It’s only 10 days until Valentine’s Day. If you’re a horror fan, as I am, I’m sure you’ll be thinking that spookiness and romance don’t tend to go hand in hand. But that’s where you’re wrong.
Here’s an excerpt from the titular story in Love you to Death, ghost stories for Valentine’s Day. My collection of 8 short stories is perfect for readers who prefer skulls with their hearts on February 14th.
My blog post today is more of a random rambling than a focused topic, but sometimes life calls for random topics; or at least, I think so. The past week has been a bit of a blur. Storm Chandra at the start of the week, a hospital appointment at the end of the week and all the while, trying to carry on with life as normal.
Even when my writing life is on pause, my imagination always rumbles along, churning out ideas. Some are good, and I save them as tidbits for my writing and others are just nothing more than interesting thoughts as a byproduct of an overactive imagination.
The picture above shows one such byproduct of my imagination. While doing one of my 24 hour intermittent fasting sessions a couple of days ago, I made myself a Himalayan salt tea; it staves off leg cramps and headaches during ketosis by replacing electrolytes. Anyway, after I sprinkled the salt in my mug, I then added the boiled water and watched the salt disperse in the strangest pattern. As a horror fan, it seemed to me to form a rather intense eye staring up at me from the bottom of the mug. Creepy.
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While Storm Chandra smacked us full in the face here in Northern Ireland on Tuesday, my hubby, son and I hunkered down quite contentedly at home with no work or school to contend with. It’s not the first time that we’ve been hit with an amber warning for ‘danger to life’ amidst wind that causes somersaulting wheely bins, rain that pelts like hail, and flashes of thunder and lightning, but this time we all got a day off from the daily grind.
What does one do when gifted unexpected, and precious, free time? In my case, reading and writing, arts and crafts.
Before I get into that, I’ll mention an article I read a few days ago about whether artists should get paid a basic income, like in Ireland. I doubt writers are considered towards that fund, since it seems that writing is generally considered more of a privilege than a profession; think about how often readers expect to receive an author’s books for free, and you might get the idea. Shouldn’t writers be well paid for their hard work? Society doesn’t seem to think so. To elaborate on my point, let me mention my hardcover books. The majority sell quite well for £18.99 a copy. Of the retail price, I receive about 10% in royalties. Not much of a living, is it? Imagine if writers could apply for a business grant to support their work; this would enliven bookstores with a wealth of fresh voices from diverse backgrounds, rather than the same safe cohort of authors from the same safe socioeconomic backgrounds.
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It’s two weeks until Valloween! I learned about this holiday from my friend, and fabulous baker @cakewizard99 on Instagram so you should check out her fabulous cakes if you’re on IG. If you don’t know what Valloween is, it’s pretty much a creep-tastic replacement for Valentine’s Day. There’s also Summerween in June for those counting down the days til Halloween. Yep, it’s another way to celebrate all things spooky for those who enjoy Halloween three-six-five. That’s a hashtag too, btw.
Anyway, with Valloween looming, I thought I’d share my horror books with a dash of spooky – and a lot of dysfunctional – romance:
Love you to Death = Eight tales of romance between the ethereal and corporeal, all set on or around Valentine’s Day.
Gods of Avalon Road = involving a modern day Londoner and the resurrected ancient Briton sungod, Belenus.
Matthew’s Twin = between an Anglo-Irish witch and a medieval Scottish soldier during Edward Bruce’s invasion of Ireland at Carrickfergus.
Diabolical Dreamscapes = In Zombie Reflux, the main character has a liaison with his ex Nina in a disturbing scene that is better read than summarised (ahem!)
The Fairy Lights = In this Christmas ghost novel, main character Aisling falls in love with Jimbo, who is haunting her house.
The Blue Man = Two best frenemies fight over Johnny, believed to be the great-great-grandson of the sinister titular ghost, The Blue Man.
But, the real life horror story of my recent life is the tragic demise of my favourite skull wine glass, all in the name of my birthday celebration a few days ago. Happy birthday to me, what I’d really love to see, is for readers of my books to leave reviews up, it’s free!
Ha ha, an author’s gotta try, right?
One more year, one more birthday celebration. This one marks the halfway point through another decade, with my last milestone during lockdown in 2021. Another loop around the sun, and I’m still feeling full of fun. Yep, I’m going to forget the first part of my age and focus on the ‘five’. I’m still quite playful at heart, something that my child loves, until such a time comes when he may find my childlike spirit embarrassing. May such a time never come!
