Gerilyn Marin

First, I'd like to take a moment to say Happy Halloween, Blessed Samhain, to my friends that have the freedom to celebrate today. For those unaware, I live in NYC, and while we have electricity back in my neighborhood and my family and I are alright, it's still one hell of a mess here, lots of property destroyed, and even more terribly, some lives have been lost. My heart goes out to those that are not faring well in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. However, I have had a standing obligation with one very lovely and talented author from the Curiosity Quills Press clubhouse, Jessa Russo. Therefore, I threw my husband off the computer and here we are. Now, unfortunately, Jessa and I live on opposite coasts and thus, nailing down a time to do a real-time chat wasn't going to be easy, so we had to make do with emailing Q & A back and forth. But I still like the answers the wonderful Ms. Russo provided :)    (Here she is, very sunny, right? ;D) 1. What does a typical...

Hey guys and dolls, how's it going? Don't look so startled - I don't bite. My name's Frankie. And I'm just a regular guy. Well, except for the whole ghost thing, I guess. You’re probably wondering what I'm doing here. Well, it’s pretty simple actually. Something is coming for my best friend Ever - something I alone cannot protect her from. Regardless of how much I love her how hard I try. So I have to spread the word. And I need your help to do it. I've been a bystander for far too long, trapped in this ghostly shell for the past two years. I've decided it’s time to make myself known and set some things into motion. See, I've hijacked Amazon, Curiosity Quills Press, and blogs all over the internet to make my move. You're probably wondering why, right? Well allow me to be a bit more specific. Something isn't just coming for Ever; her actual soul is in danger. So I've decided to stay silent no longer. Word needs t...

In honor of the recent release of her book Fade (The Ragnarok Prophecies: Book One), the delightful A.K. Morgen has given me a story to share of a brush with the unexplained from her own life (a brief author bio follows). Ayden's story: Strange Happenings and Ghostly Rumors When I was a teenager, my mother, sister, and I moved into an apartment complex in a small town in the heart of Arkansas. The complex was situated a few miles from the legendary White River Monster in one direction, and a creepy old cemetery, called Red-Eye by the locals, in the other. Bones in the cemetery constantly washed to the surface, the sad victims of rain eroding the sides of the hill they'd been buried on long ago. The apartment complex was only a few years old, and our neighbors loved to tell us that it'd been built over an old burial ground. Naturally, they said the ghosts of those poor souls were not amused by the violation, and things were forever going bump in the night. Not ...

Today is the release of Curiosity Quills author A.K. Morgen's book Fade (The Ragnarok Prophecies: Book One ).  In honor of this, I will also be hosting a guest spot here for Ms. Morgen on Monday (Sept. 10th) in which she will be sharing a brush with the unexplained from her real life (a la Ghost Story Thursday, but her Thursday was already booked XD). Here is the phenomenal cover: What do you do when you realize that nothing in your life is what you’ve always believed it to be? The death of Arionna Jacobs’ mother has devastated her, and Dace Matthews is torn in two, unable to communicate with the feral animal caged in his mind. When they meet, Dace tumbles into Arionna’s mind as if he belongs there, and everything they thought they knew about themselves and the world around them begins to fall apart. Neither of them understands what is happening to them or why and they’re running out of time to figure it out. An ancient Norse prophesy of destruction has been s...

[For those new to 'ghost story thursday' on Ger's blog, there are only 2 rules if you wish to tell a story of your own, 1- It must be your story, or that of a valid source (ex: your best friend, but not your "friend's neighbor's cousin's ex-fiance was once told that his college roommate . . .") who has granted permission for their story to be shared. 2- It must be truthful. Your tale can be shared either by posting it in a comment on Thursday's blog post, or you can email it to me and I'll tell your story on the following Thursday (GerilynMarin@gmail.com). You are welcome to ask to remain anonymous, and at no time will I ever claim that another person's experience is my own.] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This one is relatively short, I think. The Music Box During the summer when I was 21, there was a black out.  I was in the basement with 2 friends of mine, as it was the only r...

A few months ago, I was lucky enough to be tripped over by Curiosity Quills Press.  Since coming on board, I've been introduced to many wonderful & amazing people- one of these people is the talented and imaginative Krystal Wade.  While, admittedly, I'm still reading the first installment of her Darkness Falls series, Wilde's Fire , that's a nod to the fact that I'm a terrible & inconsistent reader, not a bearing on her abilities as a weaver of tales in the least. When she announced that she'd completed the manuscript of Book 3, Wilde's Meadow, and was looking for people to help her with a grand cover reveal, I was more than happy and eager to volunteer my help. Here's to you, Krystal, and another wonderful trip into Katriona Wilde's world.  WILDE'S MEADOW by Krystal Wade  releases November 5th from Curiosity  Quills Press!  Happy endings are hard to find, and even though Katriona is in the middle of a war with s...

