Guest Blogger Leanna Renee Hieber

Welcome today's guest author, Leanna Renee Heiber!

Award-Winning author, actress and playwright Leanna Renee Hieber grew up in rural Ohio where her childhood memories are full of inventing elaborate ghost stories. While performing in the regional theatre circuit, her one-act plays such as Favorite Lady, were published, produced, won awards and continue to b produced in colleges and festivals around the country. She has adapted works of 19th Century literature for the professional stage.

She hit the fantasy fiction scene with her novella Dark Nest which won the 2009 Prism Award for excellence in Futuristic, Fantasy and Paranormal Romance. The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker is the first in her Strangely Beautiful series of ghostly, Gothic Victorian Fantasy novels published by Dorchester Publishing.

From the Back Cover:

"What fortune awaited sweet, timid Percy Parker at Athens Academy? Considering how few of Queen Victoria’s Londoners knew of it, the great Romanesque fortress was dreadfully imposing, and little could Percy guess what lay inside. She had never met the powerful and mysterious Professor Alexi Rychman, knew nothing of the growing shadow, the Ripper and other supernatural terrors against which his coterie stood guard. She knew simply that she was different, haunted, with her snow-white hair, pearlescent skin and uncanny gifts. But this arched stone doorway offered a portal to a new life, an education far from the convent—and an invitation to an intimate yet dangerous dance at the threshold of life and death…"

The Strangely Beautiful Haunted London Blog Tour day 11!

I’m thrilled to be here. Thanks so very much to Elisabeth for inviting me!

Today we visit:

The Ship Tavern – 12 Gate Street, WC2

A Place of Refuge

During the intolerant reign of King Henry III, Catholics would sneak into this cozy 18th century pub to attend a furtive Mass conducted outside of the law by priests. Lookouts were posted in the surroundings and signals would warn the congregation when officials were coming to pry. The priest could then escape into one of the pub’s hiding places and allow the congregants time to pick up their mugs and play the part of mere pub regulars. If the priests were found, only torture, jail and execution was in store. There is an air of relief in this pub, a sense of comfort and refuge, likely left over from those sentiments of old, when priests could leave their hiding places undiscovered and blessedly return to their lives. The staff is rather fond of a prankster of a ghost that likes to hide cooking utensils or move keys.

It is this same sense of comfort, refuge and ghostly pranks that I’ve created in The Guard’s “Local”, their favourite pub/café; La Belle et La Bete.

From The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker:

--- (Beginning of Excerpt) ---

Headmistress Rebecca Thompson owed Professor Alexi Rychman a very expensive bottle of sherry. Luckily, spirits—liquors as well as ghosts—were in ample supply at Café La Belle et La Bête.

The spectres came and went as they pleased, now and then troubling to adjust the glassware, to the owner Josephine’s unending irritation. One pair of Restoration wraiths kept to a corner, eternally interested in gossip divined from the living. One former army general never left his post at the end of the bar. And of course there were many, many others.

Everyone inside, living and dead, turned as the door opened and the scowling Rebecca entered.

“Good afternoon, my dear Miss Thompson!” hailed her jovial, rosy-cheeked friend in a modest suit, rising from a table by the window to press her hand. The other gentleman at the table, more finely dressed, waved a limp hand and resumed gazing out the window.

“Hello, Michael … Elijah,” Rebecca murmured with a curt nod.

Vicar Michael Carroll, maintaining his affable grin, pulled out a chair. “And what has you so flustered?”

“Alexi, of course,” she spat, taking a seat between them, removing her hat and gloves to replace stubborn locks of hair falling from her coiffure. She failed to notice Elijah roll his eyes.

“What now?” Michael asked, twirling his grey-peppered mustache.

Rebecca sighed, adjusting the gathered folds of her navy skirt with a pronounced rustle. “Do you recall the trouble at Fifty Berkeley Square?”

“What of it?”

“Alexi seemed to think I was outmatched. But as we often perform alone, I never dreamed—”

“Old Bloody Bones got the better of you, eh?” Michael grinned.

“Yes,” Rebecca muttered. “What a horrid sight. And stench. It wouldn’t stay still long enough to bind properly! I’m afraid I made a mess of it.”

“Alexi’s been hard on you, then? Did he come to your aid?”

“Yes, yes. He was right. It took the two of us to dispel the bloody devil.” Rebecca glowered. “So, as was our wager, I owe him a bottle of sherry. His absurdly expensive label, of course.”

“Ah! A bet against Alexi?” Michael shook his head. “While I admire your pluck, my dear, I must say I’d have foregone that temptation. Now he will be gloating and unbearable.”

Elijah sniggered against the window.

Rebecca turned. “Good afternoon to you, too, Lord Withersby. Your impeccable manners are always a balm.”

Elijah turned, as if he hadn’t yet noticed Rebecca or heard her previous greeting, and inclined his head in an exaggerated bow. “Miss Thompson. Delighted.”

Michael laughed. “You know, Elijah, you match the consumptive artwork Josephine has on these walls. You really should sit for Rosetti. Or … I suppose we could simply leave you in your seat and hand you a gold frame to hold over your face.”

Elijah pursed his thin lips in annoyance.

“Oh, is that a new one of Josephine’s?” Rebecca pointed to the opposite wall and rose to examine the indicated canvas. Michael followed, always eager to be near her side. Elijah remained seated … and held a peppermill over Michael’s tea.

A clatter of glasses above the polished oak bar brought the lovely, olive-skinned Josephine, cursing in French, out from a back room. Brandishing a wet towel, she waved it in the air with a few words that were not French but instead the Guard’s strange and ancient tongue. The towel passed straight through the portly body of that spirit in military uniform who was trying to unsuccessfully help himself to a glass of wine. Glumly, the general heard the odd words, felt the tickle of the towel and went again to sulk in his usual place.

It was good the four friends were the sole living occupants of the bar, Rebecca mused; the afternoon was shaping up to be a bit of a production unfit for outsiders. Improper familiarity across class lines was one thing, but blatant interaction with the dead was another.

--- (End of Excerpt) ---

I’m indebted to Richard Jones, founder of the fabulous Discovery Walks of London and author of the fantastic compendium “Haunted London” and “Walking Haunted London” published by Barnes & Noble Books, a main resource for my research. Visit him at www.haunted-london.com. Come visit me at www.leannareneehieber.com to find out more about The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parkera and follow along the final days of the Haunted London Blog tour! I hope you’ll also pick up the book and love it as much as I loved writing it! Be sure to comment to be entered to win a signed copy!

Blessings!
Leanna Renee Hieber
www.leannareneehieber.com
www.twitter.com/leannarenee