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Spooky Reading

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

As a kid in North America, I used to love celebrating Halloween. I love spiders, bats and black cats. I love crisp autumn days and frosty nights. I love carving pumpkins. I love making costumes—I’d start planning each year’s costume in April. 

Yes, the candy was a nice bonus, but the real fun was walking the streets after dark wearing a costume and seeing all the other creative costumes out and about.

Here in the southern hemisphere? Well, Halloween makes no sense. By the end of October, spring is well advanced. We’re on daylight savings time, so the evenings are long and bright. I’m planting pumpkin seeds, not harvesting pumpkin fruits. We’re enjoying a riotous display of colours from the flowerbeds and eating delicious springtime crops like peas, asparagus and spinach. We’re planning our summer vacations, and looking forward to days on the beach.

Spooky? Not so much.

Still, I enjoy spiders, bats and black cats at any time of year. And witches never go out of style. 

Maybe that’s why I wrote The Ipswich Witch a few years ago. Because not all witches wear black, and maybe witches enjoy a little summer sun, too. (And a good date scone.)

So here’s to all the southern hemisphere witches, who are busy tending their gardens in October, growing all those herbs for their potions, filleting their fenny snakes, and drying fresh eye of newt and toe of frog. 

Reading never goes out of style either, so whether you’re a fan of the spooky season or prefer your Halloween reading to be a bit cosier, here are a few suggestions, all written by Kiwi authors:

Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa

Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa is mired in the shifting landscape of the long white cloud, and deeply imbued with the myth, culture, and character of Aotearoa-New Zealand.

Curated by multi-award-winning author-editor Lee Murray, the anthology opens with a foreword by six-time Bram Stoker Awards®-winner and former HWA President Lisa Morton; and includes a brutal, lyrical poem by Kiwi resident Neil Gaiman.

Laced with intrigue, suspense, horror, and even a touch of humour, the anthology brings together stories and poems by some of the best homegrown and Kiwi-at-heart voices working in dark fiction today.

Remains to be Told features stories and poems by Dan Rabarts, Kirsten McKenzie, Celine Murray, Kathryn Burnett, Helena Claudia, Marty Young, Gina Cole, William Cook, Del Gibson, Paul Mannering, Tim Jones, Owen Marshall, Denver Grenell, Bryce Stevens, Debbie Cowens, Lee Murray, Jacqui Greaves, Tracie McBride, and Nikky Lee. 

Overdues and Occultism

(Book 1 Mt Eden Witches) by Jamie Sands

A witch in the broom closet probably shouldn’t be so interested in a ghost hunter, right?

That Basil is a librarian comes as no surprise to his Mt Eden community. That he’s a witch?

Yeah. That might raise more than a few eyebrows.

When Sebastian, a paranormal investigator filming a web series starts snooping around Basil’s library, he stirs up more than just Basil’s heart. Between Basil’s own self-doubt, a ghost who steals books and Sebastian, an enthusiastic extrovert bent on uncovering secrets, Basil’s life is about to get a lot more complicated.

Overdues and Occultism is a novella-length story featuring ghosts, witches and a sweet gay romance. It’s part of the Witchy Fiction project of New Zealand authors.

Angelfire

by Deryn Pittar and Meg Buchanan

Emma isn’t looking for trouble. She’s an angel in hiding – but her evil brother has found her.

She’s been chosen as this year’s offering for Halloween, and she’s prepared to fight to the death to prevent it happening.

Her neighbour is home on leave: Handsome, fighting fit and after one meeting their mutual attraction is sparking. Can she dare to ask for his help? Will he believe her?

He has a problem he’s struggling to conquer, but he’s used to death walking beside him and isn’t afraid of anything. Is being brave enough?

Angelfire is the first book in the touching Angelfire series. If you like appealing characters, heart-warming moments and action, then you’ll love Meg and Deryn’s exciting novel.

Author Lee Murray

For the spooky season, you can’t go wrong with just about any title by New Zealand’s mistress of horror, Lee Murray. Check out all her books on her website or her Amazon author page.

Tamariki Book Festival

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I have started and not finished about a dozen blog posts in the past three weeks. The reason? I’ve been organising the Tamariki Book Festival, which is on tomorrow in the TSB Space at Tūranga in Christchurch.

A fabulous lineup of local authors who write everything from picture books to young adult novels will be running activities and selling books. It’s a great way to kick off the school holidays!

I hope to see you there, and I promise I’ll get back to regular blogging once I’ve had a good long sleep.

There’s No Place Like Home

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I’ve been feeling a bit like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz this week. Having been on a crazy whirlwind of a trip to the U.S. and Scotland, my overwhelming feeling since my return has been, ‘There’s no place like home’.

