? I’ve got a wardrobe full of costumes and probably as many Halloween boxes filled with black cats, ghosts, witches and scarecrows, as I do boxes filled with Christmas goodies.

This time of year is just rife with potential ideas for a paranormal writer. Just the cold snap in the air and the fog hovering over the ground as the early morning light slants through it makes me giddy.

I was driving over the Tacoma Narrows bridge (which is suspended 290 feet over a narrow strip of the Puget Sound in Washington state just outside Tacoma) with a friend, the fog looked like it was literally boiling up around the edges of the cliff and filtering around the suspension cables of the bridge. “Hey, doesn’t it look kind of like a fire-breathing dragon might be just down there?” I told my friend, who incidentally is not a writer.

She looked at me strangely for a moment, then grinned. “Uh, yeah, I guess it could. You writers are really twisted, you know that?”

I had to grin back. Writing paranormal stories makes anything possible, which just makes life more magical all the way around. Some of my best ideas for paranormal stories start with “What if?” The Jackson brothers in my Legend Chronicles series are a perfect example. They started off with a “what if there were three brothers named after their father’s favorite guns?” At that moment Winchester, Remington and Colt Jackson started taking shape and eventually evolved into my steampunk hunters that kick off with The Hunter out on Nov. 1. (And incidentally, what could be a cooler release dated than 11-1-11!) The stories are what might happen if you mashed together the television series Supernatural, with the movie Wild Wild West and then added a dash of Indiana Jones. There’s adventure, scary paranormal creatures, wild adventure, passion and of course a mad inventor!

I suppose the other reason I love fall is that it gives us all a reason to look more closely at the supernatural and paranormal. It’s the only time of year you’ll see specials on ghost whisperers or paranormal trackers on regular television. People are more open to witches and goblins, gremlins and spectors, not to mention a few hot vampires, werewolves and sexy shape-shifters.

And since it’s nearly Halloween, it’s also time to break out my favorite tea-time treat – Pumpkin Bread! Here’s the recipe given to me by the same friend forced to think about dragons as we crossed the bridge:

Amazing Pumpkin Bread

2/3 cup butter
2 2/3 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 can (16 oz.) pumpkin
2/3 cup water
2 tsp. baking soda
3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cloves

Cream butter and sugar, add egg, pumpkin and water; mix well. Blend together dry ingredients then mix into wet ingredients. Pour batter into greased loaf pans and bake at 350 degrees F for 65-75 minutes for two big loaves or for 30-40 minutes for mini loaves.

So celebrate October for Oktoberfest if you must, but I’ll be celebrating the paranormal with Halloween.

What’s your favorite part about fall and the paranormal?

-----------

Many thanks to Theresa Meyers for an awesome post! To answer her question, my favorite part of fall and the paranormal. But of course, one can never forget the tasty spices that are used most during this time of year (cinnamon, ginger, allspice, etc.).

Now, here's a bit of info on Meyers' book, the first in the Legend Chronicles series.

They’re the Chosen—Winchester, Remington and Colt—brothers trained to hunt down supernatural beings using the latest steam-powered gadgetry. It’s a hard legacy to shoulder, and it’s about to get a lot more dangerous…

A DEVIL OF A JOB

Colt Jackson has gotten his name on many a wanted poster with success in the family business: hunting supernaturals across the frontier. Lately, though, there’s a sulfur stink in the wind and the Darkin population is exploding. A rift in the worlds is appearing. To close it, Colt will have to do the unthinkable and work with a demon to pass arcane boundaries no human alone can cross.

Except when he summons his demon, he doesn’t get some horned monstrosity: he gets a curvy redheaded succubus named Lilly, who’s willing to make a bargain to become human again. He also gets Lilly’s secret expertise on the machinations on the dark side of the rift. And her charm and cleverness help to get them out of what his silver-loaded pistol and mechanical horse can’t. Of course, when all hell breaks loose, he might have to sacrifice his soul. But what’s adventure without a little risk?

- - - - -

This has been a tour stop for Bewitching Book Tours. There's so much great stuff going on for this this, book, so I highly recommend you check out the BBT page here.