Break My Heart 1,000 Times Blog Tour: Author Guest Post

I'm excited to be the next stop in the Break My Heart 1,000 Times blog tour. Today author Daniel Waters has stopped by the blog to talk to us about his favorite ghost stories. 

Here is a list of some of my favorite ghost stories and books that I found inspirational in the writing of my ghost thriller, Break My Heart 1,000 Times

1.  The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson: The perfect ghost story. I reread the novel every couple years and it never fails to give me the chills, both because of the supernatural elements and because of Jackson's skill.

2. The Shining by Stephen King: Another often-read favorite, the scenes in and outside of room 217 are some of the most terrifying ghost fiction ever.

3. Ghost Story by Peter Straub: A story as much about being haunted by ones' actions as about spooks, this is a very scary story. And I'm haunted (pleasantly) by my fannish interactions with the author. A few years ago at a convention I approached him with my well-read and tattered hardcover, and asked him to sign it, saying, "Mr. Straub, this one of the novels that inspired me to be a writer." As he signed it, he said, "Great! What have you written that I may have read?" My answer: "Um, nothing" as I was unpublished at the time.  

Then I saw him at a convention some time later, right after Generation Dead came out. I approached him again (this time with an equally well-read and tattered copy of his brilliant novel Shadowland) and related the story of our earlier meeting, now with the happy coda of "And now I'm here with my first novel!" As he signed, he graciously said “See! I knew you had it in you!"

4.  Beloved by Toni Morrison: There was a good used paperback book shop near my dormitory in college, and I worked a job where I could sneak some reading in--my shifts typically ended at 3 a.m. I read just about every paperback that got shelved in the horror section. Beloved was not one of these; it was assigned in one of my classes and was a good reminder (much like the stories above) that fiction with supernatural elements can also have inspirational literary values. Which, frankly--and this is not to say that I loved reading them any less--many of the skull and hologram covered paperbacks I read did not. Beloved is both a great literary work and a great ghost story (even though many would argue that it isn't one).

5.  Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories by Roald Dahl, ed.: A great anthology of creepy old-school ghost stories. I read this one recently and it reminded me of how timeless a good ghost story is; these stories were all written before I was born but all were well chosen and scary. I'd not read a few of these authors before, and was thrilled to see that their work had been brought back into print via electronic editions--it is almost like those ebooks are the ghosts of physical books!

Thank you Daniel for stopping by Mundie Moms today. 

You can follow Daniel on:

www.gendead.com

www.danielwaters.com

www.mysocalledundeath.com

About the Book:

Published by: Disney Hyperion

Released on: October 16th, 2012

Purchase from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Living in the aftermath of the Event means that seeing the dead is now a part of life, but Veronica wishes that the ghosts would just move on. Instead, the ghosts aren't disappearing--they're gaining power. 

When Veronica and her friend, Kirk, decide to investigate why, they stumble upon a more sinister plot than they ever could have imagined. One of Veronica's high school teachers is crippled by the fact that his dead daughter has never returned as a ghost, and he's haunted by the possibility that she's waiting to reappear within a fresh body. Veronica seems like the perfect host. And even if he's wrong, what's the harm in creating one more ghost? 

From critically acclaimed Generation Dead author Daniel Waters, comes a delectably creepy and suspenseful thriller. Break My Heart 1,000 Times will leave readers with the chills. Or is that a ghost reading over the page? -quoted from Goodreads