Don’t get me wrong—I enjoyed my travels. It was great to see family in the U.S. for the first time in six (!) years, and Scotland was new and exciting. I love traveling by train, and enjoyed every minute watching the Scottish countryside roll by. And I’d never set foot in a real castle before, so visiting four of them was a highly educational experience, and something I can’t do in New Zealand. The botanic garden in Glasgow was a real treat as well—I wandered through the massive greenhouses twice, because they were so marvellous.

But I have to admit that the best part of the trip was coming home to my own greenhouse, bursting with vegetables.

Before we left, I set up automatic watering and shut the door, trusting to the automatic window openers to provide enough ventilation if the weather was warm.

Three weeks later, both summer and winter crops had obviously thrived in the warm, humid environment. A bit too humid, actually—the slaters had moved into the tomato plants (and apparently like to eat tomatoes) because it was too moist on the ground.

Aphids thrived, too, while we were gone, but all in all, I was pleased. To arrive home to fresh vegetables was an incredible gift, and it reminded me once again of how blessed we are to live where we do.

So I am happy to be home, pulling weeds, squishing aphids, and doing all the autumnal garden tidying I haven’t yet gotten to. It’s not a vacation, but it is home.

Clockwise from top left: A lovely garter snake enjoying some early spring sunshine in Massachusetts, Edinburgh Castle, Ben Lomond viewed from a boat in Loch Lomond, and my glorious greenhouse.

Zucchini and Tomato Tart

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We’re in the bountiful days of summer right now. And while I’d like to be sitting in a chaise lounge enjoying that bounty all day, someone’s got to pick it and process it. At the moment, the processing mostly involves making pickles and chutneys, but there’s a lot more to come. Then there’s the necessary watering, weeding, tying up of tomatoes, planting of winter crops (because as John Snow says, winter’s coming)…

zucchini tomato tart

But at the end of each day, we do get to enjoy the fruits of the season. Last night I made one of my favourite mid-summer meals—zucchini and tomato tart.

The beauty of this tart belies its simplicity—just tomato and zucchini, embellished with a little parmesan cheese, garlic and basil. 

Back when I had dairy goats, I’d spread a layer of chevre on the bottom, too, which was divine. It also had the bonus of preventing the crust from getting too soggy. These days, without an unlimited supply of goat cheese, I put up with a soggy crust—the tart is still amazing.

This tart relies on having the best tomato and zucchini possible—it’s not a dish to make with out-of-season vegetables—so if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, hang in there and enjoy this gem in July and August instead.

Download the recipe here.

The Stories We Live By

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the stories we tell ourselves.

Specifically, the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. 

I’ve listened to a lot of friends’ and family members’ stories recently, and it’s got me thinking about the power of the narratives we build about ourselves in our own minds. Those stories can turn almost anything into the truth, because we live the life we believe to be true about ourselves.

That’s a lot of power to give a story.

I’ve seen that power at work in my own life. There have been times when I’ve spun a narrative about myself in my head that was true, but depressing. It’s easy to find those sorts of stories to tell ourselves, because of course, bad things have happened to all of us, we’ve all made bad decisions, we’ve all experienced loss. 

But by focusing on the victim/fool/bereaved narratives in our lives, we give power to those stories. Those stories become who we are. 

As a survivor of multiple sexual assaults whose career has been derailed over and over by the classic forces of gender bias in our society, I could narrate a bitter and dissatisfied story for myself. Sometimes I’ve fallen into that trap, and it has led only to anger, depression and despair. It has given immense power to those negative experiences of the past.

It is better by far to narrate a story of resilience, support, love, and surprising opportunities. Because those things have been a part of my life too, and they make a much better story to live in. By building a positive story in my mind, I wrest power away from the negative. I actually increase my happiness and my strength by reminding myself that it’s always been there, even at the worst of times. My internal narrative can include those bad things, but focus on how they helped me grow, how I used the negative as inspiration for change, how the negative highlights the positive in life.

It’s not that I believe we shouldn’t tell those stories of injustice or pain in our own lives. As a society, we can’t shove that stuff under the rug and not address it. We can’t pretend it doesn’t happen.

But as an individual, I can acknowledge all the shit of life and still build a positive narrative to tell myself about myself. 

Is it easy? No, not always. But it’s easier if I focus on the present. It’s easier if I look to the future. It’s easier if I focus on the things that are within my scope of influence. It’s easier if I refuse to label myself in any way—labels so often come with negativity or expectations that we may or may not want to meet. Labels encourage defeatism—oh, I’m just X, so there’s nothing I can do about it.

So in my story about myself, I am not a middle-aged woman. I am not a mother. I am not a wife. I am not a writer. I am instead, a person with certain skills, likes and dislikes who engages in many different activities which bring me joy. I am a person who is still learning and growing, and my story focuses on my core values and how I live them. 

And every morning I get up and live my story.

What story do you tell yourself about yourself?

