The Ghosts We Carry and How to Banish Them

 

The Ghosts We Carry and How to Banish Them

Have you ever noticed how in haunted house stories or an occult detective tale, there’s always an object that keeps a spirit anchored to a place?  It could be a keepsake from when the ghost was a living being or a terrible artifact use to summon darker entities.  Sometimes it’s a whole room or house, the energy of the people who have lived in it soaking into the very walls.  Other times it’s the memory of a horrific incident that has bled into the earth.

In order to banish the ghost, of course, we have to destroy the object—set it on fire, break it, or, to be less dramatic, let it go or move on from it. 

Move out of the haunted house.  

Contain the dark occult artifact that can’t be destroyed so that no one will find it (until the inevitable sequel, of course….this is dramatic fiction after all!). 

These stories remind us, in one way or another, that the things we carry with us absorb the energy of our experiences.  And that, sometimes, the only way we can move forward is to let those objects go.  Otherwise, we keep that old energy—sometimes toxic energy—around and get stuck, finding ourselves in a time loop of the same draining experiences that first tainted the objects in question.

The Ghosts We Carry 

Take, for instance, the story of The Sad Birthday Dress.  It goes like this:  There once was a woman who wanted to feel beautiful.  All day long she was asked to be nothing but a talking head.  But this woman knew she had a heart and hips and a juicy center.  So she bought herself a dress to remind herself that she could be a whole person and not just a shriveled head sitting in someone’s cabinet of curiosities.  And what a dress it was!  It was stunning, with finely spun organic lilac cotton and loud bouncy yellow and white polka dots that told her that she was allowed to have color in her life—that she was allowed to be of color, no need to pass as another kind of pale specter.   The skirt was flouncy and feminine and begged to be flipped up for illicit romance or at least a lively dance.

It was the perfect birthday dress.  So she did what any woman who wanted to feel alive did—she wore it out and ate cake and drank champagne and danced until the weight of the pale city bore down on her and her loud pretty dress didn’t make her feel pretty anymore.  Just sad.  Unspeakably so.  Because, she realized, this dress didn’t make her feel pretty.  It only reminded her that she lived in a place that didn’t want her to be a flesh and blood woman.  A city that was uncomfortable with her long wild hair and her rounded hips and the way the bodice of her dress clung to her breasts.   She knew shame in that dress.  And a sadness that welled up inside her until it became heartbreak.  That heartbreak spread from her body and into the dress as surely as the bubbly drink had spread through her body only moments before.

The woman learned a hard lesson that night:  A dress couldn’t fix a city that treated her like a brown stain on a white shirt.  And cake couldn’t disguise the fact that there was no sweetness for her there. Only loneliness and a bone-deep cold.  The solution was to leave in search of warmer hands and beating hearts.

Eventually, the dress came off.  But the heartbreak stayed.  And every time the woman tried to wear her I Am Beautiful Dress, she inevitably took it off and rehung in her closet, until one day she stopped trying to wear it all together.  It moved to the back of her closet, limp and half-forgotten, like a mediocre date or half-baked wish.  It was no longer her I Am Beautiful Dress.  It was stained with the experience of that night, which is how it became The Sad Birthday Dress.

Years later, when the woman had figured how to be a breathing, living woman and not someone else’s curiosity, she pulled the dress from her closet and her heart broke all over again.  She knew there was no reclaiming the original power of the beautiful bouncy fabric.  Of cake and champagne and moonlight.  In the dress, she saw the pain of her past welling up inside of her.  Its presence was like a ghost reminding her of all the broken things she could never fix. Of the hopeless realization that the thing she wanted—thought she wanted—wasn’t for her and, in fact, had never existed at all. She had been chasing phantoms and, in the process, almost become one herself.

So she packed it up and gave it away in the hopes that it might become what it was meant to be—that I Am Beautiful Dress—for someone else who was ready to pay the price to reclaim that joy in the way she hadn’t been when she had first purchased it.  The weight of that terrible time lifted from her shoulders and the energy in her home felt lighter. 