I want to preface this with 2 points. (1) I am not trying to hate on E.L. James- she had an idea, she went with it and it worked . . . quite likely much better than she'd ever thought it would, good on her. (2) I don't say things to pick fights, set people off, or otherwise 'troll'. I simply say what's on my mind- everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this is mine.  I will not begrudge a fan their love of the 50 Shades trilogy, in return, I expect not to have fans begrudge me my dislike of it.  Simply put, if you don't like what I have to say, then don't read it. The best way to do this is to simply graft in here blurbs from an email exchange I've got going on with a writer friend, in which I laid out a lot of what it was that bothered me in my attempt to read 50 Shades of Grey. Now let me just say- some of this comes across as angry, it's 'cause I was venting mid-reading-attempt.  I couldn't make it past about chapter 7.  If you'...

[For those new to 'ghost story thursday' on Ger's blog, there are only 2 rules if you wish to tell a story of your own, 1- It must be your story, or that of a valid source (ex: your best friend, but not your "friend's neighbor's cousin's ex-fiance was once told that his college roommate . . .") who has granted permission for their story to be shared. 2- It must be truthful. Your tale can be shared either by posting it in a comment on Thursday's blog post, or you can email it to me and I'll tell your story on the following Thursday (GerilynMarin@gmail.com). You are welcome to ask to remain anonymous, and at no time will I ever claim that another person's experience is my own.] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Smoke Halloween, 1993. I remember the date very specifically 'cause when I got home that night, I'd heard on the radio (back when you could still tune into Z100 for dece...

Wow, I've been slacking off on keeping my blog going. Totally unintentional. I woke this weekend with a cold out of nowhere, and, having no prior experience with summer colds, had no clue how hard it was going to hit nor how hard it would be to shake. It's been kinda difficult keeping to a schedule with the kids all home (c'mon, September, where are you? >_<) , but this has my head feeling more muddled than usual- and just when many thought that wasn't possible! It's one of those really nagging colds- the kind where you have to hold the sides of your head when you cough. But, I am still chipping away at the edits for The Summoned, Part I (I'm finally up to the chapters revolving around Bri's first trip to the realm of The Court ), I am finally back to working on the 10th chapter of Buried, which is in its 3rd week in serial run on the Curiosity Quills Press website and seems to be fairly well received. OH, and one of my followers on twitter (not that...

I'm going to get this out of the way now. The things I say when I 'flip out' are not intended to piss off others, stir up reaction or pick fights. For this reason, my 'complaints' may seem a little rambling, because I don't merely rant and vent, I tend to preface things by explaining where I'm coming from on the issue. And, on occasion, a single sentence is too simple for defining my feelings about something. Now, to the topic at hand #1: Twilight . This may come as a shock to those that have read me ranting on FB about this, but I don't hate Twilight .  Now, I'm not a fan of it, either.  I don't like it, that's all there is to it.  I read it, and not with the fixed notion in my head of "Gods, I'm going to hate this."  Quite the opposite; I cracked open the book with the belief that I was probably going to end up loving it in spite of myself. I simply hadn't enjoyed it. So, again, I do not hate Twilight , I do not hate S...

I have realized that in the schedule I made for this silly-ass blog, I never once considered setting a day to just bitch about things that bother me. And if blogs are famous for anything, it's the blogger complaining at a world that may, or may not, be listening, about whatever it is that's bugging them, now aren't they?  I mean, I had set a day for what my week was going to look like, a day for recounting brushes with the paranormal, days for reviewing movies & books, and even a day for catching readers up on what I'm brainstorming on with fellow authors. But no thought was given to the notion that I, too, might want to use this venue to get off my chest things that are bothering me. I have decided that Wednesday will be for reviewing books AND movies, I'll just alternate.  And Friday will by my 'flip out' day.

Prefacing this by saying: YAY!! Buried , chapter one went live on Tuesday :) And . . . I totally didn't mean to miss these last 2 days of updating this darned thing after I'd posted twice on Monday. [For those new to 'ghost story thursday' on Ger's blog, there are only 2 rules if you wish to tell a story of your own, 1- It must be your story, or that of a valid source (ex: your best friend, but not your "friend's neighbor's cousin's ex-fiance was once told that his college roommate . . .") who has granted permission for their story to be shared. 2- It must be truthful. Your tale can be shared either by posting it in a comment on Thursday's blog post, or you can email it to me and I'll tell your story on the following Thursday (GerilynMarin@gmail.com). You are welcome to ask to remain anonymous, and at no time will I ever claim that another person's experience is my own.] This one occurred when I was 18 going on 19. Touch A...

LOOK I've been Twitter-tagged by Lisa in a meme called "Look". If you, too, are tagged, do a search for the word "look" in your work in progress. Copy that paragraph, along with surrounding paragraphs, to your blog, to keep the game afloat. Don't forget to tag others. This excerpt is from The Wandering Place, Part I and is one of several upcoming stories in my Tales of the Phantom Court series (which begins with the story told in The Summoned ). She remembered pools of slick, inky blackness drawing in around her, pulling themselves up to make near-human forms, and then everything went blank. Was that it? Was she with them? How could there be peace there, then? Cautiously opening one eye, she saw black, only it wasn’t the black she now, dully remembered from her suffocating prison. It was glittering and smooth under the light of the sun, like strands of satin. Like black pearls . The thought struck her oddly- she recalled seeing hair th...

