Death By Chocolate Book Tour

Presented by Bewitching Book Tours

Death by Chocolate-The paranormal young adult anthology with a cocoa twist.

Authors Suz Korb, Cheryl Carvajal, Nikki Jefford, Kira Saito, Stacey Wallace Benefiel, and Lucy Swing

The anthology contains these six stories:

Back in Time by Stacey Wallace Benefiel
Nothing in Aurelia Lemon's life is turning out how she'd planned. She's unemployed, unattached, and her family bakery is on the verge of closing. To make matters worse, the guy she dumped in high school is doing well and getting rich off of one of her departed mother's recipes. It would take a miracle to right everything she's done wrong. Or maybe just a phone call and the chance to go Back in Time.

Sweet Witchery by Cheryl J. Carvajal
Catalena is only one of many dreamers in a small medieval town in Romania. When the witch Ramnusia opens her chocolate shoppe, suddenly dreams turn into reality. The chocolates are divine, but their power is greater than their sweetness. Miracles abound, dreams come true, and Ramnusia's magic confections become the talk of the town. But if these chocolates can make dreams come true, will they win for Catalena the deepest dream of her heart?

Spellbound by Nikki Jefford
Two months after dying, Graylee Perez wakes up in her identical twin sister, Charlene’s body.

As the daughter of a witch, can anyone blame her mother for attempting to bring her back to life? Only now Gray’s stuck sharing her sister’s body 50/50 in 24 hour shifts.

The race is on for Gray to find a way back into her body before Charlene purges her from existence.

Warlock Raj McKenna is rumored to meddle in the black arts, not to mention he’s after Gray’s invisibility spell and worse – her heart. But Raj might be the only one powerful enough to save Gray from fading away forever.

Bloody Valentine by Lucy Swing
One by one the girls of Hollow High disappear and when Bailey receives a heart-shaped box filled with chocolates she might be next.

Sweet Torture by Kira Saito
Sixteen year old Claudia Bernstein is obsessed with two things: chocolate and Dante Torres. However, being an invisible minion to Upper East Side princess Beatrice Wildenbert isn't helping her get anywhere with her dream guy.

Everything changes over Christmas break when Dante actually starts noticing her.

But are Dante's intentions as pure as they seem? When Claudia finds herself in the middle of a cruel prank, she decides to take revenge. But is revenge enough? Or will she finally realize that her own worst enemy is herself?

The Girl with Three Heads by Suz Korb
Kate wakes up on the morning of the Death by Chocolate fundraiser event to discover she has two extra heads resting upon each of her shoulders. She is not pleased about this. She's even more displeased when she discovers the head on her right shoulder (which looks like Santa Claus, complete with fluffy white beard) is actually Zeus, lord of lightning, or something like that. The head on her left shoulder? Yeah, it's the head of Hera; goddess-of-looking-like-a-blonde-bombshell and getting on Kate's nerves by shouting in her ear all the time.

Will Kate ever rid herself of these two extra heads? Will she ever get to experience an actual kiss from a boy without extra-head-situation interruptions? Join Kate as she struggles to survive being flung into the Underworld, as well as eventually landing upon Mount Olympus.

Just because she's got two extra craniums doesn't mean either head is an extra set of useful brains.
Purchase: Amazon|Smashwords 

Guest Post by Lucy Swing

My name is Lucy Swing and I am a YA Paranormal/ Romance author. I was originally born in Argentine, from Italian descent, and moved to the Sunny state of Florida when I was 17.

Thanks to my mother, who reads as much as me – if not more, I became a fanatic of books. I first remember enjoying everything that was stamped with R.L. Stine (Fear Street and Goosebumps) Then I went on to the likes of Danielle Steel and Nora Roberts, thanks to my mom. But I am happy to say that I have finally found MY genre and that is, of course, YA.

I am an absolute book hoarder and must always have a book at arms distance. Music is my muse, and there is always a soundtrack that plays along my life.

I have just finished my first book, "Feathermore" (first of many!) and I am also a part of "Death by Chocolate," an anthology consisting of 6 fantastic YA short stories with a chocolaty twist. Death by Chocolate will be released on February 14th, 2012!

I live in Naples, FL with my husband, our two wild children and two even wilder pups!

Thank you Caitlin, Meggo and Momma Laurie for having me here today, this is soo exciting!

Writing a short story is not easy. I went over our allotted word count of 12k words and ended up at almost 19k words, and as you ladies have probably noticed, it could have easily kept on going for some time. I am thinking, after “Death by Chocolate” has been released, I may start writing a part 2 to “Bloody Valentine” and post it on my blog. What do you think?