Now the woman has a closet full of I Am Beautiful Dresses.  They are loud.  And they sparkle.  And they have hems ready to be tossed above the knee for dancing and more dancing and things that would make you blush for me to write.   And they all radiate joy.  All because she let go of the thing that was holding her back.  All because she chose to feel the pain of the past and let it go.  All because she chose to be a loud woman with a beating heart in a sun-kissed land and not a phantom shade. 

Banishing Ghosts

Lovely little story, isn’t it?  And it’s all true.  I once had an I Am Beautiful Dress that became The Sad Birthday Dress.  And when I gave it away, I was giving myself permission to be more than that sad story.  I could learn from my past and create space for joy in my present.  The truth is, we all have a proverbial Sad Birthday Dress or something that was once a profound piece of armor in our lives that became stained by experience.  Other times, we change—becoming someone that certain objects no longer feel attached to, can no longer nourish.  And in order to keep growing, transforming, evolving, we must let them go.  If we don’t, what once was beautiful or nourishing becomes toxic.  The spirit that won’t move on becomes the ghost that terrorizes the living.

Having recently completed a massive house cleansing—saying goodbye to old ghosts and old selves—I found myself thinking about one of my pieces from Everyday Enchantments, “Letting Go of Past Lives, “ about the things you hold on to even when you are ready to let go of the person you used to be.  It can be scary to let go of the past because, as stagnant as it can make us, it’s also familiar and comforting. That’s why we hold on to so much unnecessary stuff. It keeps us feeling safe—but it also keeps us stuck.  In the end, it’s better to let go and know that you are creating space for new, positive vibes to enter your life (but not necessarily more stuff!).

The first part of banishing ghosts or old selves?  Let go of the objects they are attached to.  Say goodbye to things that don’t bring you joy or that you haven’t used in over a year.   Be conscious of the energy you want in your home and life.  Then be ruthless about protecting it—get rid of anything that doesn’t contribute to your overall sense of well-being.  Ghosts hide behind sentiment and guilt to keep you trapped under their spell.  Low-level spirits are a lot like low-level people: They want you to feel as trapped and miserable as they are, so they’ll do anything to stay in your life.  Best to see them for what they are and move on.

The second part of ghostbusting?  Let go of the troubling energy you’ve been holding onto psychically.  That last one will take a little more time, but letting go of the object that keeps constellating that energy will go a long way to dispersing its psychic impact.  Give yourself permission to heal and move on from sad or seemingly unfinished histories. 

The rest will follow.

This post originally appeared on Enchantment Learning and Living, home of professor, writer, and bruja Maria DeBlassie, where true magic is in the everyday!

Weep, Woman, Weep

A Gothic Fairytale about Ancestral Hauntings 

Maria DeBlassie

Genre: Gothic Fairytale, Occult, Supernatural

Publisher: Kitchen Witch Press

Date of Publication: August 25, 2021

ISBN:978-0-578-97464-4

ASIN: B09CV9P9SH

Number of pages:150 pages

Word Count: 37,935

Cover Artist: Rachel Ross

Tagline: Nothing makes a woman brave except getting on with the business of daily life.

Book Description:

A compelling gothic fairytale by bruja and award-winning writer Maria DeBlassie.

The women of Sueño, New Mexico don't know how to live a life without sorrows.

That's La Llorona's doing.  She roams the waterways looking for the next generation of girls to baptize, filling them with more tears than any woman should have to hold. And there's not much they can do about the Weeping Woman except to avoid walking along the riverbank at night and to try to keep their sadness in check.  That's what attracts her to them: the pain and heartache that gets passed down from one generation of women to the next.  

Mercy knows this, probably better than anyone.  She lost her best friend to La Llorona and almost found a watery grave herself.  But she survived. Only she didn't come back quite right and she knows La Llorona won't be satisfied until she drags the one soul that got away back to the bottom of the river.

In a battle for her life, Mercy fights to break the chains of generational trauma and reclaim her soul free from ancestral hauntings by turning to the only things that she knows can save her: plant medicine, pulp books, and the promise of a love so strong not even La Llorona can stop it from happening.  What unfolds is a stunning tale of one woman's journey into magic, healing, and rebirth.

