BOO! Happy Halloween Treats!

Today's the spookiest of days so to help with the enjoyment (and be a little more creative than bite-sized chocolate bars and mini bags of potato chips) I thought I'd post a few fun recipes that kids - and adults - can love.

In the craziness of getting your ghosties ready for trick or treating, something make ahead is a real plus. And your kids will probably love chili - especially when you serve it with Breadstick Bones.

CHILI

Get out your crock pot and mix together the following:

2 (16) oz cans kidney beans, drained
2 (14) oz cans diced tomatoes
2 lbs ground beef, browned and drained
1 large onion
1 green pepper
1 red pepper

1 can kernel corn
2 tablespoons minced garlic
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 tbsp taco seasoning
2 teaspoons Tabasco

Simmer on low all day or on high for the afternoon.

The easiest way to make the breadsticks is to buy the premade ones from your grocery freezer section. Peel the dough on the marks and roll out into 12 inch strips. Then tie a loose knot at each end and bake according to directions!

For dessert, why not freak out the little beasts with some Witches Finger Cookies? A variation of almond fingers, they're fairly easy and sufficiently spooky.

1 cup (250 mL) butter, softened

1 cup (250 mL) icing sugar

1 egg

1 tsp (5 mL) almond extract

1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla

2-3/4 cups (675 mL) all-purpose flour

1 tsp (5 mL) baking powder

1 tsp (5 mL) salt

3/4 cup (175 mL) whole blanched almonds

1 tube (19 g) red decorator gel (blood for fingers)

Preparation:
In bowl, beat together butter, sugar, egg, almond extract and vanilla; beat in flour, baking powder and salt. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Working with one quarter of the dough at a time and keeping remaining dough refrigerated, roll heaping teaspoonful (5 mL) of dough into finger shape for each cookie.

Press almond firmly into 1end for nail. Squeeze in centre to create knuckle shape; using paring knife, make slashes in several places to form knuckle.

Place on lightly greased baking sheets; bake in 325°F (160°C) oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until pale golden. Let cool for 3 minutes. Lift up almond; squeeze red decorator gel onto nail bed and press almond back into place, so gel oozes out from underneath. Remove from baking sheets; let cool on racks. Repeat with remaining dough.

And after the wee goblins are in bed and the doorbell has stopped ringing, kick back and relax with some well earned Butterbeer a la Harry Potter - the adult version.

BUTTERBEER

Ingredients:1 cup butterscotch schnapps

7 cups cream soda (2 liter bottle)

Carefully mix just before serving, adding the schnapps to the soda then stirring gently to mix well, or the fizz will dissipate too soon.

Happy Halloween!

Donna's latest book celebrates another season - Christmas. Montana, Mistletoe, Marriage hits store shelves in November, just in time for Christmas shopping!

Must Watch Friday: Wuthering Heights

Michelle Styles looks at the latest adaptation of Wuthering Heights. Does it match the sheer power of the novel?

Once upon a time, when I was about six, my first grade teacher started to read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl to the class. I loved the book but Mrs Hemming read it far too slowly. My mother bought me the book and it became the first chapter book that I ever read and really turned me on to reading. When the movie Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory came out several years later, I could not wait to see it. However, as I watched it, I wept bitter tears. The movie had missed the essential point of the book – Charlie never does anything wrong. He is a good kid.

And thus began my disillusionment with movie adaptations or television. In my humble opinion, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the book offers a far richer experience than the movie.
Now that I am grown, I can divorce my pleasure in a book from my pleasure in an adaptation. An adapatation stands or falls on its own merit, not its protrayal of the book.
I was forcibly reminded of this recently when I watched the latest ITV adaptation of Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights is a novel which taunts movie makers. No adaptation that I have seen has ever quite managed to capture the raw power of Emily Bronte’s novel. And I believe you can tell those people who have only seen an adaptation versus those people who have read the novel. Wuthering Heights is not a romance as protrayed in the classic 1939 version with Laurence Olivier as Heathcliffe and David Niven as Edgar Linton, but a novel about the destructive power of love and obsession. It scandalised a nation when So when I came to watch the latest television adaptation, I emptied my mind and tried to enjoy it for its own sake.

