Fuzzballs et al, in my ongoing effort to help new authors (or established authors, for that matter), I’d like to introduce you to Sable Hunter, who is celebrating the release of her book, Burning Love, with a fascinating post about spirits.

Please welcome Sable to Warm Fuzzies!

Karen

Blurb:

Beau’s passion burns hot for Harley Montoya. When he discovers that the woman who has enflamed his libido is the girl he fell in love with so long ago in a runaway shelter, he is overcome with joy. But Harley – or Nada as he knew her – has been burned by tragedy. They both live lives full of adventure. He builds custom weaponry and owns a reptile preserve, and she is an EOD expert – Harley defuses bombs for a living. But nothing is more explosive than the love they share.

Beau is determined to show Harley that he is worthy of her trust and that he is willing to protect her from anything that would cause her harm. But Harley has a mad-man on her trail and she can’t walk away from her responsibilities. Bombs, alligators, haunted plantations and Louisiana lore spice up their life, and danger and ghosts from their past threatens to tear them apart – but nothing can put out the white-hot flames of their Burning Love. 

EXCERPT – BURNING LOVE

I was born in New Orleans.  To me, the supernatural is entirely normal.  I have been known to attend Mass in the morning and make a mojo bag for luck at the casino in the afternoon.  As I have written in past blogs, I ghost hunt for a hobby.  I have been in more cemeteries than a country undertaker – except I go at night – usually.  However the longer I ghost hunted the more I discovered that the time of day really had no bearing on what I could capture through the camera lens.  It was in broad open daylight when I caught a full body apparition at the battlefield at Vicksburg, MS.

One of my favorite places to go spelunking for spirits is the grand old plantations of Louisiana and Mississippi.   In Burning Love and its sequel, Forget Me Never, I have included a few tales of the paranormal hauntings in these houses that have stood since pre-civil war days.

I was privileged to stay at the Myrtles plantation in St. Francisville Louisiana.  The Myrtles is reputed to be one of the most haunted places in the country.  The spirit of a mulatto servant who was killed by the other slaves for poisoning the lady of the house and her children by baking a cake laced with oleander leaves is the main spirit in residence.  The slave woman had been a trusted servant but was caught eavesdropping.  She had her ear cut off for her sin and had been banished to the field where before she had been a house slave, considerably easier work.  To get back in good graces, she intended to make the family sick and then nurse them back to health.  But her plan backfired when she used a bit too much oleander and they all died.

Over the years, she has been photographed by one of the outbuildings – just standing and looking down at the ground.  The children have been photographed on the roof and many guests of the B&B have reported seeing or hearing the children, sometimes even feel them bouncing on the bed where they are trying to sleep.

Well I have to tell you, when I visited there – even though I took picture after picture – I got nothing.  Maybe a few orbs, but even those were iffy.  I did hear a few footsteps during the night, but that could have been another guest, most probably.  So, I was a bit disappointed.  But then I traveled to the Linden Plantation in Natchez, MS and it was a completely different story.  It has reported hauntings, but not the incredible story of the Myrtles.  In fact, I don’t remember what the reported hauntings were supposed to be.  But I will never forget what happened to me.

I enjoyed the ambiance – the history – the food.  But, who was I kidding?  I was there to ghost hunt.  So when night fell, I took photos, filmed in night vision and used my digital recorder to try and preserve the whispering voices of the dead.  Picture me – I tromped around in the dark in my nightclothes, roaming around the grounds just randomly taking pictures.  I worked my way to the front door which is beautiful, an arched double door that served as the model for Gone With The Wind’s Tara.  There was a huge camellia bush in full bloom and truthfully – I wasn’t looking closely at what was in the viewfinder – I just snapped picture after picture.  I was anxious to get up to the comfort of my room to gaze at them on my computer where I could enlarge them and see what I had captured.  It always made me feel like a child hunting Easter Eggs – except I was hunting ghosts.

After making a complete circuit and taking hundreds of shots, I went back upstairs.  There were a few orbs – there always are – and some of them are dust and some of them aren’t.  If they give off their own light they are real.  There are some other characteristics real orbs have but I won’t bore you here.  I have a theory about orbs – what they are – I think they are spirits, but why they look the way they do – I can’t explain.

As I was going through the photos, I came upon one that took my breath away.  Next to that beautiful front door stood a man – a see-through, opalescent colored man.  I could see his features, his lamb chop side burns and his high collar.  I stared and stared and then I went to the next photo that I had taken only seconds later.  It showed the body of the man and it was folding up into one of those balls of light, leaving wispy trails – it was utterly magnificent.  And served as proof – to me – that these orbs that I just nonchalantly passed over were spirits in their traveling mode.  I don’t understand it, nobody does – and we won’t until we are an orb or spirit ourselves.  Frankly, I’m sorta looking forward to it.  I have no desire to sit on a cloud and play a harp for eternity (or roast), I would rather whisk around as an orb and appear to people in their camera lenses and say BOO!

I am visiting some of these plantations this week in preparation for the second in my Cajun Spice series.  But below is an excerpt from Burning Love when Harley meets the spirits of her old plantation house – Willowbend.

Thank you for reading.  Please visit me at sablehunter.com or email me at sablehunter@rocketmail.com  I answer any and every email.

Burning Love is available at Amazon.com.

Thanks,

Sable