CW: assault, domestic violence, racism, colorism

Amazon

Excerpt:

One time, I was feeling mighty fine and thought I’d try something different. I saw this ad in a magazine where a woman was in an obscenely large bathtub and covered up to the neck in bubbles. This was in a room with a marble floor, and there were candles everywhere, and she had her hair up all nice and a face mask on. Well, I got to thinking a nice long soak after a hard day’s work would be nice.

This was a few months after my run-in with Sherry, and I was trying hard to let myself enjoy things more. It occurred to me after seeing her that her fatal flaw was not believing that her future was right in front of her. Or maybe she was too afraid to take it with both hands. I began to wonder if we didn’t hold back and do half the work for La Llorona with all that we ran from life.

So I bought some bubble bath and made more beeswax candles and set about having myself a spa night. I mean, my bathroom was nowhere near as nice as the one in the picture. My tub was only long enough for me to sit upright and was right next to the toilet, but I made do.

It was lovely. I mean, divine! I could see why fancy women liked this. I put on the radio, and the music was soft and sweet, like the candlelight against the fading day. I was so relaxed, that I was about to fall asleep in that tub.

That was when I felt cold hands grip the soles of my feet and pull me under.
I should have seen it coming. Why willingly linger in a body of water? But I didn’t, and that was how I found myself drowning in bubbles and thrashing around in my tub. It’s also how I learned that evil woman could find me anywhere—and I mean anywhere—so I could never let my guard down.

Her grip was strong. Seemed like the harder I fought, the stronger she got. I was flailing about, my arms searching for anything and everything to hold on to, when I knocked one of those beeswax candles into the tub. To this day, I have no idea why that scared her, but it did. She recoiled something quick at the hiss of the flame when the wax hit water.

I didn’t waste a second—I hoisted myself out of the tub and collapsed on the bathroom floor, choking and sputtering and sopping wet. Took me forever to clean up the mess and cough up all those flower-scented bubbles. My feet were cold and sore for days, with claw marks where her bony fingers hooked into my skin.

Whoever said bubble baths were relaxing was a big fat liar.

 

About the Author:

Maria DeBlassie, Ph.D. is a native New Mexican mestiza blogger, award-winning writer, and award-winning educator living in the Land of Enchantment. Her first book, Everyday Enchantments: Musings on Ordinary Magic and Daily Conjurings (Moon Books 2018), and her ongoing blog, Enchantment Learning and Living are about everyday magic, ordinary gothic, and the life of a kitchen witch. When she is not practicing her own brand of brujeria, she's reading, teaching, and writing about bodice rippers and things that go bump in the night. She is forever looking for magic in her life and somehow always finding more than she thought was there.

Find out more about Maria and conjuring everyday magic at https://mariadeblassie.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/enchantmentll

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/enchantmentll

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mdeblassie.writer

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7rY-gLkSH-w8uuVyrhVALA

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Ask The Girl Kim Bartosch

 

Ask The Girl

Kim Bartosch

Genre: YA Paranormal Mystery

Publisher: Woodhall Press

Date of Publication: 9/6/22

ISBN: 978-1954907218

ASIN: 1954907214

Number of pages: 110

Word Count: 47, 000

Cover Artist: Kim Bartosch and Wendy Bowes

Tagline: Revenge is her desire but forgiveness is her salvation.

Book Description: 

Nobody believes sixteen-year-old Lila Sadler, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Nobody believes that Lila’s sister Rose is possessed by the ghost of Katy Watkins. As Rose’s health worsens each day, the only way to save her is to uncover the awful truth of Katy's death so many years ago. 

And nobody knows what happened to Katy on October 31, 1925. Not even Katy. 

Unaware that she was murdered, Katy has wandered for a hundred years in complete ignorance, until the day she meets Rose and Lila. Together Lila, Rose, and Katy must confront their demons to escape this hell. But will they be able to escape? Can they forgive the unforgivable? 

Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/dueV9sN29xM

Amazon      BN      Bookshop

About the Author:

Kim is a young adult writer of paranormal mysteries and thrillers. She is fond of ghost stories and has experienced many hauntings during several paranormal investigations. She has contributed many articles regarding travel, hauntings, and more on various sites. Kim has been on several ghost hunts across the U.S. with her sister. She photographed a ghost at the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

As an advocate for Autism and Bipolar Disorder, Kim offers her support to many charities and programs, such as Joshua Center and Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA). Kim feels there aren’t enough programs for mental disabilities. Her goal is to give as much help to set up these organizations for success so individuals, such as her autistic son and bipolar sister, will have the support they need.

Kim is an avid member of the Society of Children Book Writers & illustrators (SCBWI.org) contributing her time to many events and conferences.

Website: https://www.kimbartosch.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KimBartosch/

Blog: https://kimberlybartosch.wixsite.com/blog

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimbartosch/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100069061958912

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kim-Bartosch/e/B0B26BQ8LQ

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The Inked The Inked Series Book One Kristina Streva

 

The Inked 

The Inked Series

Book One

Kristina Streva 

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy 

Publisher: The Wild Rose Press

Date of Publication: 2022

ISBN: 978-1-5092-4381-5

Number of pages: 306

Word Count: 75,290

Cover Artist: Diana Carlile 

Tagline: She’d been love struck… poisoned by his venomous charm. 

Book Description:

Yuri and her sisters, Britt and Tanis, were born with eight long tentacles instead of beautifully jeweled and sequined fishtails. Banned from Atlantis because of their deformity, they live hidden away and are forbidden from entering Merfolk territory. 

Britt unknowingly crosses over the ocean's divide and leads her sisters into a sea of trouble. A flesh-hungry beast is hunting them while something much more foreboding is hunting the beast-Kaleb and Neo, the Princes of Atlantis, who are competing for the throne. Whoever kills the beast first becomes the rightful heir, but fate holds other plans. 

Can the three sisters survive a torrent of danger, desire, and deceit?

Amazon     BN     BAM     Wal-Mart

Excerpt:

Kaleb, the son of King Oasis, sat on his red and gold chariot. Large black seahorses adorned with golden paint pulled it forward as his army followed behind, saddled on their seahorse steeds. With each command from the King’s son, they drummed their fists on their armor made from reinforced turtle shells, all stunningly painted and garnished in sequins and gold.

A few days ago, King Oasis had proudly declared that there would be a competition between him and his twin brother, Neo. A beast had been terrorizing Atlantis, and whoever brought him the head of this creature would take the throne and the enormous bounty that came with it.

“Forward! We can’t afford to lose the trail of this beast!” Kaleb shouted as he lifted a long golden horn to his lips and blew.

His army moved forward in unison. He trailed behind them in his chariot, gripping his long-pronged golden trident in one hand and horn in the other. Kaleb was on the hunt, much like the monster who had hunted the occupants of Atlantis. Just last week, two more children had gone missing, and now that his troop had moved forward, he could search the area for survivors.

His eyes carefully scanned side to side, above, and then finally to the bottom of the seabed. To his left, he spotted a damaged boat flipped upside down with a large, jagged hole in one side. He tightened his grip on the trident, swimming down toward the dilapidated rowboat. Silver strands of hair stuck out of the damage in the boat’s side, looking like kelp waving in the current.

“Hello?” His body crept forward hesitantly as he cleared his throat. “By order of the King Oasis, reveal yourself!” Kaleb’s voice bellowed through the water.

The rowboat stirred as the head of a young girl tentatively made its way out of the hole. Her pale body followed, embellished in a purple laced corset that ended where her long black tentacles protruded.

Kaleb’s mouth dropped open. Now, Yuri swayed before him. His wide eyes traced her body up and down.

What…what is this girl doing here? Oh!

“Do you mean to harm me?” Yuri asked, cutting through the silence, her tone sharp as a blade.

Kaleb’s mouth curved into an amused smile. She’s bold. He had not seen her kind very often—they stayed hidden. This was new to him.

