Changeling Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nExcerpt 1:<\/p>\n
Present Day Boston Friday, 11pm<\/p>\n
Despite the cold, misty night, Laura felt optimistic and excited, like she did whenever she was about to start a great story. Demon\u2019s Grotto, the new club that had opened in a very old building, would be an amazing topic for an article.<\/p>\n
She\u2019d already heard good things about the club. The name itself was an attention grabber, and the place seemed to deserve that dark, dangerous label. She\u2019d heard rumors that it was haunted. Staff and customers alike had seen, heard, and even felt a lot of strange things since the place opened. With her keen interest in the supernatural, Laura couldn\u2019t wait to get to work. She didn\u2019t think ghosts, demons, and werewolves were real, but she liked to fantasize and she also knew that many people liked to believe. In all her years of writing about paranormal creatures, she had never actually met one and doubted she ever would. Like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, some things were meant only for entertainment. After all, you can\u2019t find proof of something that doesn\u2019t exist. Yet her job wasn\u2019t to prove anything. She was just here to tell an enticing story.<\/p>\n
Pausing outside the club, she gazed up at the old building that had once been a rich family\u2019s mansion. The current owners had kept the old style, even through renovations. The ornate building was stained sable. The front door was black with red lettering that stated the club\u2019s name and hours.<\/p>\n
Laura was about to step inside when a man of average height wearing a wrinkled gray suit approached. He had thick black hair, a square jaw, and rich brown eyes that had an almost haunted expression.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re Laura, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. Do I know you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou called the owner about coming here to write a story about the place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes. Do you work here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSure. Yeah. When I heard you wanted to spend the night here to write your story, I knew I had to talk to you first.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy? Do you mind if I take notes?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. Go ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s your name, by the way?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what do you do here, Ben?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the maintenance guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh. So you must know all about the building.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMore than I ever wanted to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo why did you want to talk to me, Ben?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSee that coffee shop across the street? Can we go there?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t we just go in the club?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ben\u2019s dark eyes shifted toward the door. He shook his head. \u201cNo, Laura. I don\u2019t feel like I can speak freely in there. If I\u2019m going to tell you everything I know, it can\u2019t be within those walls.\u201d For the first time he truly nabbed her interest.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay. Sure. We can go to the coffee shop,\u201d she said, adjusting the strap of her laptop case more comfortably on her shoulder.<\/p>\n
He headed to the coffee shop, and Laura followed. It had started raining harder, and when they stepped inside, they were both soaked. After ordering, they took their drinks to a table near the window.<\/p>\n
From there, they had a clear view of Demon\u2019s Grotto. A couple of people went in, and a few others came out. It seemed like a normal club. \u201cThat place has been bad news since the time it was built,\u201d Ben said, breaking her thoughts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was built in the early 1800s by the Damp family. Frederick Damp brought his wife and four kids over from England. Within two years of moving into the house, three kids and his wife died. One son, Raymond, survived. He married and had twin girls.<\/p>\n
When they were sixteen, one twin went crazy and killed the other. She was committed to an asylum and died there a couple of years later.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laura curled her lip. \u201cThat\u2019s terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t get any better. Before they were killed in a carriage accident, Raymond and his wife had another child, a son, Martin. He married, but poisoned his wife, and then he drank the same poison himself. They had one child, Cyril, and this is where the story really gets strange.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laura chuckled. \u201cStranger than that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ben didn\u2019t return her smile, but stared at her with those dark, haunted eyes. \u201cMuch stranger than that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Demon’s Grotto is scheduled for release this week at Changeling Press. I hope you enjoy the following excerpt. Kate Blurb: Ben wants Laura to reconsider staying overnight at Demon’s Grotto, and he has information about the club’s history that should convince her. He tells her three creepy love stories, hoping she will change her mind….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[924],"tags":[926,669,794,476,925],"class_list":["post-7548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-demons-grotto","tag-dark-fantasy","tag-erotic-horror","tag-featured","tag-paranormal-romance","tag-romantic-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7548"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7551,"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7548\/revisions\/7551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}