Rising star Tom Hardy played a credible and ultimately ruggedly sexy Heathcliffe but Charlotte Riley was a bit weak as Cathy. She somehow lacked the strength that is needed to play the part. And it was difficult to see what Cathy saw in Edgar Linton (Andrew Lincoln) and why she decided to marry him. And why her sense of betrayal at Heathcliffe leaving is so great, particularly when he decides to return after just after she marries. Equally the adaptation does not show why the whole cycle of revenge was so important to both men and defined them both. For example, Edgar Linton is not as kindly as he makes out and even though he knows that his sister has been ruined by Heathcliffe, he turns his back on her. But in this adaptation, it came as being somehow out of character and Lincoln’s portrayal of Edgar Linton did not quite have the complexity needed. The adaptation missed somehow.

A few weeks later, I went to Haworth and the Bronte Parsonage. There they had an exhibition of the costumes with an explanation of what the designer had done. For example, when Cathy is wild on the moors with her illicit love for Heathcliffe, she wears bright colours and then as she becomes tamed by the Lintons, she wears the pale shades. So that when she marries Linton she is basically in white. After Heathcliffe returns, now a wealthy man, colour is once again added to Cathy’s wardrobe as she struggles between her old love of the moors and her new respectability. seeing the exhibition, I wondered if I had not given the adaptation enough of a chance. Was it better than I thought?
>At my daughter’s entreaties, I purchased the dvd and watched again. I enjoyed it far more the second time. Tom Hardy is an excellent actor and he does bring a complexity to his portrayal. There is a certain power to his acting and you do really feel for Heathcliffe. He becomes a tortured soul who loves and loses and ultimately loses his mind. I also enjoyed Rosalind Halstead who played Isabella Linton who becomes trapped in the terrible triangle and is seduced by Heathcliffe. I actually found myself hoping that Heathcliffe would see sense and settle down with Isabella...alas it was not to be. It is good entertainment. But it is not my vision of Wuthering Heights.

So if you want Wuthering Heights as a romance, watch the classic black and white version. If you want to see a passable adaptation which gives several hours of entertainment, watch the Tom Hardy version. If you want to glory in the sheer raw power of gothic emotion, then read the book. Emily Bronte's vision of her book remains the most true.

Michelle Styles's next book The Viking Captive Princess is published by Harlequin Historical in December and she will admit to being more of a Mr Rochester fan than a Heathcliffe one but Tom Hardy did make a case for Heathcliffe.

What are You Reading Thursday - Ghost Stories

It's the season of ghosts and ghouls - so columnist Kate Walker takes a look at some reading that really fits with the spirit(s) of Halloween.

Is the ghost story coming back to haunt us?

It’s October 29th and that means that it’s heading up towards Halloween. In the shops, witches’ broomsticks and cauldrons, plastic bats and skulls with glowing eyes fill up the shelves and children are planning costumes they will wear to go out Trick or Treating. Halloween has origins in the ancient celtic festival known as Samhain (pronounced sow-in or sau-an) which is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end". The festival of Samhain celebrates the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darker half".

The celebration has some elements of a festival of the dead. The ancient Celts believed that the border between this world and the Otherworld became thin on Samhain, allowing spirits (both harmless and harmful) to pass through. The family's ancestors were honoured and invited home whilst harmful spirits were warded off. It is believed that the need to ward off harmful spirits led to the wearing of costumes and masks. Their purpose was to disguise oneself as a harmful spirit and thus avoid harm. In Scotland the spirits were impersonated by young men dressed in white with masked, veiled or blackened faces.

And of course at this time, everyone talks about ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night. Films like the Blair Witch Project, The Others and the new Paranormal Activity have frequently been made, keeping audiences on the edge of their seats. And programmes like Most Haunted and Living With The Dead carry out paranormal investigations in houses and ancient sites up and down the country. I’ve even been involved(indirectly) in the making of one of these when the Babe Magnet was a consultant on Derek Acorah’s Ghost Towns (Halifax).