It was for a fair reason they hid away since his people hated hers, after all. Despised them with great passion. He ran his hands through his light-brown hair and then down to his chiseled jawline.

What if my father had found her? He shook his head, refocusing mossy green eyes on Yuri as he studied her.

Her hair was beautiful, and much like that of the mermaids he had grown up with, it was long and flowed behind her in the water as she moved. Yuri’s eyes met his, and he held her gaze, staring at the stunning icy-blue that looked back at him. He traced her pale complexion from her face down to her skinny arms, now held bent and stiff against her hips.

“Do you not know who I am?” He wore a cocky smile that hollowed into dimples at his cheeks.

Yuri’s brows furrowed. Her sharp glare stabbed at his ego, causing his dimpled smirk to retreat from his face like a wounded soldier. “Honestly, I don’t care who you are. Answer the question.

Are your intentions to harm me?” Her eyes darted to his pronged trident.

Kaleb’s grip loosened on his weapon as he stooped toward the seabed, his eyes remaining focused on Yuri’s icy-blue scowl. He opened his palms, letting the trident roll out of his hands and onto the sandy seafloor.

Inching back, he straightened his arms, outstretching his hands high over his head. “No, I don’t wish to harm you. Do you wish to harm me?” He wiggled the fingers of his empty hands.

Yuri crossed her arms over her puffed-out chest.

“That entirely depends on you,” she sneered. Her nostrils flared.

The once-retreated smirk returned to Kaleb’s face. How could such a small and petite girl have so much attitude? This girl is feisty! As his heavy trident sank deeper into the ocean floor, he lowered his hands and tapped awkwardly at his sides. His armor clung to his broad, muscular chest as he gestured in a proper bow. I might as well introduce myself properly.

“I’m Kaleb. My father is King Oasis of Atlantis. My troops and I came out here to hunt the beast that terrorizes these waters.” Kaleb paused for a response that didn’t come. He waited.

His stomach knotted at Yuri’s silence. It twisted like the ends of a fishing net. Her deep-blue eyes stared off to the rowboat in which she had emerged. “And you are…”

About the Author: 

Kristina Streva grew up in Rockland County, New York. As a chronic daydreamer, she took up writing as a hobby and soon realized the magic in creating fantastical worlds. She loves museums, thrifting, movies, art, crafting, reading, and all things creative.

https://www.tiktok.com/@author.kstreva

https://www.instagram.com/author.kstreva/ 

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22510176.Kristina_Streva 

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The Talking Cure -A Novel of Magic and Psychiatry The Cutter/Mann Series Book One Barbara Lien-Cooper and Park Cooper

 

The Talking Cure -A Novel of Magic and Psychiatry

The Cutter/Mann Series

Book One

Barbara Lien-Cooper and Park Cooper

Genre: slow build paranormal romance 

Publisher: Wicker Man Studios

Date of Publication: Aug 2022

Number of pages: 434

Word Count: 85,000

Book Description: 

--Zach Cutter claims he's not really an antiques dealer as such, but that he's really a supernatural investigator.

--Zach claims he's got repressed memories, missing at least a year of his life, probably more.

--Zach claims he can do magic. Not stage magician magic-- real magic.

--Zach claims he's got feelings for his new psychiatrist, Dr. Cynthia Mann.

--Zach claims a lot of problematic things.

But they're all true.

After a disturbing case in New York made Dr. Cynthia Mann wonder if the supernatural might actually be real, she's started her life and her practice all over again in Cleveland, where she meets a new patient, stranger than any she’s ever met before—and far more charming than anyone she’s ever met, too. 

During the progress Zach makes as Cynthia’s patient, he tells her stories about his past, and their relationship slowly edges from a doctor-patient one to a friendship—and Zach clearly wouldn’t mind if it became more. 

Together, Cynthia and Zach will eventually have to find a way for him to get out of the trouble he stumbled into long ago...

Book Trailer https://youtu.be/Ya9_0eCMrzw

Excerpt

“You’re really going to make me do magic, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I can’t believe your story otherwise.”