In my story, Bloody Valentine, my characters come across a haunted chocolate factory, so I wanted to post something fun that went along those lines. What is better than the top 10 list of the most haunted cities in the U.S.? If you happen to live in any of these cities, I would love to hear any stories or if you have ever done one of those ghost tours/ overnight stays.

10. San Francisco, California.
Most Haunted: Alcatraz 

Alcatraz Island is one of San Francisco’s most famous landmarks, but the former maximum-security prison is also home to some of the city’s weirdest ghost stories. Visitors to the island often claim to see apparitions walking the cellblocks, and sometimes hear voices emanating from what was once the cafeteria.

9. Key West, Florida
Most Haunted: Robert the doll. 

The island’s art and historical museum isn’t haunted, but it does contain one of the creepiest artifacts of Key West’s history in the form of Robert, a large doll that many claim is possessed. The doll was given to painter Gene Otto in the early 1900s, and the young boy soon became deathly afraid of it, as he said it would often threaten him and wake him in the night by throwing furniture around the room. The boy’s parents would often swear they saw the doll moving, and neighbors claimed they often spotted Robert pacing in front of the windows of the house when the family was away.

Ummm, yeah, I remember watching Chucky and being terrified of the bed full of dolls and teddy bears I used to have. I would spend endless nights staring at them making sure they didn’t try to kill me!


8. Athens, Ohio
Most Haunted: Athen’s Lunatic Asylum 

There’s nothing creepier than a good old-fashioned insane asylum, and Athens has one of the most famous in the form of the Athens Lunatic Asylum, which operated from 1874 until 1993. The hospital held many violent patients, and is notorious for being the site of hundreds of lobotomies. Since closing, the hospital has been the at the center of numerous ghost stories, most of which are kept alive by the students at the university, which now owns the asylum grounds. The most famous of these concerns Margaret, a deaf-mute patient who supposedly escaped from her room, accidentally became trapped in an abandoned ward, and eventually died of exposure. Her decomposing body was found weeks later, and supposedly the stain that was left on the floor of the ward can still be seen today.

7. Portland, Oregon
Most Haunted: Shanghai Tunnels 

Portland’s coastal location established it as a shipping hub and port of call for sailors during the 1800s. This eventually led to the rise of a practice known as shanghaiing, wherein unsuspecting men and women were kidnapped from bars or hotels, shipped to the Orient, and impressed into slave labor or prostitution. Portland was notorious for this practice thanks to a series of labyrinthine underground tunnels that run beneath the city streets, which were used by the Shanghaiiers as a safe way to capture and transfer victims to the harbor without being seen. Today, the tunnels are said to be haunted by the ghosts of the people who were kidnapped, many of whom were never seen or heard from again.

6. Charleston, South Carolina
Most Haunted: The Dock Street Theater 

Charleston is full of buildings with a checkered past, and one of the most well-known is surely the Dock Street Theater. Built in 1809, the theater is said to be the home of two spirits. The first is Nettie, a poor prostitute who was killed near the theater after being struck by lightning. The other is the ghost of Junius Brutus Booth, an actor who is more famous today for being the father of John Wilkes Boothe, the man who killed Abraham Lincoln. Both spirits are said to wander the backstage area of the theater, and many workers and performers claim to have spotted them.

5. Salem, Massachusetts
Most Haunted: Joshua Ward House 

Known as one of the most haunted houses in America, Joshua Ward House is built on the foundation of the home of George Corwin, the man who served as Sheriff during the Salem witch trials. Corwin is infamous for his role in the death of Giles Corey, a local man who was charged with witchcraft. When Corey refused to enter a plea in court, Corwin used an old English legal precedent and placed him under a board piled with rocks in order to coerce him into talking. Corey never relented, and was eventually crushed to death under the massive weight. To this day, many claim that Corey and Corwin, who is rumored to be buried beneath the foundation of his old home, haunt the Joshua Ward House.

4. Chicago, Illinois
Most Haunted: Bachelor’s Grave Cemetery

Rumored to be one of the prohibition-era gangsters’ favorite places to dump bodies, Bachelor’s Grove is an old and decaying burial ground that has been the site of countless stories about ghosts, spirits, and devil worship. Several headstones in the cemetery seem to move at will, and many claim that the spirits of the dead often materialize and walk the grounds at night. The most famous of these is the “White Lady,” the ghost of a young woman who is always seen in a white dress, often cradling a baby in her arms.

3. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Most Haunted: The Devil’s Den 

The Devil’s Den is a rocky outcropping of boulders and shrubs that was the site of one of the clashes of the second day of the battle. The spot is famous for being the location of a small skirmish that took place when a Union artillery unit returned fire on a Confederate sharpshooter who was taking shots at them from behind the rocks. They later found a body, and photographer Alexander Gardner took a photo of it that has since become one of the most iconic images of the battle. But recent evidence suggests that the body in the photo was not the man responsible, and some even claim that Gardner dragged the corpse of another man to the spot in order to stage the picture. Supposedly, this man’s ghost now haunts the Devil’s Den, and to this day visitors to the park often have a great deal of trouble trying to take photos anywhere near the site. Pictures often come out blurry and unusable, and cameras have a strange way of suddenly dying whenever they are turned on in the area.

2. Savannah, Georgia
Most Haunted: The Hampton Lillibridge House 

The Hampton Lillibridge house is an assuming three-story building that was built in 1796 and originally served as a boarding house. It was purchased in the 1960s by a builder who hoped to restore it, and it was then that strange phenomena began to occur. At one point during construction, a portion of the roof collapsed, killing one of the workers. Other builders claimed they would hear voices and footsteps whenever they were alone, and that pieces of construction equipment would often be thrown across the room. Even creepier, they said they often spotted a man in a black suit staring at them from inside the house. Countless exorcisms and investigations have taken place at the house since, and it has gone through several owners, but the presence that haunts it is said to still remain there today.

1. New Orleans, Louisiana
Most Haunted: LaLaurie House 

In the heart of the French Quarter lies an ornate mansion that in the 1800s belonged to physician Louis LaLaurie and his socialite wife Delphine. As the story goes, it was rumored at the time that the couple treated their slaves viciously, and there was evidence Lady LaLaurie was responsible for the murder of a 12-year-old girl. The rumors were validated when one night a fire broke out in the mansion’s kitchen. Firemen raced to the scene, and when they kicked down a door to the slave quarters they were astonished to find several slaves chained to the wall in a kind of makeshift dungeon. Many have since claimed that the LaLaurie’s were performing grotesque surgical experiments on the slaves, but modern evidence suggests that this is probably an exaggeration. Either way, the sadistic couple is said to have soon fled the city, and Lady LaLaurie eventually disappeared. The mansion where the horrors took place still stands today, and several ghosts have been sighted, among them the spirits of both Delphine LaLaurie and the young slave girl she is said to have murdered.

Thank you ladies so much for having me today, it has been a pleasure!

About the authors:

Stacey Wallace Benefiel is the author of the Zellie Wells trilogy, the Day of Sacrifice series and The Toilet Business, a collection of essays. She lives in an orange house in Beaverton, OR with her husband and their two young children. For more information about Stacey and her other works, please visit her website: http://staceywallacebenefiel.com

Cheryl Carvajal goes by the name Shakespeare at her two blogs: http://creativeartsanonymous.blogspot.com/ and http://notwritinganythinganymore.blogspot.com/ You can also contact her by email at shakespeare824@hotmail.com Over the last decade she has ventured into YA writing. She has three degrees in English, teaches Zumba and works on her writing with help from her husband who is president of Bainbridge College, Georgia.

Nikki Jefford is a third generation Alaskan now residing in the not-so-tropical San Juan Islands with her husband, Sébastien, and their Westie, Cosmo. She is the author of Entangled. Visit Nikki at www.nikkijefford.blogspot.com

Lucy Swing is a mother of two and a wife to a Firefighter/Paramedic. She is the author of the upcoming paranormal YA romance novel "Feathermore". She is a Goodreads author and you can find out more about her writing endeavours on her website http://www.LucySwing.com

Kira Saito is a magic junkie and loves writing YA paranormal romances. Some of her heroes include: Jack the Pumpkin King, Willy Wonka, Larry David, Princess Jasmine, the vampire Lestat, Andy and her Maltese Costanza. You can email her at kirakatwritingservices@gmail.com and you can find out more about Kira on her website http://kirasaito.blogspot.com/

Suz Korb loves comedy. She also loves magic. She loves, loves to inject these key elements into her paranormal stories. She also loves, loves, loves cereal and eats way too much of it whilst novel writing. She’s an expat of the USA now living in England, a mother of two and the author of The Bedeviled Trilogy. To find out more about Suz Korb’s books visit her website at www.suzkorb.com