An Entangled Halloween with Melanie Card and Ward Against Death Giveaway

Thank you Roxanne for inviting me to your blog today. I’m excited to be here. The theme is Halloween and I spent a long drive home contemplating what I’d write. Halloween means a lot of things to me: candy, spooky stories, and dress up, to name a few, but I think the thing I love the most about it is the mood. I’m not talking horror movies and gore—I’m not really a big fan of that, I tend to scare easily—I’m talking about the sense of dark mystery.

The car ride home, alone, in the dark, was what sparked this. The day had been warm, the last dying burst of summer. With a beautiful clear sky the evening’s chill had nothing to stop it from sweeping in as soon as twilight fell and fog now sat, coiled, in the low-lying areas of the country road. It curled up from the ditches on either side, slithering ethereal tendril across the asphalt that caught in my headlight and tore apart as I passed through.

The light from the crescent moon cast deep shadows among the countryside. Fields of yet-to-be harvested corn stood sentinel to my left, tall enough to hide a man or monster. Trees to my right reached naked branches toward them. If I was on foot, perhaps on horseback (in my writing time period of choice—faux Renaissance), I’d feel the bite of the wind, carrying the promise of winter only a month or so away. The branches would creak, the dying leaves scratching and hissing against each other. The corn would also rattle, the dead dry stalking standing only because they haven’t realized their season was over.

In this darkness and the dry rattle of death yet unrealized hide those things we don’t want to acknowledge but can’t deny. Evil, maliciousness, struggle, torment, and the inevitable end. They carry with them questions we can’t answer or, even worse, answers we fear. And just as I prefer music in a minor key, I’m drawn to these questions, to the sense of heavy darkness and what lies beyond.

The road sweeps up and around a curve and cutting through the fog and the darkness is a glimmer of warm light. It’s small but certain. A modest beacon on a white house at the end of a long laneway offering welcome and the promise that good lies within the deepest night.

I suppose this reveals I’m a romantic at heart. Even on the darkest night, with the darkest monsters watching, there is hope—this hope is one of the themes I write over and over again. This little anecdote certainly shows how susceptible I am to mood and imagery. It probably means I shouldn’t be taking the back roads home after dark once fall hits.

Don’t get me wrong, I love bright sunny images and moods, too. But there’s just something about a foggy Halloween night that excites the storyteller in me.

Thanks again Roxanne for having me today.

Tell me readers- Do you have a favorite image or mood?


Title: Ward Against Death
Author: Melanie Card
Genre: New Adult/Upper YA Fantasy
Length: Novel – 285 pgs
Release Date: August 2, 2011
ePub ISBN: 978-1-937044-08-4
Print ISBN: 978-1-937044-09-1

Twenty-year-old Ward de’Ath expected this to be a simple job—bring a nobleman’s daughter back from the dead for fifteen minutes, let her family say good-bye, and launch his fledgling career as a necromancer. Goddess knows he can’t be a surgeon—the Quayestri already branded him a criminal for trying—so bringing people back from the dead it is.

But when Ward wakes the beautiful Celia Carlyle, he gets more than he bargained for. Insistent that she’s been murdered, Celia begs Ward to keep her alive and help her find justice. By the time she drags him out her bedroom window and into the sewers, Ward can’t bring himself to break his damned physician’s Oath and desert her.

However, nothing is as it seems—including Celia. One second, she’s treating Ward like sewage, the next she’s kissing him. And for a nobleman’s daughter, she sure has a lot of enemies. If he could just convince his heart to give up on the infuriating beauty, he might get out of this alive…


Get your copy of Ward Against Death at:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books On Board | Diesel | iTunes | The Book Depository

About the Author

Melanie has always been drawn to story telling and can't remember a time when
she wasn’t creating a story in her head. Her early stories were adventures with
fairies and dragons and sword swinging princesses.

Today she continues to spin tales of magic in lands near and far, while her cat sits
on the edge of her desk and supervises. When she’s not writing, you can find her
pretending to be other people with her local community theatre groups.

Connect with Melanie:

Facebook | Twitter @melaniecard | Goodreads | MelanieCard.com

Answer Melanie's question: Do you have a favorite image or mood?

To be entered to win an ecopy of Ward Against Death

Just leave a comment with your email