But for a long time the real old-fashioned ghost story has been out of fashion. When I was growing up in Yorkshire - not very far from the moors where the Bronte sisters lived and where Wuthering Heights was set - I used to love to settle down on a dark winter’s night beside a fire, with the wind ‘wuthering’ around the house and curl up with a book of ghost stories. There was a big old volume on the family bookshelves – 100 Greatest Ghost Stories or something like that and I loved to lose myself in it and scare myself silly. Much to my mother’s disapproval. She had grown up in a small village in Ireland, in a house that was out in the country at the end of a long, rutted lane and she used to frown disapprovingly when she saw me with a ghost story and say ominously ‘If you knew what the dark was really like then you wouldn’t mess with things like that.’ A warning that my sisters and I never heeded, with the result that we had many sleepless nights hearing strange noises that we just couldn’t explain. (The house we lived in was built in 1870 so it was probably just the floorboards creaking.)

Many of the best – and scariest - stories in the 100 Greatest Ghost Stories book were written by the ‘master’ of antiquarian ghost tales, M. R. (Montague Rhodes ) James. I can still feel a shiver run down my spine simply at hearing the title of one of his most famous tales Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad which was made into a Ghost Story for Christmas – a great tradition that I used to love but that sadly is no longer made. By the time I was grown up and married, the ghost story seemed to have died a death. No one was publishing them – or even writing them – any more it seemed. Working as a Children’s Librarian, I found a few books in the children’s/young adult market – The Ghost Of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively and some of the books by Robert Westall went some way towards filling the gap in my reading life but there weren’t many really good supernatural stories.

The problem was that the horror genre took over from the traditional ghost story and horror isn’t what I want. I want old houses surrounded by mists, dreadful warning , things that go bump in the night and a slow creeping sense of horror – not blood and gore and special effects. The late 1980s and early 90s provided me with some great ghostly reading – Susan Hill’s two classic stories The Woman in Black ( now also on stage) and The Mist in The Mirror had that understated sense of something dark and dangerous just out of sight – and Jonathan Aycliffe’s Naomi’s Room had me sitting up late at night transfixed by a few words at the end of a chapter. Like Whistle and I’ll Come to You, ‘ It was Naomi’ still makes me shiver when I remember that Naomi was the narrator’s daughter, kidnapped and murdered at the beginning of the book. Jonathan Aycliffe is a pseudonym of Daniel Easterman who now writes thrillers.

I’ve tried James Herbert but his Haunted and other books just don’t work for me. The idea of ghosts interacting so easily with the living – and with the hero even sleeping with one of them, not realising she is in fact dead, just doesn’t work for me. So for a while I’ve had to be content with the investigative programmes and the Hauntings in Yorkshire/Lincolnshire/Dublin collections of real-life ghost sightings that my husband has published. But just recently there seems to be a revival in the ghost story as a fiction genre and as I’ve just finished my latest novel and have a change to catch up on some reading time, I’m really glad to see it. I just hope the new crop of books are better than one I tried recently – The Birthing House which had a lot of potential but, for me, became too much of the horror tale and not a ghost story.

But Sarah Waters has published The Little Stranger that is described as : A chilling and vividly rendered ghost story set in postwar Britain. Audrey Niffenegger, author of the bestselling Time Traveler’s Wife’s latest story is Her Fearful Symmetry which is set in and around Highgate Cemetery . And my son has just given me a copy of The House of Lost Souls by F G Cottam which isn’t quite a ghost story but he says he found it scary – so they will all go on my Halloween reading list.

So what about you? Do you just go Trick or Treating at Halloween of do you like to turn off the lights, light a candle, sit round the fire and tell spooky stories until you’re afraid to go to bed? Do you have any great ghost stories (fictional) that you’d recommend I try? Or maybe even a real ghost tale to tell. I’d love to know about them if you have. My mother would definitely not approve but I really do love being scared!

Kate's latest book - Kept for Her Baby - is on the bookshop shelves right now in America where it's published in Presents EXTRA. It's also out in Australia. And it's still around in the Modern Romance edition too. No ghosts, but it's getting a reputation for reducing readers to tears - so you have been warned!

