Halloween Booktacular Day 6!

Welcome back to day 4 of Halloween Booktacular. OUaT has teamed up with Good Choice Reading, Read My Mind, An Avid Reader's Musings, Skyla11377, Books With Bite and Dark Readers. The Halloween Booktacular will run from October 24th until October 31st. Each blog participating will have different post and giveaways going on, so you want to make sure you visit each one of us daily during the celebration.

Welcome back to day 6 of the Halloween Booktacular. Author T. Lynne Tolles is making a stop today on OUaT.  T. Lynne has written a Halloween themed post for you all to read and has graciously offered for one lucky reader to win her entire Blood Series in paperback. So that means you will get a copy of Blood of a Werewolf (book 1), Blood Moon (book 2), Blood Lust (book 3), Bloodstone Heart (blood 4) in paperback with some swag. 

It is once again the time of year when the bountiful harvests of the year have been sown and the earth soil rests and rejuvenates herself once again just in time for Spring. The heat of the summer has finally subsided and clouds descend upon us like a giant meticulously hand-stitched quilt and fast approaching is All Hallows Eve.

Otherwise known as Halloween, we have found childhood memories of trick or treating under the moons light disguised with costumes hoping our friends, family and neighbors can’t guess who we are. But what we often forget is that our ancestors celebrated this holiday in a much more solemn and tentative way, for All Hallows Eve was not originally about sweet candy and laughter but death, spirits and impending harshness. It was the night when the curtain between the dead and the living was at its thinnest and the dead took advantage of this eve, to once again visit the living and vice-versa.

Like many things in life, spirits range from benevolent to malevolent and everything in between, so in order to confuse and disguise themselves from those spirits that might intend harm upon them, our ancestors carved turnips, gourds and later pumpkins into scary faces to ward off the harmful spirits. Masks, too were worn in case one were to run into a disgruntled spirit on their way home in the darkness that appeared earlier and earlier with each passing day of this season.

Consider this, you live in the 1600’s, you’ve just spent a month or two on a horrendous journey from across the Atlantic Ocean to live in a new untouched, unknown land. You settled near the coast and life was incredibly hard – heat and humidity in the summer like you’ve never known, and rain and snow in the winter that felt as if it would never end. Anything west of where you lived was wilderness, in which your priest/pastor informed you, were home to the devil and his demons who roamed freely in those woods nightly and seduced those who dared to enter into becoming witches. You rarely lived past your thirties and anything that couldn’t be explained away was the devil’s doing. It’s a wonder we ever survived.

So remember your ancestors this All Hallows Eve when they come a calling and celebrate what they endured so that we could live the lives we live now, with a candle in a hand-carved pumpkin. Enjoy your Halloween. May your Tricks be sweet and your treats even sweeter.

T. Lynne Tolles

What a great story T. Lynne. I think its great when I read books that actually touch this subject, its not all about candies and costumes. Thanks for giving us a brief history lesson and bigger Thank you for the treat you are offering one lucky reader. 

You can read all about T.Lynne and her books on her website HERE.