The Haunting at Ice Pine Peak is my Asian-themed horror-fantasy set in a fictional, pre-modern world resembling Silk Road countries, particularly China, Korea and India. I wanted to hearken back to the gothic standard of the decrepit but intriguing old building haunted by a beautiful ghost but using an Asian twist. Since I am an Asia scholar, I have encountered a number of churches built in the traditional Asian style of architecture in a few of the countries, so instead of the big haunted house of classic Western horror, I chose to make the haunted building in this novel a Buddhist-style mountain temple with many levels and multiple buildings that can hide many secrets.
This story was influenced by a number of news stories that were in the headlines in late 2014 when I was getting ready to write it. One was the plight of the various minority religious groups in the Middle East who were terrorized by ISIS, but I also saw some interesting discussion about the female assassin Charles Taylor sent to kill the Catholic nuns in Liberia in the 90s. Therefore, I thought the inhabitants of this former temple should be a women’s order.
This is my print edition cover with my award seals. I used a Noh mask for a particular type of female character that matched my ghost a bit as the template for the face. I think it was called a deigan style used for female ghosts according to one authoritative site I looked at for inspiration.
Although I do write for adults, The Haunting at Ice Pine Peak has earned awards for younger readers since I keep the sex and violence to a minimum. In 2018, it earned the Story Monsters Approved Seal of Approval in the Tween Category from both their adult panel of judges and tween children panel of judges. It’s such an honor to hear that the kids liked the book.
The Haunting at Ice Pine Peak also won the Bronze Award for Young Adult Fiction E-book in the 2016 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards!
http://www.moonbeamawards.com/74/2016-winners
The Amazon link pulls in my e-book edition cover, which is red. The print edition has the blue cover pictured above and is also available for purchase at Amazon:
Here is the official jacket description:
Trouble is brewing in the province of Ling-xiu when the murder of an elderly queen sends young Princess Bingsong into exile at a forgotten mountain villa. When a series of hauntings begin and she finds her father’s old diary, Bingsong, her handsome bodyguard Azuma, the villa’s mysterious steward LimTamm, and teenage servant girls Peitho and Lysithe are drawn into a 400 year old murder mystery hinted at by a string of small nightingale paintings. Bingsong’s struggle against an arranged marriage merges with the sinister history of the villa, the site of a massacre spurred by the rivalry between two temple acolytes.
As corrupt security forces led by the province’s head magician Kimon are poised to take over the capital and eliminate Bingsong’s puppet king father, Kimon awakens an ancient evil in his quest to find the ruins of the drowned palace of Zu-bai, once the home of the world’s most powerful magician. Drawn into the epic battle between the spirits on the mountain that is set to span two provinces, Bingsong and her friends must delve into the ancient history of the neighboring province of Zu-dang in order to lay to rest the grudges of the past.
Set in the world of the Vulpecula Cycle with the same Silk Road sensibility, The Haunting at Ice Pine Peak is inspired by popular monster horror films of the 1930s and is a cross between “Dark Shadows” and Chinese literary classics like The Dream of Red Mansions.
I also did some videos reading excerpts from the novel a few years ago, which I posted to my YouTube channel.
I also did a sketch of my ghost, showing her in a more romantic pose.
The Ice Pine Palace 