Guest Post & Giveaway: Abigail Roux

Thanks for joining us on the Riptide Publishing First Anniversary Blog Hop Bash! All month long, we’re bringing you guest posts and interviews from your favorite authors, artists, and Riptide staff. As a thank you for helping us celebrate, we’re also giving away $10 in Riptide store credit to one lucky commenter at every stop! Simply leave a comment below by 11:59pm on Sunday, November 4th to enter. Be sure to check out our complete tour schedule to find out where else you can enter to win—one Grand Prize winner drawn from commenters at all the stops will also win a Kindle that we’ll load with every book we publish in 2013!

 Plus, check out our anniversary sale—All October long, backlist titles are 15%-50% off! Today, we have a special Halloween post from Abigail Roux, author of The Gravedigger’s Brawl and the Cut & Run series.

Going All Out for Halloween 

by Abigail Roux

October has always been my favorite time of year. The encroaching chill in the air, the changing colors, the creepiness of Halloween looming at the end of the month. My daughter’s birthday. The World Series and high school State playoffs, but we’ll not talk about either here.

But I’ll be honest, the spooky Halloween vibe of October is my favorite thing ever. I love people that love Halloween. I love to drive by a house that has gone all out to decorate. Graveyard by the driveway, cobwebs in the windows (mine are legit because I’m not touching those spider nests), flashing eyeball lights in the bushes. I remember trick-or-treating as a child and walking past a scarecrow on a porch that reached out and grabbed me, and it was awesome! That guy sat there all night with straw stuck up in his collar, all because he loved the spirit of the season. That’s dedication.

I love people who will dress up and don’t care if others think they’re idiots. Come to my daughter’s birthday party in a cow suit? I’ll love you forever. Have a very large dog that likes to jump the fence and chase people? Put him in a superman cape. Itty bitty baby born in October? Bring her home in a pumpkin suit!

I always swore I’d be that house when I got older. I’d be that kickass adult who dressed up just to make Halloween a little more magical for a neighborhood of kids. My American Bulldog really did wear a superman cape one year, and my baby girl did come home from the hospital in a pumpkin outfit. But my house is in the middle of nowhere, so I don’t get trick-or-treaters. My knee and shoulders have gone haywire, so I can’t dress up and be the life of any party.

For the last few years, the only way for me to get into the spirit of my most favorite time of year was to sit and watch Ghost Hunters in the middle of the night, or to write. I chose to write. I tried to capture that undefinable essence that hangs in the air as Fall descends, the mixture of vintage for the past and unknown for the future. I wrote a ghost story called Seeing Is Believing. It was short, barely long enough to put in an anthology, and I wrote it all in one day.

It was my version of trick-or-treat, and the next year I wanted to do it again. Only this time, the story was longer. It was deeper, and it managed to catch that eerie mixture of vintage and creepy. It was fun like someone sitting in a scarecrow costume, but it was also scary like the feeling you get when that scarecrow grabs you. It took about five years for me to work The Gravedigger’s Brawl into something worth publishing, but I’m glad it made itself into a Halloween treat. I’m finally able to share that mixture of anticipation, fear, and utter unholy glee the month of October always manages to instill in me.

Dr. Wyatt Case is never happier than when he’s walking the halls of his history museum. Playing wingman for his best friend at Gravedigger’s Tavern throws him way out of his comfort zone, but not as much as the eccentric man behind the bar, Ash Lucroix. Ash is everything Wyatt doesn’t understand: exuberant, quirky, and elbow deep in a Gaslight lifestyle that weaves history into everyday life. He coordinates his suspenders with his tongue rings. Within hours, Wyatt and Ash are hooked.

But strange things are afoot at Gravedigger’s, and after a knock to the head, Ash starts seeing things that can’t be explained by old appliances or faulty wiring. Soon everyone at Gravedigger’s is wondering if they’re seeing ghosts, or just going crazy. The answer to that question could end more than just Wyatt and Ash’s fragile relationship—it might also end their lives.

Buy link: http://www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/gravedigger’s-brawl

Bio: Abigail Roux was born and raised in North Carolina. A past volleyball star who specializes in sarcasm and painful historical accuracy, she currently spends her time coaching high school volleyball and investigating the mysteries of single motherhood. Any spare time is spent living and dying with every Atlanta Braves and Carolina Panthers game of the year. Abigail has a daughter, Little Roux, who is the light of her life, a boxer, four rescued cats who play an ongoing live-action variation of Call of Duty throughout the house, a certifiable extended family down the road, and a cast of thousands in her head. To learn more about Abigail, please visit http://www.abigailroux.com