Welcome to My 31 Days Of Thrills And Chills 2018! I did this last year and so excited to do it again. I’ll be sharing reviews and lots of extra spooky stuff every day leading up to Halloween. I hope you’ll join me!
I’m sharing all kinds of books, movies, and other spooky stuff for every day in October. Gots to get those scares on for the 31st!
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Spine Chillers: The Beast of Black Pond by Nancy Gray
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Genre: Horror Age category: Middle Grade Release Date: October 2018
My Review
Duane has an assignment for his creative writing class. Write about an urban legend. He chooses to write about something local, the legend of Black Pond. Several children have died in the pond and a legend has grown that something lives there and pulls kids under to their doom. Little did he know, he’d meet the legend up close and personal and he’d be in the fight of his life.
The author’s writing was spot on. The character’s read and acted their age and it took me back to when I was young. You might find yourself thinking I’d never do that when reading some of the events in these pages. Don’t be so sure. Kid’s do the darndest things and don’t stop to overthink or rationalize them.
Duane, his sister, and his best friend joined forces and faced off against something that shouldn’t be real. It got pretty hairy, and felt genuine. No adult was going to believe them so they’d deal with it their own way. I tell ya, what dwelt in the pond was very scary. I wouldn’t have wanted to meet it as an adult, let alone as a kid.
There was lots of action to keep the story moving at a fast clip. And some harrowing encounters to get those endorphins pumping. I would have ate this up as a kid and I did as an adult.
Stop back by tomorrow. I’ll be reviewing another Spine Chillers story, Big Bad Wolf.
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Synopsis
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“Mrs. Snider,” Duane asked. “Do you know anything about Black Pond?”
“There isn’t some monster drowning children. It’s a dangerous, polluted pond,” she said.
But there is a monster that lurks silently in the water, watching and waiting; hungry for its next meal. Duane has seen THE BEAST OF BLACK POND, and the beast has his scent. The beast hunts him from the pond, to the lake by the dam, even to his own swimming pool. Duane will need all his wits, and the help of his friends if he wants to avoid being pulled under to a watery grave.
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Nancy Gray has published a number of works including her young adult fantasy series Blood Rain. Her short story “Chosen” appeared in Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal Author Quest: a Penguin Special from Grosset & Dunlap. Her work also appears in various anthologies.
Nancy Gray has been writing for over ten years. Gray lives in South Carolina with her husband and two daughters. She enjoys books, video games, anime, manga, and horror.
Other Works by Nancy Gray:
Blood Rain
Blood Moon
Blood God
Spine Chillers: The Scarecrow
Spine Chillers: Big Bad Wolf
Spine Chillers: The Beast of Black Pond
Spine Chillers: Empty Eyes
Spine Chillers: The Firefly
New cover reveals for The Lightning Road series by Donna Galanti!
Look at these awesome the new cover reveals for Donna Galanti’s Lightning Road series! Plus enter to win a $25 Amazon Gift Card at the end of this post and get the first e-book in Donna’s series, Joshua and the Lightning Road, on sale now through October 15th for just $0.99cents.
Donna talks today about how the 10 steps to writing thrillers for kids and shares an excerpt from Joshua and the Lightning Road.
10 Steps to Writing Thrillers for Kids by Donna Galanti
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Do you love to be scared? I do (when I know it’s safe)! Haunted houses. Hayrides. Rollercoasters. Adventure rides.
I got so scared once in a haunted house that I whacked the “ghosts” with the teddy bear from my costume. The management turned on all the lights and asked me to leave. Oops.
Recently at Halloween, my friend dared me to do Terror Behind the Walls at Eastern State Penitentiary. I was very proud that I didn’t whack anyone this time! Here we are 😊 .
But I still get scared of real places as a grown up. Of the dark garage. Of the creepy cellar. Of nighttime when taking the trash cans out. My heart pip-pops waiting for that creature or boogeyman to grab me. I know he could be. My imagination tells me so.
Thriller movies are fun to watch – but I think it’s even more fun for me to watch my son watching them. He yells at the characters, “save yourselves!” then jumps up and down, hides his eyes, and we hug each other in fright – whether it’s Jurassic Park, Twister, or Dante’s Peak.
As my son became an avid and selective reader, I discovered that kids love to be thrilled not just in movies but in books too. I started reading some of the books my son had on his bookshelf like Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan and Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo. In doing this I began to see patterns in these kid adventure tales – and I began applying what I learned, along with general thriller elements, to create my own stories.
10-steps for writing kid thrillers:
⦁ Put the kids in charge. Kids don’t want to read about grownups having adventures.
⦁ Which leads into…have the kids figure out how to take the bad guys down – not grownups. Kids want to see themselves as the hero, not Mom or Dad or their teacher.
⦁ Whatever scary situations the kids find themselves in – they must navigate their way out.
⦁ Don’t dwell on the dark stuff. Make it happen fast without gory detail – kids can use their imagination.
⦁ Give them friends in their travels. Life is hard without friends! And a kid needs friends to help him along his scary adventure.
⦁ Through story events have the kids discover their own strength and courage to overcome the bad things happening to them.
⦁ Make all seemed lost! End the chapters on cliffhangers to encourage kids to keep turning the pages and find out what happens next.
⦁ Have it work out in the end, or at least partially, even if all seems doomed for a while.
⦁ Add humor! Interjecting a dollop of funny can alleviate the tension in the scariest of scenes and lighten the moment.
