Author Nancy Holder on Gearing Up for Halloween

Author Nancy Holder calls Halloween the fifth season of the year. Find out why in her post for Harlequin’s Paranormal Party Blog Bash!

By Nancy Holder, author of The Gifted Series

As far as I’m concerned, Halloween is the fifth season of the year! I love everything about it—the costumes, the scary movies, the chance to turn my house into a haunted house—and the birth of my daughter, just three nights shy of Zero Hour! Of course, living in San Diego, we don’t get much frost on the pumpkins, and we’re more likely to worry about overheating while dressed as mummies and vampires while overeating any chocolate in our treat bags (because it’s going to melt in the heat! You know it is! That’s why we have to eat it first!)

But what I love best about Halloween (aside from the arrival of my own little sugar plum) are the stories—freaky, scary, otherworldly tales that intrigue me, terrify me, and take me away…to the misty bayous of New Orleans; the centuries-old castles of France; to the fog-enshrouded docks of London, and the lairs of vampires, werewolves; magic men; and shape changers.

That’s why my Harlequin home is Silhouette Nocturne, with stories from my Gifted series—Daughter of the Flames; Daughter of the Blood; Sons of the Shadows; and my Nocturne Bite, Son of the Sea. I love writing about magic and the supernatural, and I love reading about it—and Nocturne is perfect for me on both levels. I have discovered fantastic authors who inspire me to dream of sexy alpha werewolves and devastatingly charming, immortal vampires…while sleeping with the lights on!

When I’m not writing paranormal romance, I write young adult (YA) fantasy, dark fantasy, and good old horror. I am the coauthor with Debbie Viguie of the New York Times bestselling series, Wicked (Wicked 1, Wicked 2, and Wicked: Resurrection) and I have a new series called Possessions about a haunted boarding school…where the mean girls are not just imperious queen bees…they are evil. I’ve also written Pretty Little Devils, a murder mystery I wrote about a crazy blogger who uses old horror movies as her (or is it his?) inspiration for doing in enemies…real or imagined.

I’m also writing a lot of paranormal romance short fiction these nights, with stories in: The Eternal Kiss; Immortal; The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance (with another Gifted story) and The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2. I am in the proud company of many Harlequin and Silhouette authors in all these anthologies.

When it’s October, you’ll find me at bookstore signings, blogging about the supernatural like a maniac (wahaha!) and trick-or-treating with my beloved kiddo and our Corgi, Panda. Panda owns four Halloween costumes and he carries his own treat bag in his mouth. He goes to all the houses with us and gets lots of dog biscuits (but no chocolate! It’s toxic to dogs.) So pour me some apple cider (on ice), hand me a great Nocturne to read, and please pass me the chocolate—yes, all of it—before it melts!

Please come visit me at www.nancyholder.com.