George R. Appelt Jr.'s Blog

While preparing for the release of my new novel, Life Bites: A Jay Watson Mystery, I got to thinking about why we love vampires. They are, after all, one of the coolest monsters in our literature and movies. And no matter how many vampire stories we have read or viewed, it’s like eating potato chips--we always have room for one more.

1. Hang out in Cool Lairs
First of all, vampires live their undead lives in some of the coolest real estate. The lost boys hung out in a sunken hotel. Barnabas Collins dwelt in a stately gothic mansion.  And Count Dracula had a castle. No other monsters had such distinctive dwellings, well maybe the Munsters. I always loved their old mansion, but then again grandpa Munster was a vampire.

2. Seductive
Vampires are portrayed as romantic creatures. From Edward Cullen to Barnabas Collins, to the vampire Lestat, to Dracula himself, vampires are cast as sexual beings. I must admit I never got this. Even Salma Hayek in Dusk Till Dawn and Kate Beckinsale in Underworld didn’t make me want to get all nasty with a dead thing. It’s kinda gross if you really think about it. But I must admit Salma and Kate did present compelling images. Let’s face it, they feed by giving the ultimate hickey.

3. Hypnotic Power
Maybe reason number 2 in our list is highly influenced by the fact that these creatures of the night can hypnotize there partners into feeling amorous. Chris Sarandon’s Jerry Dandridge in the original Fright Night displayed his powers of persuasion on Amy Peterson in one of the most awesome vampire dance scenes. 

4. Suave
Again Chris Sarandon’s Jerry Dandridge  was smooth with the ladies. As well as the many incarnations of Dracula. And the vampire Lestat became a rock star, how cool is that?

5. They Are Rich
Because vampires live a long time and have few expenses, they tend to amass large fortunes. It also doesn’t hurt that Dracula was a count. Of all the dark denizens, vampires tend to be the royalty.

6. Stylish Dressers
Unlike their lower-class undead friends, zombies, vampires tend to dress in upscale outfits. Because they have wealth, they can afford tailors. Even hanging around the castle Dracula wore a tux and cape.

7. Super Strength
Like superman, we usually think of vampires wearing capes, at least Dracula did. Also like superman, vampires are unnaturally strong. In Blade’s case, he is a type of super hero vampire. Let’s face it--super strength rocks.

8. Ultimate Bad Boys
Vampires live outside the law. They take what they want and don’t follow even the laws of nature. Lost Boys were cool biker types, and the vampires in Dusk Till Dawn hung out in a strip club. And let’s not even get started on Eric and Bill in the Sookie Stackhouse series.

9. Like the Night Life
Most vampires only come out at night. I know Dracula could move around during the day, but his powers were limited. Monsters that prowl the night have that added scariness of coming after you out of the darkness when you are out of your element and they are in theirs.

10. Immortal
The fact that vampires have survived death and continue to function even after they died is their number one selling point. By living out an immortal existence they can experience countless ages. While some vampires see this as a curse, we the fans love that vampires are ageless and timeless.

Anyone who has read my previous blogs or my first novel, Shepherd’s Fall, knows I love a spooky story. So, when a novel starts at night on the Gettysburg battlefield, I’m hooked. Especially when the hero hears marching feet, and pounding hooves, and his guest vanishes, you know I’m in for the ride.

Don Helin’s Devil’s Den starts on this eerie note, and then takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride of suspense and mystery.

Colonel Zack Kelly is a well drawn hero who suffers from post traumatic stress disorder from his three tours in Afghanistan. Despite Zack’s issues, he rises to the challenge of discovering what happened to Blake Lannigan that night in Gettysburg. His investigation takes him on a whirlwind journey to Washington, Ireland, and back to Washington to unravel the mystery.

Don Helin creates a suspense novel that draws on his own knowledge of Washington and the Gettysburg location to immerse the reader in Zack Kelly’s world.

I enjoyed Devil’s Den and look forward to more of Zack Kelly’s adventures.

It is always exciting when a fellow author has a new book published, so I’m pleased to take part in a Cover reveal for Betting It All by Cate Masters.

Betting it all is a 29k word Historical romance novella. Coming soon from Decadent Publishing http://www.decadentpublishing.com.

