***The Starry-Eyed Revue***: thrills and chills

I just love this time of year: the turning of the leaves, the smells, the chill in the air, but most of all, the thrill of Halloween! The ladies over at The Midnight Garden must feel the same way because they're celebrating by hosting this awesome Halloween Thrills and Chills Event. This promotion features intriguing guest posts and interviews from three Disney-Hyperion authors releasing some very spooky tales this year: Hillary Monahan, author of Mary: The Summoning; Jonathan Stroud, author of the Lockwood & Co. series; and Laurie Stolarz, author of Welcome to the Dark House.

I just love all of the scary reads at our disposal these days. I don't enjoy being scared out of my mind as much as I used to, but there's just something so exhilarating about things that go bump in the night...something that keeps me reading into the wee hours of the night, with the blanket tucked up under my chin and all the lights on, lol. And in that vein, author Hillary Monahan is providing a deeper look into the setting of her eerie YA debut for us today. Check out a little about the book and then read further for the author's guest post and a giveaway featuring all four books from these authors!

MARY: THE SUMMONING

By Hillary Monahan

In stores now!!!

Order Mary: The Summoning: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound | The Book Depository
Here's the blurb:

There is a right way and a wrong way to summon her.

Jess had done the research. Success requires precision: a dark room, a mirror, a candle, salt, and four teenage girls. Each of them--Jess, Shauna, Kitty, and Anna--must link hands, follow the rules . . . and never let go.

A thrilling fear spins around the room the first time Jess calls her name: "Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. BLOODY MARY." A ripple of terror follows when a shadowy silhouette emerges through the fog, a specter trapped behind the mirror.

Once is not enough, though--at least not for Jess. Mary is called again. And again. But when their summoning circle is broken, Bloody Mary slips through the glass with a taste for revenge on her lips. As the girls struggle to escape Mary's wrath, loyalties are questioned, friendships are torn apart, and lives are forever altered.

A haunting trail of clues leads Shauna on a desperate search to uncover the legacy of Mary Worth. What she finds will change everything, but will it be enough to stop Mary--and Jess--before it's too late?

Into the Spooky Swamp Setting of MARY: THE SUMMONING
By Hillary Monahan

Let's talk swamp. Hockomock Swamp to be exact, because that's where I put Bloody Mary Worth's hometown of Solomon's Folly. In Wampanoag, Hockomock means "where spirits dwell." It's appropriate considering how much ghost activity is attributed to these 17,000 acres of wetlands in Southeastern Massachusetts. Women in white, phantom fogs, unexplained lights—if you're from the area, you've heard a tale or two about the Hockomock.

Its lurid reputation makes it perfect story fodder.

The terrain is miserable—dense undergrowth, brambles galore, and lots and lots of bog land. This is no place for adventuring unless you're good with that pesky nature thing, especially considering one of the swamp's most charming features is quick sand. But no one around here calls it that. To the locals, it's Black Betty. People have drowned in it before. People will probably drown in it again. And, if you don't succumb to the pits of sinking mud, there's always the wild dogs to contend with. They roam in packs, more coyote than not, and are more than eager to meet anyone stupid enough to go into the swamp unprepared.

Putting Solomon's Folly in the Hockomock made sense, not only because of the oppressive nature of the flora, but because of the history. The Hockomock swamp was King Philip's primary base of operations during the earliest parts of King Philips War. The Wampanoags knew how to hunt and move through the swamp. As such, the raiding parties had a period of open season on ill-prepared colonists, staging attacks across a two hundred square mile area.

Though Providence, Rhode Island had burned to the ground and the Massachusetts colonists were driven back to their major settlements, the war all but ended a year later when King Philip—AKA King Metacomet—was shot and killed. His corpse was beheaded, his body drawn and quartered as per English tradition at the time. For twenty years his skull was displayed in Plymouth as a warning against any further Native American insurgence.

Thirty-six hundred people died during King Philip's War, a good bulk of them in or near the swamp. Legend was bound to pop up with that much concentrated death and destruction. Along with the aforementioned ghost claims, there are rumors of Native American curses involving Thunder Birds—eagle-like birds of vengeance that wreak havoc on any foolish enough to cross them. Messy deaths in spectral talons doesn't sound like a fun way to go.

Of course, there's also that whole bit about the marauding Sasquatch population living in the swamp, but I'm not going to go into that too much, if for no other reason than it evokes images of this, and that sort of ruins the mood:

About the author:

Hillary Monahan is Eva Darrows is also an international woman of mystery. Holed up in Massachusetts with three smelly basset hounds, she writes funny, creepy things for fun and profit.

Find Hillary:

Website | Twitter | Goodreads

Photographs are courtesy of the author. Review and giveaway copies courtesy of Disney-Hyperion.

Ooooooh, creepy! This is definitely one to read with the lights ON, folks. :) Thunder Birds and Sasquatches? As if the swamp wasn't scary enough on its own! And yet...I kind of want to visit it for myself.

Win a Thrills and Chills box of horror! Includes copies of the following new releases:

Mary: The Summoning

The Screaming Staircase

The Whispering Skull

Welcome to the Dark House

The box will be delivered just in time for spooky Halloween reading. Open to US and Canadian residents, see complete rules on entry form.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to check out the rest of the blog tour, featuring guest posts, interviews, giveaways, and more!

Thrills and Chills: Halloween Event Tour with Jonathan Stroud, Hillary Monahan, and Laurie Stolarz

Wednesday, October 1   The Midnight Garden        5 Questions with Jonathan Stroud
Thursday, October 2       The Starry-Eyed Revue    Into the Spooky Swamp Setting of Mary: The Summoning
Friday, October 3            Supernatural Snark           Rules for Surviving a House of Horrors (guest post by Laurie Stolarz)

Monday, October 6          Xpresso Reads                Deleted Scene from Mary: The Summoning
Tuesday, October 7         Love is Not a Triangle      5 Questions with Laurie Stolarz
Wednesday, October 8    For the Love of Words     10 Great Horror Films with Jonathan Stroud
Thursday, October 9        Winterhaven Books         How I Became a Horror Fan (guest post with Hillary Monahan)
Friday, October 10           YA Romantics                  Quiz: What Dark House Character Are You?

Monday, October 13         My Friends Are Fiction   Fashion Accessories for Ghosthunters (guest post by Jonathan Stroud)
Tuesday, October 14        The Flyleaf Review         5 Questions with Hillary Monahan
Wednesday, October 15   Books with Bite               Top 10 Items to Survive The Dark House Amusement Park
Thursday, October 16       The Social Potato           A Tour of Jonathan Stroud's Writing Space

Thanks for checking out this spooky post from author Hillary Monahan! I hope your interest in Mary:The Summoning has been piqued and that you're ready to give all of these creepy tales a try!