Author Guest Post with Randy Overbeck

All Darrell Henshaw wanted was to enjoy his honeymoon with his beautiful wife, Erin, in the charming town of Crystal River on the sunny Gulf Coast of Florida.

Welcome to one of the November 9th stops on the blog tour for Scarlet At Crystal River by Randy Overbeck with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, author guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

A New Ghost Story

Crafting a new ghost story is no simple feat for me.

When I envisioned the Haunted Shores Mysteries, I set out to create something different. I wasn’t interested in imitating the terrifying, blood-curdling ghost tales of authors like Stephen King and Dean Koontz. At the same time, I didn’t want to go the route of the whimsical, all-too- helpful ghost, the kind popular with a number of cozy authors. Instead, I wanted to create ghost stories more closely rooted to reality.

Thanks to the work of scores of ghost hunting groups across the country, we now have considerable evidence of ghostly encounters—digital photos, audio and video recordings, recordings of thermal imaging and temperature fluctuations, EMF recordings as well as a few authentic artifacts—and these are forming a more complete picture of how the spirit world interacts with the living. For my series, I wanted to craft my fictional ghosts based largely on this documented evidence…with a bit of literary license, of course. I am writing fiction here.

At the same time, I realized my fictional ghosts had to carry a certain amount of “who-hoo” to entice the reader and keep the paranormal fan engaged. Too large a dose of reality might start the reader yawning and straying too far afield from these details might stretch the credibility of my tales. I realized I’m treading a thin line here and the composition of my ghosts is critical to making the narratives of my series work.

For the first entry, BLOOD ON THE CHESAPEAKE (2019), the ghost of a large black teen intimidates my hero, teacher and coach, Darrell Henshaw, when he comes face to face with the specter in his office. The youth, a victim of a racially-motivated killing decades earlier, stalks Darrell to get him to uncover the truth about the young man’s murder. Both Darrell and reader must have been suitably scared as BLOOD became a #1 Amazon Best-Seller last month. In the second book, CRIMSON AT CAPE MAY (2020),  Darrell encounters the ghost of a bride killed on her wedding night, the bloody evidence of her gruesome murder spilling down the front of her white wedding dress. Her appearance is enough to freak Darrell, with more than sufficient “woo-hoo” and a heavy dose of the reality of the murder as well. Readers have agreed as they push CRIMSON into the Bestseller category this fall.

For the third installment, SCARLET AT CRYSTAL RIVER (2021) I wanted to pursue a slightly different path. First of all, the story carries a greater romantic theme. Darrell and his new wife, Erin are on their honeymoon, traveling to the sunny Gulf coast of Florida. Second, SCARLET is a Christmas ghost story/mystery. So I had to balance the traditional elements of my series—cold case murder mystery, eerie ghost tale in a beautiful resort location—along with touches of a Christmas story. The ghosts for this tale had to fit this ambiance.

As I was pondering this as part of my plot planning, I happen to be reviewing some family pictures during the dark days of the pandemic. I came across a photo of my grandkids laughing and playing on a playground, years earlier. The inspiration for the story sprung from that picture. What if Darrell, a man dedicated to helping children, encountered the ghosts of two murdered children during the Christmas holidays? Talk about needy kids. The pieces for the narrative fell into place. This new ghost story would feature the ghosts of two immigrant children, two kids desperate for Darrell’s help…and like that, the narrative picture of the ghosts of SCARLET coalesced. Kind of like real ghosts.

Now, I’m waiting to see if my readers like my newest representatives from the spirit world. Fingers crossed. Early responses are good.

“Scarlet at Crystal River is an eerie paranormal mystery I couldn’t stop reading. Randy Overbeck is a masterful writer of the paranormal, drawing the reader in before instilling shivers down the spine. 5+ stars.” ★★★★★—N. N. Light’s Book Heaven

About the Book

Scarlet at Crystal River
Haunted Shores Mysteries Book Three
by Randy Overbeck

Published 13 September 2021
The Wild Rose Press

Genre: Mystery
Page Count: 343
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

All Darrell Henshaw wanted was to enjoy his honeymoon with his beautiful wife, Erin, in the charming town of Crystal River on the sunny Gulf Coast of Florida. Only a pair of ghosts decide to intrude on their celebration. And not just any ghosts, the spirits of two young Latino children. Unwilling at first to derail the honeymoon for yet another ghost hunt, Darrell finally concedes when a painting of the kids comes alive, weeping and pleading for his help.