Okay!  So after taking a totally unintentional 2 week break from updating the blog, I'm back.  And it was at the prompting of fellow Curiosity Quills Press author, Lisa Moran Collicut, that I'm on here once more and today there will is a second, much more fun post which includes a story excerpt. Schedule for this week is Tomorrow AUGUST 7TH, the 'big day', when my YA paranormal serial Buried begins its run on my publisher's site.  Writing-wise, I am working on chapter 10 of Buried, chapter 8 of The Summoned, Part II and getting back to edit-work on The Summoned, Part I .

[For those new to 'ghost story thursday' on Ger's blog, there are only 2 rules if you wish to tell a story of your own, 1- It must be your story, or that of a valid source (ex: your best friend, but not your "friend's neighbor's cousin's ex-fiance was once told that his college roommate . . .") who has granted permission for their story to be shared. 2- It must be truthful . Your tale can be shared either by posting it in a comment on Thursday's blog post, or you can email it to me and I'll tell your story on the following Thursday ( GerilynMarin@gmail.com ). You are welcome to ask to remain anonymous, and at no time will I ever claim that another person's experience is my own.] This story was emailed to me by my friend, sound-boarder, test-reader and fellow author, Ariel Flynn last week, and given the creepy-factor of last week's tale, I thought the sweet, light nature of Ariel's experience would make for a wonderful ba...

The Woman in Black , released Feb. 3, 2012 by Cross Creek Pictures, Hammer Film Productions & Alliance Films. Personal Rating : 4 out of 5*'s. My opinion on this and films like it is skewed when compared with other people because I look for different things in my films than your usual American 'horror lover'. Synopsis: Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) is a young lawyer who is depressed by the loss of his beautiful wife after giving birth to a son. His son, now grown to a toddler, draws pictures of him with a sad face. He is assigned to prepare a large house for sale on a marsh and travels to an obscure village where he is shunned by most of the townspeople. He visits the Eel Marsh House, the estate of the late Alice Drabow, to look it over, but finds his job has grown more perilous as it is haunted by the ghost of a woman scorned. He learns from the villagers that the ghost of the woman in black seeks revenge against their children because her child was take...

So yesterday was kind of a bust, had a bunch of household crap to tend to, and really no one to help, so it shot the whole day to hell. I think I got one paragraph written. There was no brainstorming today, either, as the person I normally brainstorm with has recently suffered a loss, so I'm not going to pester her until she tells me she's pester-ready again. Today, I got to finish chapter 8 on Buried , hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to not only start chapter 9, but get some more editing work done on The Summoned, Part II . For movie review tomorrow, I've got The Woman in Black . I have started reading fellow Curiosity Quills Press author (the very sweet and talented) Krystal Wade's book, Wilde's Fire (Darkness Falls, Book One). Thursday I will be sharing a ghost story that was sent to me via email. Friday's book review will be Haunted on Bourbon Street (A Jade Calhoun Novel, Book One)by Deanna Chase. Sigh. I don't know how my life can be so du...

Direct from the blog of the lovely and wonderful Sharon Bayliss: Nervous about Friday the 13th? Want to make sure your luck stays good? I have a solution. Enter the One Ghost Per Serving Good Luck Giveaway. The more entries you have, the more good luck you are guaranteed. The luckiest THIRTEEN entrants will win a free digital copy of One Ghost Per Serving by Nina Post . Possessed by Rex, a mischievous spirit, Eric Snackerge’s life has careened out of control. Losing his scholarship and getting blacklisted from the legal profession are just the start – now his best-friend-turned-enemy is in danger of stealing away his family, too. An unusual contest may be his last chance to make his daughter’s dreams come true. But he’ll have to overcome his own self-doubt — not to mention the seemingly impossible odds — in order to achieve that goal. As Eric and his ghostly companion soon learn, this isn’t your run-of-the-mill sweepstakes. When the sponsors begin dispatch...

[For those new to 'ghost story thursday' on Ger's blog, there are only 2 rules if you wish to tell a story of your own, 1- It must be your story, or that of a valid source (ex: your best friend, but not your "friend's neighbor's cousin's ex-fiance was once told that his college roommate . . .") who has granted permission for their story to be shared. 2- It must be truthful . Your tale can be shared either by posting it in a comment on Thursday's blog post, or you can email it to me and I'll tell your story on the following Thursday ( GerilynMarin@gmail.com ). You are welcome to ask to remain anonymous, and at no time will I ever claim that another person's experience is my own.] The Thing in the Corner This occurred when I was about 18 years old. I won't go into heavy backstory on the thing that was witnessed, but it should be known that this was not my first time seeing 'it', so perhaps that I did not put much thought i...