Halloween Hearts is an anthology of true love & spooky romance; twelve tales of cursed love, monstrous meet-cutes, dark and stormy witchcraft, and happily ever hauntings. You can get your copy just in time for Halloween (and get your name included as a supporter) by backing the project on Kickstarter.
At first, the anthology was supposed to be sweet. Or at least sweeter. Very much cozy. Very much closer to true romance.
This is the story that changed it all.
As DeAnna wrote on a post about Halloween Hearts, “it’s the tale of a museum filled with haunted objects and broken souls, collected by a man who refuses to change a single one.”
I can’t argue with that, but boy-howdy does it go on from there. The problem, you see, is that while this is 100% a love story (on so many levels), it is not a classical romance. This means that when I finished reading it, I was both energized and despondent. I adored the story, but Brigid and I had agreed to our guidelines, and the guidelines said “romance.” I proceeded to use a good half hour to think about ways I could suggest changing the story to fit the guidelines—because I knew, just knew, that Brigid and I couldn’t take it otherwise.
Alas, there was no way to alter it. At least no way I could see. Not without breaking that thing at its core that made me love it.
And Brigid agreed. So, sadly, we set “The Dead Room” aside.
But it kept boiling back up.
We both loved this story, and when it came down to deciding to actually cut it, we just couldn’t do it. So, since we couldn’t make it fit a romance anthology, we chose, instead, to change the slant of the anthology.
It was, I think you’ll agree, completely worth it.
Let DeAnna Knippling tell you the backstory to “The Dead Room.”