The Holiday Season Down Under

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blackcurrant bushes

It’s been too long since my last post. I have illness to thank again. And simple early summer busyness. The strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries, black currants and red currants are all coming in now, and I’m wondering how on Earth I’m going to pick and process them all!

The big garden excitement here at the moment is the new greenhouse that my husband and I gave to each other for Christmas. Yes, we know it was a rather early Christmas gift, but by the time we get the thing set up and ready to go, it’ll be Christmas Day. I’m looking forward to having more garden space under cover for some tender perennial crops and better winter growing.

I’m off to pick berries now and consider what different jams I’m going to be making this weekend! I’ll leave you with a little bit of Christmas doggerel (because I can’t help myself–bad holiday poetry just spills out of my brain at this time of year).

Down here where kiwi birds roam
Santa trades snowy rooftops for foam
Of the incoming tide
As the reindeer all ride
A Sea-Doo till it’s time to go home.

Down here while the barbies heat up
Santa sips pinos gris from a cup.
With sand in his shorts
He’ll play summertime sports
Till the elves tell him it’s time to sup.

Down here where pavlova is king
Santa enjoys his annual fling
Wiggling tired bare feet
In the summertime heat
While we wait for the gifts that he’ll bring.

The base of the new greenhouse. Raised beds to lift plants above winter flooding and provide decent soil for growing. Hopefully we’ll get the top put together this weekend.

Crisis and Creativity

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They say that necessity is the mother of invention, but I contend that actually it’s crisis that’s the real mother of invention.

Lately I feel like I’ve hit one crisis after another—getting Covid during the busiest season in the garden, having book sales completely tank in the lead-up to Christmas, having a critical component of a week-long science lesson be unavailable anywhere last week …

In the garden, I cut corners, laying compost on top of the soil rather than incorporating it as I usually do, in order to save time and limited physical energy. It’s something I hoped to be able to start doing, but figured I still had years of breaking up clay before it would work. Surprisingly, while the soil is a little harder than I’d like it to be for planting, it’s not terrible. If the plants do okay, I may have just changed my garden routine for good, saving me lots of work.

For my books, I’ve taken a step back from the ‘usual’ marketing techniques that have been costing me more than they’ve been bringing in. I’ve analysed what I’m good at, what I enjoy doing, and how I can incorporate those things into my marketing strategy, rather than banging my head against marketing strategies I’m no good at and hate doing. It will take a while to implement my new plan, and even longer to know if it works, but I’m having a great time working on marketing at the moment, rather than dreading every second of it as I usually do.

In the classroom, with less than 24 hours until my science lesson, I launched into preparations for plan B—activities I hadn’t run in 30 years. I felt completely unprepared, and kept realising things I’d forgotten to prepare or forgotten to do—each time I looked around at the resources to hand and got creative. The result was a set of fabulous lessons that didn’t look at all like I’d planned, but which worked well and were fun for everyone.

I really hope next week isn’t as full of crisis as the past several have been, but if they are, I’m pretty sure that as long as I keep moving forward, creativity will blossom and I’ll end up in better shape than before.

Here’s to crisis and creativity!

Five Spring Haiku

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Today is the first day of spring, blown in by a warm and gusty nor’westerly wind, as if to say, “Take that, winter! Your time is over.” Here are five haiku inspired by the day.

Ngā koru

Swirls of yellow pollen
ripple in winter’s
vanishing puddles.

Te rā

Sunshine filters through
branches still winter-bare.
Wind rattles a welcome.

Kākāriki

Bright against dark soil,
leaves unfurl and
quest toward the sun.

Ngā puaka

Heads nod to the breeze—
frills of yellow, white, purple—
decked out in Sunday’s best.

Mahi māra

Cracked nails underlined
with dirt. Hands pressed to
the Earth’s heartbeat.

Fun Fantasy reads for young and not-so-young adults!

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Young Adult fantasy is a popular genre, not just among the teens it’s primarily geared toward. Who can resist a good coming-of-age story or a swashbuckling adventure?

Here are some YA fantasy books from authors you may not have heard of before. They include all sorts of awesome things like dragons, samurai, mermaids and Greek gods. So whatever your tastes, there’s something for YA fantasy lovers here.

The Dragonaxi Challenge by Leslie E. Heath 

The last thing Marella wants to hear is that they’re moving halfway across the ocean during her senior year. But her father’s been posted as Ambassador to Pharlandzi, a rival mermaid kingdom, and no amount of pleading is going to change the inevitable: Marella is leaving her school and all of her friends behind to swim in strange waters.

As an ambassador’s daughter, she’s expected to know all the etiquette, curtsy to the right people and bite her tongue around others. But that tongue of hers has always gotten her in trouble, and now she’s in too deep. She doesn’t know who submitted her name into this challenge, but the one thing she knows? It’s death, or victory, and her father didn’t raise a loser. She’ll come back a dragon-riding warrior, or not at all.

