12 Shades of Midnight: Celebrating Halloween Traditions

Rachel: First I want to thank Maureen and everyone at Just Romantic Suspense for letting us take over JRS this week, I’m super excited to be here to talk about my first foray into paranormal romantic suspense! I’m also thrilled to be here with Jenn Stark, who is three of my favorite people in the world (you may also know her as Jenn McGowan and Jennifer Chance) and talking about one of my favorite holidays: Halloween.

When I was growing up, Halloween wasn’t just about the costumes, trick-or-treating, and jack-o’-lanterns, it was also about the most important day of the year, which happened two days later—some call it All Souls’ Day, in Mexico it is El Día de los Muertos, but in the Grant household, it is known as my birthday.

Having your birthday fall on the third day of the triduum of Allhallowtide is about the coolest thing, ever, because it means the party starts with costumes and candy on October 31^st and doesn’t end until about 60 hours later, when it’s capped off with cake and presents.

But naturally, sharing my birthday with the Day of the Dead led to an interest in the traditions around the holiday… an interest shared by Jenn as well!

Jenn: Thanks as well to Maureen and the whole JRS team—it’s great to be joining you! For me, Halloween is a fabulous mix of past and present celebrations. I love the story of “soul cakes”, popularized in Tudor and Elizabethan England, which were small currant-crossed, white-frosted pastries sold on All Hallows Eve. These little cakes were not only delicious… they could free a soul from Purgatory if consumed before midnight. What kind of awesome sales pitch is THAT?

Also, I’m a huge fan of an even older superstition, which holds that the veil between the worlds thins dramatically on the feast of Samhain, such that the spirit world can mix with the realm of the living. So all those amazingly ghoulish costumes you see? Just good folk trying to confuse (or imitate) the spirits! This acceptance of magic as part of our world fits well with my Twelve Shades anthology novella, Getting Wilde. My heroine hunts down magical artifacts with the use of Tarot cards—and encounters more than she bargains for while pursuing her newest job. The festival of Samhain would be right up her alley!

A relatively new Samhain tradition that I’ve adopted is to create a costume that represents the person you most want to become in the coming year, so you literally “dress the part” of your future self. Since I want nothing more than to be a successful, full-time author, my costume is pretty easy: tank top, pajama bottoms, slippers… and bags of mon-eh. J

But while my tradition focuses on how life goes on, Rachel can take us back to remembering lives that have ended: or The Day of the Dead celebration!

Rachel: The Day of the Dead celebration is intended to encourage the souls of departed relatives to visit and hear the praises and prayers of the living who are celebrating them. Families visit cemeteries and often decorate graves with Mexican marigolds; some families create altars in their home, which they fill with favorite foods and beverages as well as photos and keepsakes. Stories told about the deceased can be funny, and my understanding is the Day of the Dead can be quite joyous.

I’m particularly intrigued by this idea of reaching out to a departed soul with offerings, as the reverse is true in my novella in the Twelve Shades anthology. In Midnight Sun, a departed soul in an ancient Iñupiat shaman’s mask needs to reach out to the living, and unfortunately, when information needs to flow the other way, it’s not always joyous for the living or the dead…

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* 12 SHADES OF MIDNIGHT * 12 authors *

* 12 unforgettable, never-before-released stories *

The stroke of midnight ushers in many things. From hijinks and mischief to danger and evil, romance is the magic that binds these paranormal novellas together. Join 12 bestselling and award winning authors as they explore the different shades of midnight in exclusive, never-before-released stories.