Can the daughter of a well-known prostitute start a new life where no one knows her family history? Norah Hawkins is sure going to try. When a letter arrives deeding her property in San Francisco, she packs her bags.

Irishman Gerard MacKenzie likes his life free and easy, but is tired of the snobbish East Coast folk. San Francisco has enough vice and folly to suit his needs. Meeting Norah gives him the opportunity to bartend in her saloon. Maybe he can convince her to let him play the piano, too. She’s a shrewd businesswoman, and negotiating with her makes his blood boil. Damn if she doesn’t make his blood boil in other ways.

The morning of April 18, 1906, a terrible earthquake buries their dreams beneath the city’s ruins. Can Norah and Mac rebuild their lives? Will rebuilding their dreams bond them forever, or tear them apart?
About Cate:
Cate Masters has made beautiful central Pennsylvania her home, but she’ll always be a Jersey girl at heart. When not spending time with her dear hubby, she can be found in her lair, concocting a magical brew of contemporary, historical, and fantasy/paranormal stories with her cat Chairman Maiow and dog Lily as company. Look for her at http://catemasters.blogspot.com and in strange nooks and far-flung corners of the web.
Cate loves to hear from readers! Email her at: cate.masters@gmail.com

To learn more about Cate’s other excellent books and to receive extras exclusive to subscribers, sign up for Cate's newsletter through her blog at http://catemasters.blogspot.com

Yesterday Dec 8th was ‘Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day’ is.gd/HnYsej . I discovered this just a little too late to participate. Maybe I can pretend I came here from yesterday.

Of course donning outlandish costumes is not really my thing. If I were to celebrate this holiday, I like the suggestion of dressing like you came from the terminator world. This calls for wearing lots of torn black clothes, beat-up armor and cool sunglasses.

I guess I will have to mark the calendar for next year.

What type of time traveler would you pretend to be?

Book signings are always fun, and next Saturday November 10th I’m making my longest trek to date to promote Shepherd’s Fall . I will join Larry Kerr author of By the Light of the Moon at Eljay’s Books in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at 2pm.






So join us if you are in the area.
Larry was born and grew up in western Pennsylvania. He graduated from Lock Haven University and attended graduate school at Penn State. He worked various jobs before beginning his newspaper career.
Larry was a reporter/photographer at two small newspapers in western Pennsylvania prior to taking a position as a copy editor at a newspaper in south central Pennsylvania. He held that job for nearly ten years until moving into web programming. He now works for an agency that serves the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Always interested in fiction, Larry began writing in earnest in 2004. His first novel, By the Light of the Moon, was published in March 2011. His second novel, which is historical fiction and set in the Civil War, came out in September 2012.
In addition to his first novel, several of Larry’s short stories have been published and he won honorable mentions in two local short story contests.

I live in my head.

It’s a scary thought, probably more terrifying than most of the tales I write, but it is an undeniable truth. As a fiction writer and a programmer, I spend a great portion of my time wrapped up in thought. I wonder how much of my real life, I miss because my mind is somewhere else. My wife Diane sometimes notices and says, “You have that look again, you're off writing in your head.”  She knows me so well.

When I look back over my life, which I don’t spend a lot of time doing for the most part, there are all kinds of milestones: graduations, weddings, funerals, and all the day-to-day moments. But there is another long list of memories that never really occurred: the night Will Shepherd discovered the tombstones on the hill above his house, or the day Jay Watson found the headless corpse moments before the police arrived, or Bruce Kane’s battle with the black onyx gargoyle.

I say it is scary, because these are the memories I write down, the stories I create, and if I’m at all lucky, the memories I will leave behind. What is disturbing is that sometimes these tales seem more real than the actual moments in my life that inspire them. Now don’t get me wrong, I haven’t had a mental break with reality, at least no more than most writers, but memory is a fickle thing.

I’m working on a new novel, and part of it takes place in a college much like my alma mater. I’m a little unnerved because the fiction I’m writing seems to be replacing the actual history. Sometimes later when I go back and read the manuscript, I have to think for a moment if that scene is actually the real moments or the fictionalized version.

Of course, all the supernatural elements, the murders and mayhem are fiction, but it is the settings and some of the small details of daily life that seemed to shift back and forth. The names of places etc.
Well at least most of the supernatural stuff is fiction.

