Welcome to the WordCrafter “Curses” Book Blog Tour!

Posted: September 29, 2025 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: Anthology, Blog Tour, Book Release, Books, Dark fiction, Guest Post, Horror, Paranormal, Short Fiction, Stories, WordCrafter Book Blog Tours, WordCrafter Press | Tags: "The Death Clock, "The Mohawk Monster: The Curse of the Herkimer Diamond, Anthology, Curses, Curses: Chronicles of Darkness, Dark fiction, Denise Aparo, Kaye Lynne Booth, WordCrafter Press | 2 Comments

Welcome to the opening day of the WordCrafter Curses Book Blog Tour. I want to thank each of you for joining us in the send-off for this themed dark fiction anthology, Curses: Chronicles of Darkness. All contributors have worked hard on this to bring you eleven quality stories about… well… curses.

We have a great tour planned, featuring guest posts, readings and/or interviews from six of our contributing authors. On this tour, you will have the opportunity to meet and learn more about Denise Aparo, Joseph Carrabis, Paul Kane, Robert White, Danaeka Scrimshaw, and Molly Ertel and their stories. And, of course, we’ll have a giveaway for 5 digital copies of the anthology, one for each day of the tour. You can follow the tour through the links at the bottom of this post.

Giveaway

We’re giving away 5 digital copies of Curses: Chronicles of Darkness.

All you have to do to enter is

follow the tour and leave a comment each day.

The Authors of Curses: Chronicles of Darkness

WordCrafter Short

Curses: Chronicles of Darkness releases tomorrow, September 30, but it is available for pre-order now. We have a great group of authors, including myself, who contributed to this anthology. I’m pleased to be able to bring them to you via this blog tour. Like live tours, blog tours bring readers closer to authors, and we will be introducing you to at least one or two authors each day on this double-stop tour.

Each day will feature one stop along the blog tour route where you will be introduced to at least one of our contributing authors and we’ll share a little about each story, then a second stop over at the Undawnted blog, where DL Mullan will interview one of the authors featured that day. Undawnted does not support comments, but you can leave them on the other host sites, or here, on Writing to be Read. And you’ll want to be sure and do that, because your comments are what enters you in the giveaway, and we will be drawing one winner per day. (Authors may also be available to respond to those comments to create a more personal experience.)

About Curses: Chronicles of Darkness

Pre-Order and Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/CursesChroniclesofDarkness

Meet Kaye Lynne Booth (That’s Me!)

About “The Death Clock”

My story, “The Death Clock“, is about a curse placed on an Ormulu clock in the sixteenth century, placed on it by its maker. I got the inspiration for this story, after the call for submissions for Curses went out, from an episode of Pawn Stars, where Rick explains why they call these clocks death clocks. After watching this, I thought Boy, if anything would be cursed, one of those clocks would be.

Ormulu clocks are gilded gold clocks which were commissioned with the most skilled clockmakers by members of the aristocracy as symbols of prestige. (In my story, the clock was commissioned by Napolean, himself.) During the gilding process, the gold is gilded to the bronze clock housing, by covering the housing with mercury and then, pressing the gold into it by hand. Then, the piece was fired to burn the mercury off, leaving the gilded gold. Many of these clock makers then suffered from insanity or death as a result of their labors. Hence the name “Death Clock”.

“The Death Clock” takes place in present day and is about one woman’s efforts to break the curse when she accidentally inherits an Ormulu clock with the house she and her husband just purchased.

Meet Denise Aparo

Denise Aparo is an author with four published short stories in the horror/supernatural genre in the WordCrafter Midnight Anthologies. All of her stories are written under Denise Aparo and are edited by Kaye Lynne Booth, through WordCrafter Press.

She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English – Fine Arts/Creative Writing with concentration in Fiction from Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU). And a member of five honor societies with leadership recognition. 

