Ghosts of Yuletide Past by Jane Kindred

It’s that time of year again. I’m watching my Christmas ghost stories: A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life. I have several copies of ACC (my goal is to own every version ever made), and I watch all of them every year, from the 1951 Scrooge with Alastair Sim (hands-down, the best traditional version) to A Muppet Christmas Carol (which is honestly the best version, period) to Bill Murray’s quintessentially 1980s Scrooged to the I'm-not-crying-you're-crying Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol. I wish there were more of them. And I wish there were more winter holiday ghost stories in general.

I understand it’s a British tradition—Brits, feel free to weigh in on this—to enjoy ghost stories around this time of year (particularly on Christmas Eve), of which Dickens Carol is the most famous example. In thinking about why ghost stories might be particularly associated with this time of year, as opposed to at Halloween, as is the custom in the US, I happened upon my own blog post from December 2017, talking about the research for The Dragon’s Hunt, Book 3 in my Sisters in Sin series, which has to do with The Wild Hunt.

Leo Ström, the hero in that book, was Swedish (a thousand-year-old Swedish Viking, to be exact), so his Wild Hunt tradition came from the Norse legends. Odin’s Hunt rides at the time of year when the veil between the living and the dead is considered to be at its thinnest, from Álfablót (the Norse equivalent of the Day of the Dead around Halloween time) through Yuletide, a twelve-day festival starting with the Winter Solstice—from whence came The Twelve Days of Christmas. But there are other Wild Hunt traditions, such as the Welsh tradition, over which my half-Welsh hero, Oliver, in Kindling the Darkness bonded with Leo.

To follow that meandering tangent back to where I started, it occurred to me that maybe the pagan response to the darkest quarter of the year—that feeling of being in the presence of the dead during the thinning of the veil—was one of the inspirations for the tradition of Christmas ghost stories. Christmas, after all, is really just appropriated Yuletide. Sorry, Christians, but it is; Jesus was born in June. But it’s okay. We pagans understand why you like our stuff. ;) As much as the holiday has been sugarcoated, it’s still about whistling past the graveyard and hanging little twinkling lights to ward off the darkness and offer up sacrifices to ensure the return of the sun.

Whatever the reason, I wish ghost-stories-at-Yuletide was a bigger thing in the US—and that paranormal romance had more Christmas ghosts. Maybe it’s time to write my own holiday haunt.

By the way, if you’re looking for a Christmas-themed paranormal romance, The Dragon’s Hunt is set at Christmastime in Sedona, Arizona (and it’s lovely there). The Carlisle sisters are all big fans of the Yuletide holiday, whatever anyone wants to call it, and there are trees and lights and wassail. Psst, Hallmark, maybe you’d like a nice paranormal Christmas movie for your lovely channel? My agent is Sara Megibow at KT Literary. ;)

For more holiday-themed paranormal romance, see Abigail Owen's post about the Christmas After Dark anthology, featuring her story "The Wolf I Want for Christmas."

* I typo-ed this as The Dragon’s Hung at first, and now I have an idea for a Leo Ström erotic short. Ha.

Nazi-Punching New Release for the Holidays (and a Devilish Cover Reveal!) by Jane Kindred

My slightly dumb but gorgeous Viking dragon shifter, Leo, is on the loose! Leo is hot AF and does not like Nazis. That is all you need to know.

But I’ll tell you more anyway, because I’m awesome like that. When I wrote Leo, I had two versions of Chris Hemsworth in mind: Hemsworth as Thor and Hemsworth as Kevin in the 2016 Ghostbusters remake. And because Leo himself has more than two versions, this makes sense. (Boy, am I on a cryptic roll tonight.) Both are totally adorable. He also has multiple Norse tattoos, which, as Leo and I discovered together, can give people the wrong idea, because certain deplorables have coopted the Norse gods for their own purposes over the years. Leo is not down with that.

Rhea, the heroine, is also adorable, tattooed (and a tattoo artist), with Riot Grrl (is that still a thing?) “mermaid” hair, and, as my editor commented, she is salty AF. (I added the AF, but I know that’s what she meant.) Particularly to Leo. But he kind of has it coming.

And all of this is just in time for the holidays, as the Wild Hunt, which Leo leads, rides from the Day of the Dead (or rather the Norse equivalent, Álfablót, a sacrifice to the elves) through Yuletide. Leo just happens to lead his Hunt through the Arizona desert among the snow-capped red rocks of Sedona, inspired by Johnny Cash’s Ghostriders in the Sky.