Chain of Loyalty by Amanda Ward 

She must enter the realm of the dead, or lose the one she loves forever.

Grief becomes revenge when Shou vows to kill the kami king. Only one weapon can destroy him, and it is lost in the realm of the dead. Driven by her hope to save the one she loves, Shou goes where even the kami cannot follow.

But the realm changes those that enter it. And a price must be paid, one that Shou’s allies do not want her to accept.

Further betrayal awaits Shou. And a final decision as the prophecy is unveiled. For with the death of the kami king, another must rise to take his place.

The epic conclusion to The Kami Prophecy, a YA series full of action, mythical creatures, and romance, all set in a fantasy world inspired by feudal Japan.

Champion of the Gods by Julie L. Kramer 

The fate of the kingdom rests on the shoulders of a young warrior touched by the gods…which prince will she choose?

Ilia is Gods Touched, a young warrior who has spent her entire life sequestered behind the walls of the temple of the goddess of war. The goddess herself brought her there, leaving her in the care of two other misfits, with only the warning that her visions of the future would put her in the path of the gods. Now, so many years later, that prediction has come true.

Prince Aristo has been raised to be king, but when his parents put together a tournament for the eligible young ladies of the kingdom to fight for his hand and an unlikely enemy appears instead, will Ilia’s help be enough to spite the gods and help Aristo keep his kingdom, or is there something deeper at play?

Ignited by A.M.Deese 

An Eternal Flame.

A Powerful Secret.

The Republic of the Sand Sea is a dangerous land where fire wielders are forced to battle dragons for the entertainment of wealthy families. None are wealthier or more dangerous than the Thirteen.

Water is currency and enemies lurk around every corner. The stakes are high in the games of court and the players are running out of time before everything is…Ignited.

When the first of the Thirteen goes missing, Jura, the only heir, is thrust into a world of political intrigue and assassin’s threats.

In the arena, Ash, a retired Fire Dancer, is determined to reclaim his glory, no matter the unthinkable cost. Might the life of a captured child be the ultimate price?

Beshar, Tenth of the Thirteen, knows that true power comes from knowledge. But is information worth sparking a dangerous new friendship with the First family?

A Drop of Magic by Janna Ruth 

Magic, Demons & High School Drama

All Lucille ever wanted was a perfectly normal high school experience, but her town doesn’t do normal. Not when a few Latin words set her hand on fire, the entire town gets possessed by evil spirits, and the cute guy she’s got her eyes on brings a freaking sword to the battle.

Now Lucille has to make a decision: return to her cushy, and safe, life-style at the boarding school, or face the monsters that hunt her and the magic that lurks inside of her.

A Drop of Magic is the first of this action-packed YA fantasy series with the wit of Buffy, the magic of Charmed, and all the drama of the Vampire Diaries.

You can’t always do what you’re supposed to do

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papers on a desk
Some of the notes about this story I’ve been scribbling over two years.

There’s a live Arlo Guthrie album (I can’t remember which one) in which he’s talking between songs, and at some point he says, “I know I’m supposed to be singing. But you can’t always do what you’re supposed to do.” To which the audience roars approval.

It’s true. You can’t always do what you’re supposed to do.

The second Fatecarver book (Fatewalker) is with the editor, and I really should be working on book 3 if I want to keep the books in the series coming out at a reasonable pace for my readers.

But a couple of weeks ago when I sat down to start book 2, a different book began pouring out of my fingers onto the keyboard.

It was like a flash flood. Within a few days, 15,000 words of a book I shouldn’t be spending time on right now had flowed out. I gave in and have let it flow. I don’t even have a title for the story, which has been kicking around in my head since New Zealand’s first Covid lockdown in 2020, but it’s already over a third written.

Here’s the gist of the story. I can’t wait to be able to share it with you. If things carry on this way, it won’t be long before I can.

Alex Blackburn has inherited all her Grandmother’s possessions. And all her secrets.

When she discovers an ancient book on summoning spirits among Gran’s books, she … sort of accidentally summons one of them.

It’s three metres long and looks like a centipede. 

And it’s just eaten Gran’s dog.

She drags Gran’s neighbour, Shelby, into the drama because the book came from his great-great-great-grandmother. Alex can’t work out how to get rid of the demon, but maybe Shelby’s inherited some of his ancestor’s ability with magic.

Or maybe he’s just terrified of centipedes.

While the demon munches its way through the neighbourhood pets, Alex and Shelby scramble to find a way to send it back to where it came from before it …

Has babies.

This fantasy set in small-town New Zealand will have you sitting on the edge of your seat (while checking underneath it for centipedes), and cheering on Alex and Shelby as they bumble their way around magic and each other.