I’m not gonna lie, Amazon put this up and out faster than anticipated, based on past experience. Nevertheless, it’s true that your greedy ears can hear Danielle Muething read the ten short stories from my collection now.
This includes Able Bodied, Starter Kit, and Backstage Pass. and of course, Robot Vampire. It’s great stuff, if I do say so myself.
Here are the direct links to get you there:
Audible
Amazon
My Web Page
Read More “Darkness With a Chance of Whimsy Audiobook Now Live”
NOTE: This blog came about upon Danielle Muething concluding the recording of my latest Audible release, my short story collection Darkness With a Chance of Whimsy. I wanted to update my live blurbs for her and instead ended up writing this couple hundred word blog. Ah, well, it’s what I do.
Back in 2019, starting on my first ever audio book project, Danielle Muething blew me away with her blind audition read. All I knew I wanted at the time was someone who could read my story Haunting Obsession with a convincing “Marilyn Monroe” voice to represent the antagonist ghost of the story. Any narrator who could do that was the best logical choice “voice for hire.”
Following a long delay, the Virtual Blue audio book narrated by Team R.J. VIP Danielle Muething has finally gone live. This release completes my original paranormal trilogy available on audiobook. Click here to go to the Virtual Blue Links page.
Danielle and I began planning Virtual Blue in spring 2020, aiming for a September release and some awesome Halloween promotions. Yay for planning ahead. Alas, (I love using “Alas” in a sentence) due to unanticipated circumstances, my agreement with my original publisher ended and I had to re-release my back titles under my own label, DarkWhimsy Books. To do this properly with the attention to quality that it deserved, the process took several months.
As announced earlier, I’m excited to expand beyond the amazing first splash that is Danielle Muething narrating Haunting Obsession. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Click Here).
Now Seventh Star Press and my imprint DarkWhimsy Books have partnered to secure Danielle’s narration talents to bring the rest of the trilogy to audio! Danielle is already in the sound booth laying down tracks and voices for Haunting Blue, my first novel and the start of the paranormal adventures of punk girl Blue Shaefer and her boyfriend Chip Farren. Haunting Blue will likely be out on Audible and other popular audiobook options well before summer!
The details have been worked out and we are a go!
Last spring, my first-ever audiobook happened. It was a perfect-storm project where the ideal narrator submitted a random audition for a novella she deep-down wanted to land much more than she cared to admit at the time, whose reading blew away the anxious author who fretted that his vision be dramatized by a kindred spirit who “got it” (and knew that boy-howdy did she!). And they were backed by a supportive publisher making their first ventures into audiobook and who knew they had something special.
Steady sales and excellent reviews of Haunting Obsession the Audiobook followed, (also, these promo videos, did you see these awesome videos?) so we’ve decided to finish the trilogy together!
…we’ve decided to finish the trilogy together!
‘Tis the season for ghosts and goblins and all things scary, and if you’re a reader, you’re looking for a seasonal read to get your spooky on!
I’d like to humbly suggest my paranormal series.
My first novel, Haunting Blue, is a dark homage to the Hardy Boys style of mystery, with Frank and Joe replaced by punk girl Blue and her small town computer nerd boyfriend Chip. Together they try to solve the mystery of a robbery gone awry and discover once and for all what happened to the infamous criminal Gunther Stalt and find his bag of bank money. Chip and Blue find the treasure…and the vengeful ghost still guarding it after all these years.
Haunting Obsession is my bestselling sexy ghost story about Maxine Marie, a dead Hollywood starlet, and Daryl, the fixated fan who accidentally conjures her. But just because he brought her back doesn’t mean he can control her. Before too long, Maxine’s powers grow to alarming levels as she feeds on the energy of her fans, including Daryl. It’s up to Daryl’s girlfriend Loretta–who’s feeling a bit put out by these events–to find help in the form of the mysterious paranormal investigator Rebecca Burton.
Virtual Blue, the exciting sequel to Haunting Blue, finds our heroes fighting demons and their servants in a video game reality where death is temporary but the pain is all-too-real. Even with the help of Rebecca Burton, it’s going to take all of Blue’s wits and strength to survive this.
And don’t forget my short story collection of fantasy, sci-fi and horror, Darkness with a Chance of Whimsy, featuring a “bag full” of thrills and chills.
You can order all titles in ebook or paperback from major internet outlets–click the link on each title in this article to go to each dedicated order page.
If you want something extra special for Halloween, you can order titles directly from me for about the same price, signed and personalized with a Halloween message and mailed to your door. Payppal and credit card orders accepted. Here’s how you do that.
Thanks in advance for choosing my paranormal tales as part of your Halloween reading escape!
Click here to read the previous entry in this blog series: Able-Bodied.
Inner Strength (subtitled for this collection “A Rebecca Burton Short Story” referencing the recurring character of my paranormal thriller series) was the second story written for Strange, Weird and Wonderful magazine. Whereas the first time, Able Bodied was selected from a slush pile, this time D.L. Russell invited me to write an original story for an issue in which I would be featured. Being a naturally humble person, I took him up on his invitation immediately.
This is also the only story where I recorded an audio version of me reading the entire thing. I have no idea where that file is now, and thinking back, I’m fine with it being lost forever. Few things are more awkward than trying to read a bedroom scene that you wrote yourself. Now you know.