So, to recap, Leo looks like Thor, can be not-so-bright on occasion like Kevin, leads Odin’s Wild Hunt, has more than one personality, can shift into a Norse dragon, punches Nazis, and wears a cowboy hat and boots with a brown leather duster while riding through Sedona’s snowy nights. And Rhea has the blood of Lilith in her veins (oh, did I not mention that?), can read people’s fates in their tattoos, looks like a Riot Grrl (cuz I'm old), and is salty.

Oh, and for readers who like “Easter eggs” in their books (of a sort):

Dressler means Turner in German.

And that reference is timely right now, but that’s all I have to say about that, or I’ll just have a rage fit.

Never mind me; it’s been that kind of a year.

The Dragon’s Hunt, Book 3 in the Sisters in Sin series from Harlequin Nocturne, is available now from the following retailers:

Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble
BookDepository.com
BAM
Booktopia
iBooks
Kobo

Note that this series should be read in order! You can find the series order and buy links on my website.

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As a special bonus, I’ve just received the cover for Book 4 in the series, Seducing the Dark Prince:

Hell Might Be Heavenly...for One of the Sisters in Sin

Lucien Smok is heir to the Smok fortune. He's also the crown prince of Hell, a legacy he despises. Clairvoyant Theia Dawn tries to convince herself that she's only interested in Lucien because of his family's role in the persecution of her ancestor, not because he's the most beguiling man she's ever met. The attraction that burns between them might be her downfall. Or it might be his salvation.

Seducing the Dark Prince is available now for pre-order from the following retailers:

Amazon.com | Barnes & Noble | Booktopia | iBooks | Kobo

The Things That Get Us Through the Year by Jane Kindred

It’s that little souvenir, of a terrible year
Which makes my eyes feel sore
And who ever would've thought, the books that you brought
Were all I loved you for
 — The Sundays, “Here’s Where the Story Ends”

Normally, I’m all about the holiday spirit this time of year. I’m an atheist with pagan leanings, and I adore all things Yuletide. This year, however, putting up the tree was an act of faith—as it is every year—that after the darkness, the light will return. But this symbolism has never resonated with me quite so much as it does right now, at the end of this terrible year, in which “to 2016” has become an insidious verb.

The unexpected death of David Bowie on January 10 hit me hard, and then my personal year got off to a rocky start with the announcement that my publisher was closing its doors. In addition to uncertainty about the fate of my current titles, it meant the cancellation of a book whose characters I'd grown deeply attached to. That loss, coupled with some reviews that shook my faith in my writing, plunged me into a deep depression.

Then, in April, Prince’s tragic death hit me even harder than Bowie’s had. Both were major influences on me growing up, helping me to take pride in being different, accepting that who I was didn’t have to be who I’d been raised to be. But Prince had helped me define my individuality in countless ways, letting me take the first baby steps away from my fundamentalist Evangelical upbringing when I wasn’t quite ready to let go of my beliefs even though they no longer rang true. The loss of that icon—and that music that had been the soundtrack of my teenage years—made me feel like a little bit of my youth had been irrevocably lost as well.

And then 2016 continued to unrelentingly “2016” on a global scale.

But there has been a little light among all the darkness. In April, the first two books of my Sisters in Sin series sold to Harlequin Nocturne. And it’s those little glimmers of light that keep writers going when the world seems to be turning against them. Writing is what carries us out of the darkness.

The first book in the series, Waking the Serpent, was released yesterday, and the second, Bewitching the Dragon, comes out in May. I started writing Bewitching right after Prince’s death, and the first draft of that book included my main character reflecting on how his music had given her strength as a young woman. Like me, she had struggled to reconcile the beliefs of her youth with her changing views as she came of age. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Book 1 is about Phoebe, the sister who embraced her magic and never looked back, and Rafe, the living embodiment of Quetzalcoatl.

If you like magic—and hot dragon shifters—with a healthy dose of sin, perhaps the Sisters will do for you what they did for me and help you get through these dark times.

Waking the Serpent is available now in ebook and mass market paperback at the following retailers:

Amazon.com
ARe
Barnes & Noble
BookDepository.co
BAM
Booktopia
iBooks
Kobo