Halloween Spooktacular: Day 17 : Interview and Giveaway with Dana Marie Bell

Please give a warm welcome to Dana Marie Bell. Thank you Dana for this interview with BLH today. 

1. What kind of Halloween person are you? 
Dress up and party every year, give out candy maybe dressed up, or hide inside your house with the porch light off? I give out candy in a witch hat, wearing my husband’s old cape from when we used to go to Renaissance Fairs in costume. It’s warm and cozy, but by the end of the evening I’m usually freezing. Sometimes, I spice it up with a colorful wig.

2. Do you decorate outside for Halloween?
 Not a lot. Some of that has to do with our innate laziness. The rest has to do with the fact that our neighbors put together a “haunted house” for Halloween night only. It’s fun, watching people walk up to their house and wonder how they’re going to get scared this year.

 3. Are you a master pumpkin carver? (pictures for any or all of these questions would be greatly appreciated) 
Oh, heck no. I am so not Martha Stewart. I’d wind up carving something off myself. It wouldn’t be pretty. No one should have to explain that to an emergency room tech.

4. Name 3 costumes you’ve worn and at what age. (Again pictures)

Um. I don’t have any pictures of the costumes I wore as a child. My mom has those. When I was a child, I would wear my dance costumes as my Halloween costume, and sometimes I loved that and sometimes I hated it. And as an adult, I’ve worn mostly witch hats for the last few years.

My typical Halloween costume: I wear costumes at conventions, though, and enjoy the heck out of it.

Here are some of my favorites: 

 Authors After Dark Foxy Lady:

RT Fairy Ball (as a will-o-the-wisp, with PJ Schnyder):

Cowgirl, at Lori Foster’s Reader/Author Get-Together:

5. Find a picture of a costume you love.
I love kitties, so this one caught my eye when I was looking for a costume for Lora Leigh’s RAW:

Unfortunately, it was out of stock, but it was that costume that gave me the idea for what I eventually wore, which was this:

6. Tell us the scariest thing that has ever happened to you and it doesn’t have to be Halloween related. 

Huh. Let me think… Oh, I remember. My husband and I went with my father to see the movie Event Horizon. It scared the crap out of me. In fact, all I have to do is say to Dusty, “What’s the name of that movie I refuse to ever ever see again?” and he replies, “Event Horizon.” When it was over, the movie theater was silent and dark. We were just stunned that the campy sci-fi movie we were expecting was not what we got. It was a terrifying slasher flick that left us shivering. Suddenly a hand reaches out to me, touches my shoulder, and I hear, “Hi!” I screamed like a little girl. Turns out our friend had gone to the same movie, and we were so caught up we didn’t see him sitting right behind us. All these years later we still laugh about that when we see one another. But none of us want to see that movie.

7. Do you like haunted houses or mazes? 
Neither! I’m a big scaredy-cat with a terrible sense of direction. No. Seriously. There’s a reason the inside of my house is basically set up like a circle.

8. Do you believe in ghosts? 
Yup! My mom and I have both seen them, but I haven’t seen one since I was a child. I think children don’t have that filter of “that can’t exist”, so they’re more open to seeing things adults no longer can. But my mother was an adult when she saw the same exact ghost, and it freaked us out that we both saw it.

9. What is your favorite Halloween tradition?
 Watching the neighbors scare the crap out of the kids. Call me evil, but watching them run screaming, and then they come over to my house, giggling and panting and “Whoa, that was scary! I loved it!” is a lot of fun. And the neighbors are careful not to frighten the really little ones, so it’s all in good fun.

10. What is your favorite Halloween movie to watch or are you a Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown sort? 
I like doing a marathon, like Ghost Hunters, The Haunted or My Ghost Story. The kids watch it with me now, so it’s a lot more fun.

11. Have you ever tricked instead of treated like toilet papering someone’s house or egging a person or house? 
Nope. As a kid I was a good girl (and lived in a neighborhood where everyone knew my mom and would tattle on me in an instant. Heck, she’d know before I was done throwing the toilet paper). 12. Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees? You want scary? Try Edward Cullen. *shudder*

13. What’s your favorite Urban Legend? 
My favorite urban legend is known as The Boyfriend’s Death. There is the girl, and the boy, and the car has run out of gas. He tells her to wait in the car while he goes for gas, and that for no reason is she to get out of the car, no matter what. Nice guy, right? Stay safe in the car. Well, she waits for him to return. And she waits. And she waits. In some of the legends, she’s huddled under a blanket so no one will see her, again for her safety. Finally, she hears a scratch-scratch-scratch (or in some versions, a tap-tap-tap) that just doesn’t stop. It’s annoying, her boyfriend is late, and dawn is not far off. Depending on the version you read (the first is my favorite), she gets fed up with waiting and gets out of the car, determined to break off the stupid branch is scratch-scratch-scratching at the roof. When she gets out, the first thing she sees is the gas can, sitting alone and still capped next to the car. She slowly turns… And sees her boyfriend hanging upside down from the tree with his throat slit. The scratch-scratch-scratch was his fingernails dragging along the roof of the car. The second version has her coming out from under the blanket when a sheriff calls out to her. He tells her to go to his car and not look back, under any circumstances. But curiosity gets the better of her, and she turns, only to find that her boyfriend’s severed head is stuck to the car’s antenna. The tap-tap-tap was the sound of his blood hitting the hood of the car

Shadow of the Wolf

Heart's Desire Book 1

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Length: Novel

 Blurb:

Strike a match, light the candle…and fall into the spell. Christopher Beckett is from an ancient line of wizards, but with one aspect that sets him apart. His wolf. Right now that wolf is howling for a mate. Knowing it’s only a matter of time before the wolf’s needs override everything else in his life, Chris casts the spell all the Becketts have used to call their mates to them. His wish list is short: She must be of a lineage at least as old as his own. And she must accept his wolf. When his mate appears, he realizes his list should have been one item longer. Alannah Evans, a powerful witch of the Evans Coven, has no problem with Chris’s wolf. It's the wizard part that sticks in her magical craw. Witches and wizards have always been at odds, so by rights, she and Chris shouldn’t be striking sparks of attraction this bright. But Chris will not be denied, and gradually she finds herself trusting him—then falling into the fire of desire. When it becomes clear an old enemy has targeted them both for death, Chris charges into a duel that could cost him his life. Or worse: Lana. Warning: This novel contains explicit sex, graphic language, magic, mayhem, and a wet, naked wolf shifter bearing hot chocolate. Mmm… chocolate. a Rafflecopter giveaway a Rafflecopter giveaway a Rafflecopter giveaway

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