Jude Knight joins us with facts about All Hallow’s Eve (which we now know as Halloween), and the influence it has on the new Bluestocking Belles collection, Moonlight Madness, a set of independent stories, all set around the end of October.
Samhain, a Celtic festival whose name meant “The End of Summer” once fell on November 1st. In pre-Christian times, it was celebrated as the end of one year and the beginning of the next, and the Celts believed that it was a time during which the veil between this world, the next, and fairy realms became thin.
In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III moved All Saints Day to November 1st to help either wipe out pagan festivals or “baptize” them.
All Saints Day is a religious feast day in the Catholic–and later the Anglican–church dedicated to all the saints in heaven, known and unknown, that did not otherwise have a feast day to celebrate their lives. The following day is All Soul’s Day, when Catholic’s remember the souls in Purgatory—saved, but not yet in Heaven.
Traditions such as the Samhain bonfire, lit the night before the feast, continued, especially in Scotland and Ireland where the Celtic tradition was strong. It was them who took the Halloween tradition to the United States, where it has become a much beloved secular celebration of life.
In Regency England, it was largely a religious festival, with few of the trappings we associate with Halloween today. Which has not stopped our nine writers from writing about what might happen when the veil thins.
About One Story
Moonlight Becomes You in Moonlight Madness
Hester Williamson doesn’t want to be at this house party. She barely knows anybody, and now, she is seeing things. A man. The ghost of a man, for he appears in rooms without the bother of opening doors, she can see furniture and walls through him, and no one else can see him.
Barnabus Radcliffe seems to be a ghost, though he doesn’t remember dying. Still, why else would he be inaudible, unable to grasp or lift objects, and invisible to everyone except Miss Williamson. And why does he is he certain he is alive somewhere, and that time is running out?
About the Book: Moonlight Madness
When the year grows colder and the veil between worlds grows thin—or so they say—comes the time for stories to make you shiver. The Bluestocking Belles bring ghosts, and ghoulies, and spirits of all kinds, each leading to love, the greatest madness of all.
Jude Knight – Moonlight Becomes You in which a lady sees, but cannot hear, a ghost who attempts to warn her about a man who will die if she doesn’t find him soon.
Alina K. Field – The Duke, the Diamond, and the Ghastly Ghoul in which a house party at a haunted abbey brings together a duke, a ghost-hunting lady, and two ghosts determined to right old wrongs.
Aileen Fish – Mad about the Marquess in which a lady known for communing with the dead is forced to bring unwanted messages to the marquess next door from his dead father.
Rue Allyn – True Love’s Kiss in which a hunter seeking his kidnapped son in the forest stumbles upon a fairy with a similar mission. Together they may succeed if they stop squabbling.
Caroline Warfield – Not Again, Harry in which a lady takes shelter in a creepy old house only to find haunting, prowlers, strange artifacts, and a man from her past. A wish-granting mouse complicates it all.
Sherry Ewing – Finding My Way To You in which a ghost meets a determined lady who leaps at a chance to alter his past in spite of his efforts to convince her to leave the past where it belongs.
Barbara Monajem – The Haunted Hoyden in which two friendly ghosts help a lady to rescue a handsome, wounded man—who proves to be just what she needs to escape a dastardly plot.
Elizabeth Donne – Always With You in which a man pressed-ganged into service in the Royal Navy promises his wife he will come back to her. Whether it’s in this life or the next remains to be seen.
Buy your copy of Moonlight Madness at the special preorder price. Release date is October 15th. https://books2read.com/u/4Dwnjr
