Can you believe Halloween is only a few short days away? It feels like fall just started! But I have a special treat for you (no tricks!) today, something I have been working on since the end of summer.
But just in case you missed it, if you’re looking for something super cozy, you can check out some ways to have a cozy bookish fall, or how about some suggestions for a fun Halloween at home?
However you plan to celebrate, I have a brand new release to get you in the spirit! You may remember that last year I released a sugary sweet fantasy romance inspired by Hansel & Gretel (Pumpkin Spice Pie-Jinks), but this year I went in a different direction.
The inspiration for this year’s autumn release was Jack and the Beanstalk… but with a haunted pumpkin patch and ghosts and witches! I wanted to really get the spooky feel of the season this time, rather than the cozy sweetness I had with Seasons of Magic: Pumpkins & Shades book 1.
Yup, that’s right! I channeled all my spooky feels (and a few of my own fears) to create… THE PATCH!
So how about three fun facts about The Patch before I give you the blurb?
- I planted some of my own fears in this book. One is based on a story from my sister, who is super into true crime podcasts (I am not.). But basically it was about a murdered woman who turned out to have been killed by… owls. Yup. So, thanks for that, sister dear. I now have a fear of owls.
- I centered it around friendship. I really wanted this story to focus on the ways friends take care of each other and how we learn to be better friends. In the story, my main character Jack learns how she can be brave for her best friend, Lucy, who has watched over her for as long as they’ve been friends.
- I threw in some unexpected twists. Of course I can’t give them away, but Jack has to save her family’s farm. But she doesn’t do it the way she expects she would. She also encounters what she thinks is a banshee. But there is so, so much more to that story!
So there you have it: three behind-the-scenes looks at The Patch.
And now that you know those little treats, let me tell you a little more about the story.
Jack just gambled her family’s future on seeds. Too bad they only bring her a cursed pumpkin patch full of ghosts.
Jack, a shy and sensitive high schooler, is desperate to do whatever she can to save her family’s farm. Unfortunately for her, the pawn shop cons her into trading her family’s heirlooms for three old pumpkin seeds on the promise they will solve all Jack’s problems. But when the seeds sprout overnight into a haunted pumpkin patch, they bring more problems than they solve—like a hundred-year-old witch’s curse.
Hopeful she will uncover the secrets of the patch, and maybe solve the farm’s financial problems, Jack enlists her best friend Lucy’s help to investigate. But then a malevolent ghost kidnaps Lucy, and Jack learns the dark history of her home, a history steeped in betrayal and revenge. With Lucy’s life on the line, can Jack confront the spirit, break the curse, and save her friend?
Or will the witch kill them both and reign for another hundred years?
The Patch is part of a collection of standalone fairy tale novellas, Seasons of Magic, and is a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk. If you like spooky stories, autumn magic, and pumpkins, you will love Selina J. Eckert’s bone-chilling tale!
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Interested?
To dive into this haunted tale, you can purchase it on Amazon.com or at many of your favorite retailers! (If your favorite retailer isn’t there, please be patient with me. I submitted them all a week ago, but many of the retailers are slow to approve new listings right now.)
And if you have some favorite ghost stories, share them with me in the comments! Just not too scary… I am a scaredy-cat!
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Want to read my books for free? You can join my reader group to get a chance at review copies! Simply join the group and request an ARC through the units page.
Alternatively, you may occasionally get free stories by subscribing to my newsletter. Right now you can get This Cursed Light (the prequel to the This Curse series) and Queen of Mist and Fog. And don’t worry; even if you sign up just for the freebies, you are absolutely free to unsubscribe at any time for any reason!
Hope to see you online!
Selina J. Eckert 