He reached out to some fresh roses that were in a vase on my desk. “Watch,” he said.

No magical energy came from his fingers, and nothing felt or looked any different. He was just... touching them. But he looked at me as if he’d done something. “...You didn’t do anything,” I said.

“Touch the petals.”

As I reluctantly reached out to the petals he’d been touching, his fingers, drawing away, touched my hand. “C’mon, they won’t bite you,” he said. Then he reached out again, and guided my hand across the petals of the flower.

The roses had been real that morning—I’d put them in fresh water.

But now they were fake flowers, made of silk. “You have nice hands,” he said.

I took back my hand. “What did you do to my flowers?”

“Magic,” he said.

“Slight-of-hand magic, you mean. You could have just distracted me...”

Zach sighed and raised his hand, showing me his palm, the fingers splayed out like he was about to start pointing to it and lecturing me about palm-reading. Then he lowered it down until his hand was laid out flat on my desk. I watched his hand lower, then I watched it sit there, waiting for something to happen. His hand didn’t move... nothing seemed to move... though there was some slight change I couldn’t put my finger on.

After a few seconds, I looked more closely around his hand at the desktop. The top of the desk was transparent.

My desk had been made of wood. Now, however, the entire desk was made of glass.

It was still exactly the same shape. It was at least the same weight, since it didn’t budge when I pushed at it.

I pulled out a drawer. A glass drawer slid out, on metal wheels turning on metal rails screwed into the glass by metal screws. I hadn’t really needed to pull out the drawer—I could already see, somewhat, what was inside: regular-old, boring white envelopes, some staples, paperclips, pens.

All faintly visible through see-through glass, glass with a woody brown tint to it... and a sort of vague wood grain set into it somehow...

“Don’t worry, it’ll only last a few hours, then it’ll change back to wood,” Cutter assured me.

What. In the world.

I stared at him for almost half a minute. He looked at me patiently. It was as if we were trying to “read” each other, trying to figure out... I don’t know. Each other, I guess.

I looked away first. “I’m sorry, Zach, but you’re not a client of mine yet... I can’t... until I get to know you... I don’t just give out sleeping pills... I’m sure other doctors might, but...”

“I don’t want another doctor. I want you, Cynthia.”

Great. The first handsome, smart guy I’d met in a while, and not only did he have to be a potential client, he was some sort of... magician...? “I’m not sure that would be...” I said, “I mean...” On top of everything else, I found that I was blushing.

“What if I told you that...well, uh... I actually... it’s not just sleeping pills... seriously, I do have some real problems...”

“What sort of problems...?”

“...Repressed memories.”

“Oh? When did that start?”

He smiled weakly. “After Celeste died. The time right before that is very fuzzy. And the time right after that is pretty much lost to me. I lost months... probably a lot more time than that.” He glanced at a clock on the wall and grinned a winning smile. “But I imagine my time’s up for today...”

“Yes, I suppose it is...”

“Unless you’d like to go out to dinner with me...?”

“Mr. Cutter, if you’re to be my client, I can’t... we can’t meet socially...”

“I’ve always liked women who have a bit of an authoritarian side to them...”

I took out my appointment book. “Let’s get you an appointment for next time. I don’t really appreciate walk-ins, and...”

“—Argh, I hate sticking to appointments. Being a magician isn’t exactly a 9-to-5 job...”

About the Authors:

Barb Lien-Cooper is originally from Minnesota. She was a guitarist/singer-songwriter, and got an album put out on the Imp label. However, she also had health issues: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and fibromyalgia and extreme environmental sensitivities and allergies. (She also has Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder due to issues involving her family of origin.)

For a while, brain fog from the CFS and the fibro made it harder for her to read long and involved works of fiction... So (since she'd always loved them in her childhood) she got into reading comics and graphic novels, particularly the comparatively avant-garde work coming out at that time from DC Comics.

Park Cooper was born and raised in central Texas he read a lot of books and comic books—and then one day, someone in the letter columns of the comic Sandman announced that they were doing a fanzine for readers of that comic. Barb and Park both wrote in.

