Since it’s October and we are all getting ready for Fall, I thought I’d talk about Halloween a little.

I spent a lot of my childhood in England, and when I was a little girl Halloween was an enigma to most Europeans. People there had little inkling of what an American Halloween was all about. There was no trick-or-treating, no dress-up. Halloween was pretty much like any other day.  But being children of an American, my siblings and I didn’t realize this. My brother made a fabulous mask. I remember him dripping different colored candles onto the base and what resulted was a freaky, twisted and contorted creature with what seemed like bulbous warts; it was very scary, even to me.

We started our rounds in the little village where we lived.  We didn’t say ‘trick or treat’ as nobody would have understood the concept. So we said that we had arrived from another world to scare away the nasty spirits and if they gave us candy we would protect them from evil. Hardly had we knocked on the first door of this old lady named Mrs. Friggs, when she started screaming out a blood-curdling  yell. It reverberated down the street, through the fields and into the dark night air. We were the terrified ones and we dashed back home!

I had thought that because I had been in disguise, the lady wouldn’t recognize me the following day. But she caught my arm as I rushed past her door and told me that she nearly called the police. ‘That was a nasty scare you gave me young, girl,’ she scolded. I looked at her blankly pretending I didn’t know what she was talking about.
Since that day, I never tried to trick-or-treat again!

My novel, Forty Shades of Pearl, is an erotic contemporary romance and has recently been released as an ebook for sale on Amazon. I deliberately chose an older heroine, Pearl, as I feel there are so many great romances out there already with women in their twenties. I wanted to change things up a little.

Documentary producer, Pearl Robinson, is a beautiful and smart forty year-old divorcee but has not had a date for over two years. When she hears about Alexandre Chevalier, a young French, Internet success story, she assumes he is a nerd. But when she bumps into him face to face, she’s stunned by his charm, beauty and sophistication, and startled by her strong feelings and desire for a man fifteen years her junior. His looks, wealth and worldwide triumph with his social media site, HookedUp, means he can get any woman he chooses, but there is something about Pearl he finds irresistible…

The couple begins a passionate affair and Pearl’s body is awakened in ways she never imagined possible. She is consumed by him and his magical touch. But secrets, jealous family members and other external forces are threatening to pull them apart.

This book is for adult readers only. I am getting great feedback from women in their thirties or so who are particularly enjoying the fact that they can relate to the protagonist.

I hope you all have a great October. And a fabulous Halloween!

Forty Shades of Pearl’s Buy your copy today!

Visit my website - https://ariannerichmonde.com/

Arianne x