The story was later reprinted in the magazine’s Best of collection A Big Book of Strange, Weird and Wonderful, Volume II. I am very proud to have been a part of that magazine’s short history and lament its passing. Fortunately, D.L. continues his efforts as the editor in chief of Black Books Publishing and as a brilliant author in his own right. I look forward to seeing what’s next for him.
Setup: This scene is the second one in the story. Todd Burton had his daughter “Becky” Burton for Halloween overnight as part of his visitation arrangement, and it’s the next morning. (During the first scene, Becky dances to a Fiddle Dee-Dee song and that’s not the last time you’ll hear about Dee n this series) He must now drop her off at his ex wife’s house, and as he does so, he is wallowing on his failed marriage and current circumstances.
Todd Burton maneuvered the van down the narrow side streets of their neighborhood. Her neighborhood. He had not so much as stepped up to the front door in eleven months, but he still often thought of it as their home.
If this was still our home, I wouldn’t be dropping Rebecca off in front of the house and heading on to run errands on my own. I’d gather everyone up and we’d head off to a movie, just the three of us.
He shook his head, clearing the melancholy. He spent little enough precious time with his daughter, and he hated when runaway thoughts dampened that time. He adjusted the reflector attached to the rearview mirror, allowing him to look all the way to the back of the van. Rebecca no longer sat in the middle row of seats. Since the separation, she preferred to go all the way to the back of the van, the couch-like seat at the rear, and stretch along its entirety, eyes locked on her video screen.
Rebecca caught his gaze upon her and smiled. She wiggled her fingers lazily at him and returned her attention to the game in progress.
At least she seems happy. He pulled up, parallel to the curb, and stared across the lawn to the modern suburban home. Two stories, three bedrooms, plus a loft, the perfect home in which to grow a family.
Todd sighed. He just wished he knew what he could do to change things. He heard the words, heard the excuses, watched the love of his life shake her head and shrug. “I just don’t love you anymore.” How does that even happen?
He always figured there was someone else, though he never saw any indication, and Rebecca never revealed anything about a new “Daddy” in her life. But the alternative—that their life together was a lie from the start—was too devastating to face.
Todd released a deep breath, swung open the driver’s side door, and stepped onto the street. His gaze traveled across the front porch, over the driveway. The gray Ford Taurus sat peacefully in the two-car driveway, the usual oil stains spotting up the pavement of the space next to it, without so much as a telltale drop of fluid or tire track to indicate the comings and goings of someone new.
Eyes still on the house, he stopped in front of the passenger door and popped it open. He thought perhaps the blinds behind the windows shook just a bit, indicating someone inside had noticed their arrival. He braced himself to hear the familiar voice of his soon-to-be-ex wife offer some sort of awkward greeting from the porch.
Todd flashed back to another time, long ago, when Olivia normally drove the “Errand Runner,” a name Todd had affectionately dubbed the reconditioned green van during one of his geekier moments. Settling into the passenger seat, Todd channeled his best Harrison Ford voice. “Firing up the sublight engines on the Errand Runner, honey.” Olivia would roll her eyes and shake her head, inserting the key and waking up the grumpy engine, but she always flashed him an affectionate smile that warmed his heart. The same smile that made him fall in love with her in the first place.
Now, Todd waited for Rebecca to emerge, knowing she needed a few extra seconds to disengage herself from her Nintendo DS, but time stretched beyond the norm. Annoyed, he called into the dark quiet of the van. “Come on, Rebecca, save your game and let’s go!”
He knocked insistently against the solid steel siding, knowing the noise would penetrate her concentration, even through headphones. He listened for any answer.
Silence.
“Becky?” The silence alarmed him. No thumping of feet from the back of the van, no telltale “bleeping” of electronic noise to indicate the obvious preoccupation of his little “nerd in the making.” Not even her usual cry for patience, “I’m saving, Daddy!”
“Hey, string bean, save and quit, girl! Now.” Though relatively roomy, Todd hated struggling his 6’2” and 240 lbs of bulk around the middle row to the back of the van. Maybe she just didn’t hear me? Did she fall asleep? Maybe she found it a bit too comfortable today.
Todd placed a foot onto the first step and shoved his head into the compartment for an un-obscured view to the back.
Or so he thought.
Instead of the back seat, he saw a fantastic, unreal image—and froze.
Hovering in mid-air was a large, gaping “maw” of a portal, surrounded by a border of green glowing energy. The wavering oval gaped open about four feet high and perhaps two feet wide, encompassing what looked like the mouth of a cave, lit from within.
Click here to go to the Darkness with a Chance of Whimsy order page.
Click to continue to Whimsy Preview: Backstage Pass (A Rebecca Burton Short Story)
Acclaimed review site Bitten By Books awarded Virtual Blue five out of five…tombstones, their highest rating and the same rating they gave the first book in the series, Haunting Blue, three years ago! (Click this to read that review)
The review:
This is a second book in a series, and I highly recommend reading the first book, Haunting Blue, first. I also read the in-between novella that isn’t necessarily needed but does flesh out some background of a new character, Haunting Obsession.
Blue (Fiona) has never fully recovered from the events two years ago when her mother was killed and she almost died fighting a ghost.