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Happy Sunday everyone. We’re just over halfway through January and I’ve nowt much to show for it, ha ha. I’ve had a lazy start to this year, making progress on my current novel WIP at snail’s pace, and barely a dent in my TBR pile.
Actually, there’s good reason for the lack of progress on personal reading and writing projects, since term time at work in secondary education always tends to dominate my time. I’ve been in the swing of editing and giving feedback to the young writers in the creative writing class I teach, as well as busy with work in my library day job.
At least I have built up a significant back catalogue of books to tide me over, while I make time for chipping away at my own writing projects. My latest promo video showcases all twelve of my books, one for each month of 2026. Here goes:
January = Toebirds & Woodlice
February = The Redundancy of Tautology
March = Diabolical Dreamscapes
April = The Blue Man
May = Pseudologia Fantastica
June = The Fairy Lights
July = Matthew’s Twin
August = Love you to Death
September = The Buddha’s Bone
October = The Wabi-sabi Doll
November = Gods of Avalon Road
December = A Model Archaeologist
Can’t go wrong with a mix of ghost horror, psychological fiction and experimental poetry, eh?
Happy Sunday, folks! It’s a horrible, rainy day over here in Northern Ireland and that means a perfect day for reading. This weekend I started reading my Christmas present that my lovely literary hubby got me. In Ghostly Japan, by Lefcadio Hearn set the tone with a good dash of existential horror in the first story about a man and a Buddhist monk climbing a mountain of skulls.
As for my own books, November and December are always the busiest for sales, with things quietening down after Christmas. With only a handful of sponsored sales so far in January that means it’s time to gear up for more promo. Since Valentine’s Day is only a month away, I’ve decided to start with excerpts from Love you to Death. Here’s my latest video reading, with a snippet from the first story, White Day Whispers. White Day, for those not in the know, is a date celebrated in Japan on March 14th; basically on Valentine’s Day, ladies will give a man chocolates if they like him, and will receive a response one month later on White Day. If he accepts her proposal, he gives her white chocolates and if he rejects her, she gets cookies. Either way, it’s confectionery heaven for the ladies!
Happy New Year 2026, everyone! Hope this year brings good things for us all. Are you setting any new year resolutions? At the start of every year I like to set a couple of resolutions: a health goal, a writing goal and a reading goal.
Writing goal for 2026
In 2025 I had writer’s block a grand total of two times with ghost novel WIP#7. The only option left to me was to print a paperback draft of my WIP to read it in book format and get the story back in my head. This has helped to give me a fresh perspective on the story, especially as I changed a major character, which impacted all the relationships and even the protagonist’s journey.
My goal for 2026 is to actually get the manuscript finished, and take it from there. I’m not going to say much else for now, as I feel this project has stalled enough. Needless to say, it’ll be a big celebration when it’s finally done.
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Today is the first full moon of 2026. It’s still at its perigee (closest in its elliptical to earth), making this a super moon, a time when the moon appears larger and brighter in the sky. After this, the next super moon won’t be until October 2026, so it’s definitely an occasion to celebrate. Saturday 3 January 2026 is also Earth Perihelion day (closest to the sun).
The Blue Man, book 1 in my Belfast Ghosts trilogy, is perfect for such a celestial celebration. They say he comes across the mudflats when the mist rolls in. They say he comes under the cloak of darkness and a bright full moon…
A spooky book for an atmospheric night. Enjoy the Super Wolf Moon!
Leilanie Stewart 
Apologies to some readers and followers of my blog
Today’s post is a message of apology to some readers and followers of my blog. I only just realised yesterday of a mishap, where a number of comments had been left unanswered and pending approval on my website, and I hadn’t been aware of this. Some of the comments had been posted as far back as half a year ago.
The fault is my own; I had set notifications for my website on my phone, and was perhaps relying on this feature too much without actually checking for comments via my email notifications instead. It turned out I had missed many comments by folks who weren’t regular followers; a couple of these included invites to author events and I’m especially regretful about not only those missed opportunities, but the unprofessional impression that some people might have of me after receiving no response to their comments.
As an author, I’m also a business person, and I aim to respond to all legitimate comments on my website and social media accounts as a general rule. Rest assured I am working hard to get back to everyone who commented; I value your messages and I appreciate that you took the time to leave comments for me.
This blog post isn’t an excuse, it’s simply an explanation; what can I say other than offer my humble apology. Sorry.
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Posted by Leilanie Stewart on January 14, 2026 in Random stuff and tagged author followers, blog followers, blog update, reaching new readers, reader comments.
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