Guest Post and Excerpt: The Librarian’s Ghost by Sean Michael

Welcome to author Sean Michael and the tour for his new novel, The Librarian’s Ghost, from Dreamspinner Press. We have a guest post and excerpt from the book to share with you today, so relax and enjoy!

Thank you to The Novel Approach for hosting me today!

Sometimes when describing the setting of a book, I can’t resist throwing in something that I would like to have in my surroundings. There’s one such place in The MacGregor House which stars as the haunted building in The Librarian’s Ghost.

One of the rooms in the mansion is a dedicated library. There are floor to ceiling shelves on all the walls, all done up in a dark wood. There are little tables to put tea and books on, and big, comfy chairs to sit and read in. My dream home includes such a room. (Minus the ghosts that plague the one in the MacGregor House, that is.)

The shelves would be filled with lots and lots of fiction – science fiction books and fantasy books, romance, general fiction, mysteries, and the like. There would be all sorts of reference books on every subject. It would be a room where I could curl up with a book that’s going to take me into a new world, or one that will tell me things about our world. It would be awesome.

Will I ever have this fantasy library in my home? The closest I’ll come to it, I think, is a virtual library, but that doesn’t mean I can’t give my characters a place like this. Then I get to live in it vicariously.

Check out The Librarian’s Ghost and take a visit to Payne’s library yourself.

Sean Michael
~ smut fixes everything

About the Book

Can love survive the perils of MacGregor House?

The Supernatural Explorers are back and looking for their next big paranormal case. They might’ve found it in a plea from Payne, a mild-mannered librarian who has inherited the family mansion—MacGregor House. Since moving in a few months ago, Payne’s exhausted the list of ghost hunters and experts in his quest for help. The Supers are his last chance.

So why does normally good-natured cameraman Will take an instant dislike to Payne? For that matter, why has he felt irritable and angry since they arrived at the site? It soon becomes clear that the answers they seek will be found in the basement—where nobody has gone since Payne was a little boy. As the haunting grows deadlier, things get sweeter between Will and Payne, but all hell’s about to break loose when they breach the basement door.

Will they be ready?

Buy The Librarian’s Ghost: Dreamspinner Press

The Excerpt

Payne MacGregor watched his pot of soup, waiting for it to begin simmering. He didn’t want it to boil over. Hell, he didn’t want to turn his back on it in case the thing went flying across the room and sprayed everything with hot soup either. It was tomato too, which would be hell to clean up.

Truthfully, he was at his wits end. At first he’d thought he was being absentminded, forgetful. Then he’d begun to wonder if he was losing his mind. None of the workers seemed to notice anything wrong. But he put that down to their being transient. They weren’t there day after day like he was and were hardly likely to notice books and dishes being moved. Things flying across the room seemed to be reserved for him too. And that was harder to put down to his imagination. It wasn’t like things were simply falling off shelves or tables; they were getting some distance.

Then he’d overheard arguments between some workers over items taken out of toolboxes and hidden. No one claimed ownership of these “practical jokes,” making him think they weren’t practical jokes at all but the work of the same… well, ghost—he was embarrassed to admit the assumption even to himself—plaguing him.

He took the soup off the stove the moment steam began rising from it and poured it into a bowl as his toast popped. Unfortunately, all but a corner of it was almost black. He was not one for toast that well done, so he put it in the garbage and took his bowl to the library to eat by the fireplace with his favorite books.

He had to wonder if he was simply being paranoid for believing that the burned toast was the responsibility of his ghost. On the other hand, the toast he’d had yesterday had turned out perfectly, and he was the only who could have changed the setting. Which he hadn’t done.

One of the books went flying across the room, and he pretended he didn’t see it, concentrating on his soup instead. He would do some work once he’d eaten, put in enough hours that when he did close his eyes, he’d fall asleep right away and wouldn’t dream. At least he could hope that was how the evening played out, but it didn’t mean that was what would happen. He pushed aside the niggling thought that he might have to do something about the strange things going on in the house at some point. Certainly if it got worse than the current annoyances. If not, well, he would deal with it.

As soon as he’d finished his soup, he set the bowl on his side table, right in the middle of it so it couldn’t accidently fall to the floor. Then he grabbed his laptop and booted it up. In no time he was hunched over it, safely lost in his research.

About the Author

Best-selling author Sean Michael is a maple leaf–loving Canadian who spends hours hiding out in used book stores. With far more ideas than time, Sean keeps several documents open at all times. From romance to fantasy, paranormal and sci-fi, Sean is limited only by the need for sleep—and the periodic Beaver Tail.

Sean fantasizes about one day retiring on a secluded island populated entirely by horseshoe crabs after inventing a brain-to-computer dictation system. Until then, Sean will continue to write the old-fashioned way.

Sean Michael on the Web: WEBSITE || BLOG || FACEBOOK || TWITTER: seanmichael09