She is published in several newspapers and magazines—special interest articles, along with poems and short stories that have been published in print and digital format. She is a member of the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association (CAPA) and the author of a WordPress writing blog, The Write Voice.

Denise has three short stories in the horror/supernatural genre in the Midnight Series, through WordPress. These short stories are published under Denise Aparo and the third and last of the Midnight Series will be released on September 30, 2025.

You can learn more about Denise and her story, by visiting the second stop on today’s tour, over at Undawnted, in Denise’s interview with DL Mullan. Remember to leave your comments or questions here for both of today’s stops.

Denise Aparo’s story in Curses is “The Mohawk Montser: The Curse of the Herkimer Diamond”. A tale of an ancient Indian curse which stands over a diamond mine in New York and the surrounding land, including the diamonds in the mine.

Inspiration for “The Mohawk Monster: The Curse of the Herkimer Diamond”

The Curses:  Chronicles of Darkness story prompt was a curse(s). My short story, “The Mohawk Monster: The Curse of the Herkimer Diamond,” is a brief prequel to my recently completed novel, Crossbows, which I plan to publish soon. My novel actually began with an untold curse by a New England, Native American Goddess.

I thought it would be a great way to tell the story about her curse on a New York Community, Herkimer County, which is near the New England setting in my novel. The Goddess Komorkis was deeply saddened by the murders of the band of warriors she kept watch over. The sacred warriors, The Shadow Wolves, protected an ancient Tome, The Tome of Life with a sigil. The tome and the Sigillum Dei Sigil, has miraculous power over all creatures. This short story takes place at the Herkimer Diamond Mine in New York.

The why the story came about was because of my childhood memories of my dad. My father was a rock collector, who traveled to many mines and quarries, collecting rare and semiprecious rocks and stones. One of his favorite places to hunt was at the Herkimer Diamond Mine. He had collected many Herkimer Diamonds throughout his life.

Because I write historical fiction about New England, I am always researching unusual places, people, and things. The Mohawk Valley Mineral Mining is a unique Herkimer Diamond mining location set in a dense forest within the remote farm town of Sprakers, NY. I remembered how the place has many rare and unusual crystals. One of the largest known crystals is the Herkimer Diamond, called The Mohawk Monster. It was labeled this due to its large size and found in that mine, which is located in the Mohawk Valley.

Since the name of the diamond has the word “monster” in it, it prompted me to write a story about it for the Curses Anthology!

You can learn more about Denise and her story, by visiting the second stop on today’s tour, over at Undawnted, where you can catch Denise’s interview with DL Mullan.

Don’t forget to leave your comments and questions for both tour stops here for a chance to win in today’s giveaway drawing for a copy of Curses: Chronicles of Darkness.

Tour Schedule

Day 1

• Stop 1 – Writing to be Read – About the Curses Anthology & Meet Denise Aparo

• Stop 2 – Undawnted – DL Mullan Interviews Denise Aparo

Day 2

• Stop 1 – Robbie’s Inspiration – Kaye Lynne Booth & Joseph Carrabis with Readings of “It’s a Man’s World” & “Grafton’s Ghost-Child”

• Stop 2 – Undawnted – DL Mullan Interviews Joseph Carrabis

Day 3

• Stop 1 – Poetry by Mich – Meet Abe Margel & Paul Kane with a guest post about the inspiration of his story “The Weeping Man”

• Stop 2 – Undawnted – DL Mullan Interviews Paul Kane

Day 4

• Stop 1 – Roberta Writes – Meet C.R. Johansson & Robert White with a guest post about the inspiration for “The Longspeth Curse”

• Stop 2 – Undawnted – DL Mullan interviews Robert White

Day 5

• Stop 1 – Writing to be Read – Meet Kaye Lynne Booth, Danaeka Scrimshaw & Molly Ertel with Inspiration Video about “Clover’s Mirror Box”

• Stop 2 – Undawnted – DL Mullan interviews Danaeka Scrimshaw

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