It's a week later and I’m still feeling the afterglow of last weekend at Horrorfind. I’ve always loved scary movies, monster makeup, costumes and Halloween. That probably has a lot to do with
why I write paranormal suspense. Horrorfind embodies all things scary, and 2012 was no exception.

My table at 2012 Horrorfind  I have attended this convention in the past, but never from behind a vendor table. So this year selling and signing Shepherd’s Fall, gave me a whole new appreciation for all the effort that goes
into the event.

 There were so many booths and displays of cool horror and Halloween memorabilia, and lots of celebrities from some of my favorite horror movies. Where else would I get a chance to have a
conversation with actor Ray Wise, who stopped by my booth and said hello?

 It was a nonstop weekend, and I met so many nice people. The crew from the movie HOGMAUL were a lot of fun, and I look forward to their upcoming film.

 Of course I met a lot of other authors over the course of the weekend who were also selling and signing their work. It is always fun meeting folks who share the passion for telling stories.

 Caroline Cooper and Me in front of our tables at Horrorfind  It is almost certain I will forget someone, so I won’t try to name them all, but I have to give a special shout-out to Caroline Cooper and Sean Adkins who were also first time authors at
Horrorfind and I look forward to reading their work. Caroline wrote The Sun Village Project, and Sean penned Wolfen Bloodlines.

 For me the highlight of the weekend occurred when the producer of Paranormal Xpeditions invited Diane and me along to the filming of one of their upcoming episodes at haunted Ghosts of Gettysburg Walking Tours® Headquarters-where disembodied voices have been recorded and a child has been spotted…a century after his death.

Me, Tina Storer and Diane at our booth at Horrofind

 If you read my blog then you know I write about other people’s ghost stories, well after last weekend, I guess I will be able to write my own account of some paranormal activity, watch for that
in future posts.

 Diane and I had a lot of fun filming the program with the group of guests from the convention at Mark Nesbitt’s headquarters for his Ghosts of Gettysburg Walking Tours® Headquarters. Mark gave us a guided tour of his building where lots of paranormal activity has occurred in the past.

Tina Storer interviewing me about Shepherd's Fall for
an upcomming episode of Paranormal Xpeditions.
Rachel Hoffman, and Tina Storer did an outstanding job as hosts leading us through the investigation. Even though I’m kinda a chicken when it comes to things that go bump in the night it was a cool experience, and some strange stuff occurred that I couldn’t explain away.  I look forward to seeing the upcoming episode and will let you know when and where it airs.






 I have to say that while Horrorfind may be the spookiest show on earth, it was also a friendly, fun weekend. If you like Halloween, horror or suspense literature, and scary movies than I
recommend you check out future Horrorfind conventions and definately take one of the Ghosts of Gettysburg Walking Tours®.

As I get ready to leave for Gettysburg for the 2012 Horrorfind Convention, I’m reminded of this ghost story. I have to admit out of all the stories I’ve been told since I started writing paranormal suspense novels, this is one of the strangest.
Even before I start to relate the tale, I have to disclose that Brad is a total skeptic, he does not believe in anything supernatural or paranormal, and this is his story. He tries to explain this event as a mass hallucination. I even find that hard to believe, but that’s just me.
When Brad was a young boy, as opposed to the young man he has become, he visited the Gettysburg battle field with his Boy Scout troop. Of course this included a stop at Devil’s Den. Now that area of the battle field has its fair share of ghost sightings, but he didn’t see anything unusual at the rocks.
The troop enjoyed their time exploring the large rocks and then started to follow a trail that led up to Little Round Top. Brad explained that when he was a boy more trees had grown up in this area and were later removed to make the battlefield more authentic to the period of the actual battle. I seem to remember hearing this myself. At the time his troop followed this path, it went through some thick trees and came out in a clearing that was bordered on both sides with split rail fences.
When the troop stepped into the clearing, Brad said it felt like time had slowed down, and a golden retriever ran out across the clearing. The dog seemed to move in slow motion. What must have only been a few minutes felt like it spanned into hours as the dog bolted across the clearing and entered the forest on the other side. When the dog dove into the brush time snapped back into place. All the boys and even their adult leaders had experienced that same slow motion feeling watching the dog.
The path did not continue past the clearing so they returned to the road and followed another trail up to Little Round Top.
A few weeks later Brad returned to the battle field with his parents and wanted to show them where he had seen the dog, but they could not find the path that lead back to the clearing.
Although Brad did some research and discovered Golden Retrievers were used to carry messages during the Civil War he still dismisses the event as a mass hallucination.
After hearing this story, I did a little due diligence and did in fact find references in the form of a quote from http://www.esdaw.eu/dogwork.htm  ESDAW European Society of Dog and Animal Welfare, “[t]he American Pit Bull Terrier was used in the American Civil War to protect, [and] send messages”.
So it does appear that dogs were used in the battle fields.
I’m not sure what to think about all these ghost animal stories I’ve been hearing, but maybe I will take a dog biscuit with to Gettysburg this weekend, just in case.