When he and Erin track down the artist, they discover the children’s family were migrant workers the next county over. But when they travel there, their questions about the kids gets their car shot up and Erin hospitalized. Torn between fear and rage, Darrell must decide how far he will go to get justice for two young children he never even knew.

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Excerpt

Darrell ran harder, finishing the loop and circling back to Erin. She was so engrossed in her paperback he managed to sneak up behind her. He leaned and in and grabbed another long kiss.

She kissed him back, smiling. “Now that’s better than a little fictional romance.” She got up and stretched her long legs.

 “You ready for some waves?” he asked.

“If you’re up to it, let’s do a mile or so on the sand first.”

“You’re on.” Darrell gave a gentlemanly wave of his hand.

“I’ll race you.”

Erin took off like a shot, and Darrell hurried after her. Since the beach was small, they covered the same ground Darrell had a few minutes earlier, passing the family sandcastle builders, another jogger, and the same strolling couples. As usual, she was quick, and he had to hustle to keep up, using some fancy footwork to sidestep sunbathers as they ran. When they got to the north end of the beach where Darrell had turned to double back, Erin headed for a little spit of land that strutted out into the water. He looked beyond and saw what she was headed for. Accelerating, he passed her.

Ahead, at the far end of the beach, a pair of young kids, he’d guess about six, sat in the sand as the waves rolled over their legs. Their small hands busied with a primitive sandcastle. One had long, brown hair tied into pigtails, and the other had a full head of brown hair, unkempt and in need of a trim. He came up to them and stopped, Erin a few seconds behind.

The kids wore street clothes, not swimsuits, but he didn’t think much about it. Then he noticed something about the young boy. His right leg was stuck out at a grotesque angle, as if it had been broken and never set. Both kids giggled at the gurgling water that rolled up around their bare feet and pooled in the makeshift moat they’d dug around their sand creation. The castle was crude, a nearly round construction with seashells sticking up like turrets. The two kids glanced up, caramel eyes wide and pleading with half smiles of white teeth.

In unison, they said, “Ayudaños?”

“Huh?” Darrell said.

“Cute castle, huh?” Erin stared at the sand and looked up at Darrell. “I wonder who made it?” Her eyes roamed around the area. “Out here on this spit of land it isn’t going to last very long.”

“Those kids—” he started, pointing to the pair. When he looked down, the sandcastle sat alone, the gulf water flowing around the construction and into the crude moat.

His glance darted out to the waves, thinking they’d abandoned their work and ran into the water, even in their street clothes, though he wondered how the boy could have run.

No girl or boy.

Oh, God! The same two kids? “You vill have two visitors.”

“What’d you say?” Erin asked, her gaze meeting his.

The ghosts. Erin hadn’t seen them!

Shit, he couldn’t tell her. Not now. Not here.

“Nothing,” he managed around the lump in his throat and glanced back down at the sand.

There at his feet, the crude sand construction they’d been working on, complete with the three blue seashells sticking out of the top, sat alone on the sand. He reached down and grabbed one of the small seashells as the prickle on his neck returned and sizzled. Then he sensed something else, something ominous. No, not ominous, malevolent. More of Natalia’s warning came back to him.

“I see a malevolence, a great danger lurking nearby.”

A big wave rushed in, rolling over their ankles and leveling the mound of sand, leaving the beach empty. As if nothing had ever been there.

“¡Ayúdaños!”

About the Author

Dr. Randy Overbeck is an award-winning educator, author and speaker. As an educator, he served children for more than three decades in a range of roles captured in his novels, from teacher and coach to principal and superintendent. His thriller, Leave No Child Behind (2012) and his recent mysteries, the Amazon No. 1 Best Seller, Blood on the Chesapeake and Crimson at Cape May have earned five star reviews and garnered national awards including “Thriller of the Year–ReadersFavorite.com, “Gold Award”—Literary Titan, “Mystery of the Year”—ReadersView.com and “Crowned Heart of Excellence”—InD’Tale Magazine. As a member of the Mystery Writers of America, Dr. Overbeck is an active member of the literary community, contributing to a writers’ critique group, serving as a mentor to emerging writers and participating in writing conferences such as Sleuthfest, Killer Nashville and the Midwest Writers Workshop. When he’s not writing or researching his next exciting novel or sharing his presentation “Things Still Go Bump in the Night,” he’s spending time with his incredible family of wife, three children (and their spouses) and seven wonderful grandchildren.

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Giveaway Alert!

Randy Overbeck will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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