13 Horror Story Bundle Is Published

Thanks to everyone who voted in my recent cover poll. As you can see below, I chose Cover #2. Not only did it get more votes, but I liked that it had a certain "Aztec" look to it. There's a story in this ebook that has a definite Aztec connection, so the cover art seemed very appropriate.
"13 Horror Story Bundle" is larger than my previous horror collections, and I think horror fans will definitely enjoy it. Some of these tales are on the long side, but that just gave me more room to sink my teeth (or should I say fangs?) into the story.
I know some of my fans think it's weird that I can write historical fiction like "Rose Of Skibbereen" and then switch gears and write about ghosts and vampires. That's just how my mind works, I guess. I just like creating stories, and some of them are romantic and sentimental, but others happen to be on the scary side. As long as it's a good story, I'm happy.
A long time ago, on the "American Bandstand" program, when the host would ask the teenagers to vote on the latest rock 'n roll songs, many of them would say, "I like it, because it's got a good beat." Well, I feel that way about literature. The story is what counts, like the beat in a good rock song. If you tell a good story, it doesn't matter if it's about two Irish lovers in 19th century Philadelphia or a monster in a coffee shop in present day New York -- most people will respond to it.
I hope you like this collection. And for the people who would like me to get back to "Rose Of Skibbereen", don't worry -- I'm going to work on the next book in the series now.

I Need Your Help Again

Hello readers:

I'd like your help in picking a cover for my next ebook. I did this a few months ago with one of my "Rose Of Skibbereen" books and it helped me to decide between two well-designed covers. This time I need help with cover designs for a new horror ebook. It's going to be called "13 Horror Story Bundle" and it's going to have a combination of new and old horror stories by me. I had a great time putting this collection together, and I want to publish it soon. The cover is important, of course, and I'd like to pick one that really grabs potential readers.
I'm going to run a poll, where you can tell me which cover you like best. It will be in the right column of this page. Please weigh in, let me know which one you like.
The one that gets the most votes is the design I'll use.
Cover 1:

Cover 2:

The Stories Are The Same

Many readers know that I based my “Rose Of Skibbereen” series of novels on some family history research, although I embellished the bare facts quite a bit. I got obsessed with finding out the truth about my great-grandfather Peter O’Farrell’s life and although I never did find out everything about him (like where he came from in Ireland), I found enough to quell my obsession for a time. 

Once the genealogy bug bites you, though, you’re never completely free of the desire to learn more of the story of your family’s past. My project now is to research a different part of my family tree, and I got a shock last week when I logged on to Ancestry.com and saw a picture of my mother’s maternal grandmother in someone else’s family tree. Ancestry sends you a link to another family tree if there’s a connection to your tree, and it’s a great help to your research efforts. 

Anyway, this person not only posted pictures from my great-grandmother’s family, she also had a short essay about my great-grandparents that sounded like it could have been written by me. You see, I’m always interested more in the stories than just the bare facts of genealogy, and my mother told me stories about her family that I always remembered. Like, that her great-grandparents were of two religious denominations: Baptist and Roman Catholic. She said that the Baptist father would not allow newspaper reading on Sundays, and he was also opposed to dancing and card playing. He did like ice cream, however, and he and his wife went out for ice cream every night in the summer. 

Those kind of details had to come from someone with a strong connection to the family! I dashed off an email immediately, and sat back and waited. 

And waited. I’ve had no answer yet, but maybe the person just hasn’t checked their email for a while. I do hope they check it soon, because I’m dying of curiosity.

I’ll let you know what happens.