Okay so the title is a little dramatic, with just a touch of melodrama. But this is another true life ghost story I have gathered here for your consideration. I have no way of verifying these stories, and honestly I don’t really want to have a firsthand experience with the dark and scary, but I love to hear about the tales. And honestly they don’t keep me up at night, still I’m not ready to go out and become a paranormal investigator.

I had the pleasant experience of meeting Deb and her husband at my book signing for Shepherd’s Fall at Comics and Paperback Plus in Palmyra last Saturday. Deb wanted a signed copy of my book and then explained to me that her and her husband lived in a haunted house.

At first I wasn’t sure if she was kidding me, but her husband stood there nodding his head and explaining that although he could not see them like his wife, their house was in fact haunted. He went on to tell me that light bulbs burned out on a regular basis in several rooms. Sometimes only lasting a few weeks.

I guess I’m the eternal skeptic, because at that point I’m considering bad wiring. But then he also said that several of their children and friends of the family had experienced and seen the spirits as well.
One of the most disturbing tales involved the sewing room. Deb said that when she first set up the room, she couldn’t spend very long in the space. She felt like a current ran through her body and her stomach grew upset. She also had the sensation of being watched.

Later when she had a carpenter in to replace the windows, his assistant said he didn’t feel good when he was working in that room The carpenter finished the windows, but afterward told Deb that he felt like he wasn’t alone; there was someone in there who didn’t want him there.
Deb’s children also would not go in that room when they were little. They told her that a bad man was in there and they didn’t like to play in there.

For a long time Deb was uncomfortable with that spirit, until she learned from watching Sylvia Browne that she could tell the life-challenged spirits it was her house and if they wouldn’t live in harmony with the living they had to leave. She said after saying that to the dark, shadowy spirit in the sewing room, she no longer got the sick feeling in there.

Apparently Deb’s house is home to many spirits. One night while she was washing dishes she saw the reflection in the dark window above the sink of a man in a white hooded robe with gold trim walking across the kitchen behind her. When she turned to look, he had vanished.
She said by the time this had happened she was no longer afraid of the spirits.

She has also seen the ghost of a red cat fighting and playing with her other two living cats. Animal ghosts are something I had never really heard about until recently, but apparently it is not that uncommon. I wonder if you kill a mouse in a trap if you get a ghost mouse running around your house?

Deb is very sensitive to these things, but other visitors including one of her daughter’s friends have seen and heard the spirits, too. One girl who was friends with her daughter tried sleeping in Deb’s son’s room when she spent the night, because he was off in college. She was in his bed ready to fall asleep when a woman stood at the foot of the bed and told her to get out because she wasn’t Brad. Deb found the girl sleeping on the couch in the living room the next morning.
She would have found me sleeping in my car, but whatever.

Apparently Deb and her husband have found peace living with the multiple spirits in their home. They have lived there for a long time, over twenty years. And it looks like the spirits who inhabit their house have no intention of hurting them or leaving. Deb has grown used to them so she has no plans to send them away. I guess they buy their light bulbs in bulk.

Life is racing along like a bullet train on crack. Okay, technically I don’t think drugs affect mechanical devices, but you get the idea.
I have been busy. Two weeks ago I had my launch party for Shepherd’s Fall. Thank you to everyone who attended, I am so grateful for your support. Last weekend I participated in an author panel with Cate Masters, Larry Kerr, Jennifer Harlow, Regge Episale, and Dennis Royer at Supernatural Saturday sponsored by the Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop and had a blast.
To top it off, I am working on the final draft of my first book in a new mystery series. More on that later. So, yeah I’m having more fun than circus clown on… well you know what I mean.