Writer's Wednesday - Using Pets for Inspiration!

This Wednesday, please welcome Carla Capshaw with a post about gaining inspiration in the cuddliest of places - pets!

As an author, I'm often asked where I get my ideas for my books. It's a tricky question, because, to be honest, half the time I don't even know. As writers, I think all of us are constantly on the prowl for the next plot idea or perfect setting. And we look for, and find, inspiration everywhere. Whether it’s in the people we love or love to hate, our home or travels, our own personal experiences or the experiences of others, we catalog ideas in our head and seem to pull magic out of thin air when we need it.

When I asked a few writer friends where they found inspiration for their characters, I wasn't surprised to find many an ex-boyfriend had been killed in the most painful of ways between the covers of countless novels. One friend said she based all her heroes on her own husband. Awww... Others turned their bosses into trolls or their whiny children into good little fairies--although one friend turned her kids into orphans. Yikes!

Me? I just use my pets. You see, I love my cats. How this happened I have no idea. I'm a dog person. I enjoy the loyal sweetness of a good canine and I was always raised with at least one mutt in the house. Cats and "cat people" (code for crazy) were on a different plain altogether. On the surface, felines are snotty little beasts, I'll grant you and the saying, "Cats were once worshipped in Egypt and they've never forgotten" is perfectly apropos. But what isn't so obvious is that once you've earned a cat’s love they're so adorable, you just want to spoil them.

I found this out three years ago when my cats adopted me. At the time, they were homeless little ferals who came and sat by my garage. I told myself, "Don't feed them and they'll go away," but I was soon learning the difference between Fancy Feast and Purina. After a mere eight months of clawed arms and sitting in the grass next to their dish while they learned to trust me, I had them tucked into their little beds every night and eating out of my hand. In so many ways, my experience with them was like living a Romance novel (minus the gorgeous hero who swept me off my feet, but you hopefully get the idea. :-) From the distrustful beginning, through the tumultuous middle, I wasn't sure where things would lead until the very end when my little wild cats turned into lap cats and we decided to live happily ever after. Since then, I've used the critters shamelessly. In my debut novel, The Gladiator, which hits stores next week, I turned my fourteen-pound tiger, Oliver, into a real tiger and made him a pivotal character. In my current WIP, my once abused little girl, Onyx, has been personified in the black-haired, golden-eyed beauty of my heroine.

I have no idea how my cats will inspire me in the future, but if I'm lucky they will for a long time. How about you? Have you ever used your pets for inspiration? Did you use them as pets or people or both?

Thank you Pink Heart Society for letting me visit with you today. Happy reading.

Carla Capshaw's debut novel, The Gladiator, is available next week from Love Inspired Historical and enjoying great reviews. In January 2010, The Duke's Redemption, set in Revolutionary War-torn Charleston, SC hits stores. Currently, she's back in ancient Rome working on a sequel to The Gladiator. She hopes you'll visit her website: www.carlacapshaw.com to read excerpts of her books and come back often to learn more about her future projects.

Travel Tuesday: Under Tuscan Skies

Christina Hollis explains why for her --Tuscany is a Temptation.

I fell in love with Italy and the Italian people the first time I went there. Until then my books had been set mainly in the English countryside, with occasional jaunts across the channel to northern France. The sun and wide blue skies of Tuscany come as quite a shock to the system of people born and raised under grey English clouds. For a while we squint in the unfamiliar light, but it doesn’t take long to get into the holiday mood. Wiggling bare brown toes on sun-warmed flagstones around a beautiful pool can make anyone forget the winter blues in an instant! The place and people are so warm and welcoming I can’t resist setting romances there. My latest, The Count of Castelfino, is no exception. The great thing about writing is that you can take a place you love and make it absolutely perfect. If I don’t fancy thunderstorms, killing frosts, brambles or mosquitoes, they don’t exist in my little corner of paradise. I write them out. The sun shines all day, the birds sing and the car-free countryside spreads far and wide like a perfect picnic blanket.

