Autumn Harvest

Autumn Harvest!
By
N. J. Walters


The summer is behind us now and those chillier days of autumn are starting to move in. I love this time of year—the colors of the trees, the summer harvest, and the holidays. Honestly, this is my favorite time of year.

The days are getting a bit shorter and the nights are longer. The perfect time to read about the paranormal and things that go bump in the night. With Halloween getting closer, I always get in the mood to read books about vampires, werewolves and other legendary creatures of myth.

I also love to write books that surround these legends. My first attempt at such a book was Harker’s Journey. Obviously, Jonathan Harker was a character from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I thought it would be interesting if the fictional Mr. Harker had descendants. I then started playing the “what if” game. What if this person also had to travel to Transylvania? What if they also had a mysterious client in a castle high in the mountains? Thus the character of Johanna Harker was born.

She’s a financial consultant who’s always been drawn to Bram Stoker’s book. She dreams of a man, a vampire, but as she gets older she puts such thoughts down to pure fantasy. When she travels to the Carpathian Mountains to deal with her company’s most reclusive client—Cristofor Dalakis—she gets more than she bargained for. Like the fictional Jonathan Harker, Johanna takes a journey that will change her life forever.

I recently put pen to paper, or rather fingers to keyboard, and tried my hand at a twist on another familiar tale. This time I tackled Washington Irving’s wonderful story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I’m a fan of the story and the movies, including the Disney version. The idea of a headless horseman racing around the woods in search of a head is fascinating and downright scary.

I already had a story and a book (Shadows Stir and Beyond Shadows) featuring a group of immortal warriors—Shadow Ryders—and knew the two ideas would mesh together. Dovina Horne, an academic who is captivated by this legend, finally gets the opportunity to travel to Sleepy Hollow in order to do research for a paper. When she comes face to face with the headless horseman, he’s not exactly what he seems to be. When an immortal warrior—Hadeon—saves her from the horseman’s blade, they start a game of cat and mouse with him that won’t end until one or more of them are dead. Out of Shadows is their story and is now available from Ellora’s Cave.

With so many great authors writing today there is no shortage of vampire, werewolf, ghost and other spooky tales for readers to enjoy this autumn.

I’ll start watching my fall movies soon: Lost Boys, The Crow, Sleepy Hollow, Underworld, Dracula and more. It’s the perfect time of year to curl up next to my hubby on the sofa with a huge bowl of popcorn and enjoy these stories.

What are your favorite books and movies this time of year? Please share.


N.J. has always been a voracious reader, and now she spends her days writing novels of her own. Vampires, dragons, time-travelers, seductive handymen, and next-door neighbors with smoldering good looks—all vie for her attention. It’s a tough life, but someone’s got to live it.

Check out all my books at http://www.njwalters.com
http://www.njwalters.blogspot.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/awakeningdesires/ (newsletter group)