Park liked the writing Barb submitted to the fanzine, and he wrote to her, and they began writing to each other. Then they started talking on the phone... they fell in love... they started visiting one another...

Then they got married! (To each other!)

They wrote about comics and popular culture for some websites (some of them award-winning), and wrote a lot of reviews and articles and things.

A little after that, Barb started writing her comic Gun Street Girl, and a little after that, they started adapting and editing many, many manga for major American publishers importing manga (and sometimes their South Korean and Chinese counterparts) from the far side of the Pacific. Near the end of this, Barb and Park wrote the manga pitch The Hidden for TokyoPop, perfectly timed to appear the week that that company fell apart.

Then Barb and Park wrote the sci-fi vampire graphic novel Half Dead for Marvel Comics and Dabel Brothers Productions.

 

Somewhere around this time, Park successfully completed his Ph.D. in literature, and then Barb and Park wrote a vampire prose novel, and Park started writing his cyberpunk comic Swipe for Angry Viking Press, and there were also other various short stories and novels and non-manga-related editing jobs, too many to bother counting here...

These days, Barb and Park live happily together in Austin, Texas.

Web: https://parkgsg.wixsite.com/wickermanstudios 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/parkcooper 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057705847859

The Girl From Saint Petersburg An Industrial Historical Fiction Series Book One Joyana Peters

 

The Girl From Saint Petersburg

An Industrial Historical Fiction Series

Book One

Joyana Peters

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: Amaryllis Press

Date of Publication: July 25th, 2022

ISBN: 978-1736937327

ASIN: B0B64DHZFJ

Number of pages: 122 pages

Word Count: 25,482 words

Cover Artist: Domini Dragoone

Tagline: Sacrifice, Starvation and Survival. What will she do to stay alive?

Book Description: 

Russia, 1905: Thirteen-year-old Ruth dreams of growing up to marry the boy next door and living peacefully ever after. But when he and her father are forced to flee to America after the Bloody Sunday Massacre, Ruth and the other female members of the family are left behind amid the violence and chaos of revolutionary Russia. Overcoming violence and hunger with a strength she never knew she possessed, Ruth resolves to do what it takes to keep her mother and sister alive—whether it be work, beg or steal.

Then she lands herself in a predicament that threatens to put her own neck in a noose. This time she may not be able to keep them all safe, at least not without sacrificing their love for her and all that makes life worth living.

In this prequel to the award-winning novel, The Girl in the Triangle, author, Joyana Peters, portrays a tight-knit family fighting to endure at a precarious and crucial time in Jewish history. Join the countless readers who can’t get enough of Ruth and her story.

What Readers and Critics are Saying:

★★★★★ "That is what historical fiction does for a reader, a slice of history wrapped up in a compelling story that teaches and makes us reflect on the words and our own lives in the stream of time." - Historical Fiction Press Awards

★★★★★ "An immigration story at the finest level, revealing the depths of tragedy many went through leaving a country of unspeakable suffering." - D.K. Marley

Amazon      Books2Read     Apple     BN

Download a sneak peek excerpt at Bookfunnel

About the Author:

Joyana Peters is the Indie author of the best-selling novel, The Girl in the Triangle. The Girl in the Triangle won the SCBWI's YA Spark Honor Award, the IBPA’s Ben Franklin Award for Historical Fiction, the Book Excellence Award for Multicultural Fiction and was a Top Five Finalist for Shelf Unbound’s Indie Best Book of the Year.

Joyana got her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans in 2014. She has taught literature and composition on both the secondary and university levels. She also writes non-fiction and has been published in digital and print publications nationwide.

Joyana currently lives in Northern Virginia where she takes in the sights of DC with her two kids, husband, and goofy Yellow Lab, Gatsby.

You can follow her adventures at: 

https://joyanapeters.com/

https://www.facebook.com/JoyanaPetersAuthor 

https://www.instagram.com/joyanapetersauthor/   

https://www.bookbub.com/profile/joyana-peters 

https://www.amazon.com/Joyana-Peters/e/B095PF36XS  

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https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21516102.Joyana_Peters

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