⦁ Make it a series. Have a final resolution to the story but leave it open for more stories down the road for the characters. Kids love to follow their beloved characters into new adventures.
JOSHUA AND THE ARROW REALM EXCERPT:
A faint rumble groaned through the whistling wind.
Boom!
Thunder ripped the sky overhead.
Charlie reached the frozen pond, spinning across it. “Woohoo! I win! You Americans can’t beat us at speed!”
Lightning flashed. It zinged across the pine trees like brilliant sunlight. A seed of terror flickered inside me.
Boom! Boom!
Another flash scorched the sky.
Charlie’s smile fell to a frown as he raced across the ice, peering up into the swirling clouds.
We both knew what lightning could do.
Suddenly, sneaking outside for a moonlit sled ride before Bo Chez got home from his monthly poker game didn’t seem so smart.
The sleet turned to snow. Icicles flew off trees like glass splinters, shattering on the hard snow. As I shot toward the pond, a tree on the edge moved. Its branches swayed in the swirling snow.
It wasn’t a tree, but a girl! She stumbled through the mad flurry, arms outstretched.
“Charlie, look!”
Gusts snatched the words away as my sled hit the ice and careened out of control on the bumpy surface. The girl staggered and fell onto the pond. I twisted my sled away to avoid hitting her and smashed right into Charlie. With a yelp, he pulled me up, and we clumped toward the girl. We lifted her up, half dragging her back up the hill to the house in the pelting snow and sleet.
“Who is she?” Charlie yelled.
“No idea,” I yelled back.
He said more, but his words were lost in the wind.
My lungs burned with the cold and effort. There was only one reason someone would appear with lightning—to steal us. This girl might appear like a waif unprepared for a storm, but I couldn’t trust that’s all she was.
WATCH THE JOSHUA AND THE LIGHTNING ROAD BOOK TRAILER!
ABOUT JOSHUA AND THE LIGHTNING ROAD:
Twelve-year-old Joshua Cooper learns the hard way that lightning never strikes by chance when a bolt strikes his house and whisks away his best friend—possibly forever. Armed with only luck and his grandfather’s mysterious crystal, Joshua must save his friend by traveling the Lightning Road to a dark world that steals children for energy. New friends come to Joshua’s aid and while battling beasts and bandits and fending off the Child Collector, Joshua’s mission quickly becomes more than a search for his friend—it becomes the battle of his life.
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PRAISE FOR JOSHUA AND THE LIGHTNING ROAD:
“Vividly imagined characters in a gripping action fantasy that never lets you go until the very last page.” —Jenny Nimmo, New York Times bestselling author of the Charlie Bone series
**$0.99 DEAL!**
Joshua and the Lightning Road is available now through October 15th for just $0.99cents on e-book from these book sellers: Amazon / B&N / Kobo / iBooks
. ABOUT JOSHUA AND THE ARROW REALM:
Joshua never thought he’d be called back to the world of Nostos so soon. But when his friend King Apollo needs his help in the Arrow Realm, Joshua braves this dark world once more in order to save him. With Joshua’s loyalties divided between Nostos and Earth, he must rely on his courage and powers to restore magic to this desperate world and to free its people. Abandoned by his friends in his quest, unarmed, and facing great odds, can he survive on instincts alone and not only save those imprisoned—but himself?
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PRAISE FOR JOSHUA AND THE ARROW REALM:
“Fast-paced and endlessly inventive, this is a high-stakes romp through a wild world where descendants of the Greek gods walk beside you, beasts abound, and not everything—or everyone—is as it seems.” –Michael Northrop, New York Times bestselling author of the TombQuest series
Joshua and the Arrow Realm is available through these book sellers: Amazon / B&N / Kobo / iBooks
. ABOUT DONNA:
Donna Galanti is the author of the bestselling paranormal suspense Element Trilogy and the children’s fantasy adventure Joshua and The Lightning Road series. Donna is a contributing editor for International Thriller Writers the Big Thrill magazine, a writing contest judge at nycmidnight.com, and regularly presents as a guest author at schools and teaches at writing conferences. She’s lived from England as a child, to Hawaii as a U.S. Navy photographer. Donna also loves teaching writers about building author brand and platform through her free training series at yourawesomeauthorlife.com. Visit her at donnagalanti.com.
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(Dark Coven #1)
Publication date: October 2nd 2018
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult
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Synopsis
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Seventeen-year-old Harper Duncan never fit in anywhere her family moved…and they moved a lot. But after her parents and brother die in a tragic accident, she finds out she’s adopted, and her birth mother lives in a remote retreat called Raven Dock. Harper ventures north and discovers a dark family secret: her birth mother is a witch. And she’s one too. As Harper Learns about her own hidden powers, will she choose to embrace her chilling heritage, or return to the safety of the ordinary world?
Sara Caldwell teaches screenwriting and digital media courses at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita and the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandizing (FIDIM) in Los Angeles. She has won many awards for her writing, including Best Original Screenplay at the Burbank International Film Festival. Sara has always been drawn to the supernatural and has produced a number of award-winning short horror films through House of Gorey Productions, along with her husband Walter Gorey. She is also a member of the Writers Guild of America (WGA).
Like Harper in Raven Dock, Sara spent her childhood as a tumbleweed, moving around the United States and even to Guatemala, Spain and England. She’s run three marathons, authored three nonfiction books, and has three cats that enjoy perching on her shoulder while she writes at her kitchen table. It goes without saying that three is her lucky number. She’s also working on the remaining novels for the Dark Coven series, the next of which is titled Darkest Hour.