Meg Imsey is determined to start her new job in the gardens at the Villa Castelfino, although the new count disapproves. Assuming he’ll keep well away, Meg goes off to the walled garden and loses herself in her work until Count Gianni lets himself into her sanctuary…

‘I never dreamed anyone would disturb me in here. The door was locked. I have the only key. How did you get in?’ she blustered, embarrassment mixed up with growing anger.
One hand in his pocket, Gianni strolled over to the old medlar tree where Meg had hung her hat and shirt. Plucking them from the branches like particularly desirable fruit, he made his way over to her. He took his time. It was painfully obvious to Meg that he was making her wait for her clothes. She wasn’t in the mood to be toyed with. As soon as he got close enough she snatched her things from his hands and pulled them on. He watched with something close to amusement. Then he drew a second key from his pocket with a flourish.
‘As I said –I live here. I have a copy of every key in the place.’
Barefoot but otherwise decent, Meg rallied.
‘That doesn’t explain why you felt the need to come in here.’
‘It wasn’t a need. It was a want. I wanted to see you, Megan.’
There was a haunting look in his dark eyes. It was so delicious she could hardly meet his gaze. Nervous that he might be able to read all sorts of things from her own expression, she looked down at the coarse wiry grass at her feet. All sorts of hope were beginning to stir deep within her…

Copyright Harlequin Mills and Boon Limited, 2009

I don’t use real people in my books, but that scene is based around a spectacular medlar tree in a real Tuscan garden. It is planted directly below a terrace, which gives spectacular views of the snowy white flowers and later the strange, wide-mouthed fruit. The brownish medlars look something like giant rose hips. They are picked while still as hard as conkers and stored on flat trays until soft and wrinkled. The overripe pulp has an odd, winy smell. When boiled up with lemon juice and sugar, then strained it makes a glorious amber jelly to serve with cold meats and salamis. It’s an acquired taste, somewhere between wine and cider but without the alcohol. I’ve found a recipe for Medlar fudge, too, but that has so many other delicious ingredients (cream, brown sugar, maple syrup etc) that I suspect they mask any medlar flavour. A pile of pancakes, some home made vanilla ice-cream and a drizzle of medlar fudge sauce sounds like a perfect pudding for those autumn nights when summer days in Tuscany seem a long, long way away.

What is the most exotic thing you’ve ever tasted? There’s a signed copy of The Count of Castelfino for the most original contribution!

When Christina Hollis isn’t writing, or thinking about writing, she divides her time between enjoying the fresh air and doing far too much home baking. Catch up with her on http://christinahollis.com and on Twitter as christinabooks

Male On Monday - Chris Meloni

Presents author Kimberly Lang is back with her current crush - Chris Meloni.


Best known as a sociopathic killer on the gritty disturbing prison drama Oz and a sex-crimes detective with a receding hairline and the un-sexy name of Elliot Stabler (at the same time, mind you)...

And yet he still managed to capture me with those blue eyes.

What is it about Chris Meloni? Is it the drool-worthy biceps? The piercing stare? The bad-boy you can just see under those suits he wears on Law and Order: SVU?

People magazine featured him in their 2006 “Sexiest Men Alive” issue, and I have to agree. Whew.

Meloni’s work on SVU has earned him both Emmy and PRISM nominations, and his time on Oz made him a gay icon, but Meloni’s acting roots are in comedy – something he still occasionally dips into with appearances in Scrubs, the Harold and Kumar movies, and the lead in the upcoming National Lampoon’s Dirty Movie.

He has an intensity that draws me in, but then he smiles and I’m totally captivated by that. He has that rough-around-the-edges vibe that makes a girl think he’d be just a little dangerous to fall in love with, but at the same time, he seems solid and trustworthy and Alpha-enough to guard you with his life (and take down the bad guy at the same time). The man has layers. Layers I’d like to peel back and explore… ahem.

In case I haven’t made it clear, I’m currently crushing on Chris Meloni.

~Sigh~
Kimberly

http://www.booksbykimberly.com/







Kimberly’s also crushing on Will Harrison, the hero of The Millionaire’s Misbehaving Mistress (Harlequin Presents, October), as well as the model on the cover…

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