Hi, my name is Thelma and I will be your host for tonight’s Character Diva podcast. We have an exciting show for you with the main characters from both The Ghost Files and The Crane Diaries written by Apryl Baker. They’ve been on the show before and tonight we’re going to focus on their new life in New Orleans as written in The Crane Diaries.
Let’s welcome Emma Rose Crane AKA Mattie Hathaway and Dan Richards to the show to talk about their latest adventure The Red Church and to catch up on what’s been going on with them since moving to New Orleans.
Thelma: Let’s start with you Emma. You’ve changed your name. Why?
Emma: After everything that went down in Charlotte, I just wanted to get away and start over. Emma was a world of pain and horrible memories. Emma was a fresh start. It helps me.
Thelma: There was a lot that went on before you came to New Orleans. You lost someone very special.
Emma: (nods slowly, her face giving way to a deep sadness.) I did. I’m not gonna talk about it, but I will be haunted by the guilt every day of my life.
Dan: Squirt, it wasn’t your fault…he…
Emma holds up her hand and Dan falls silent.
A beat of silence falls over the radio and those listening don’t have to see Emma to know how much Eli’s death still haunts her.
Thelma clears her throat.
Thelma: Let's get back to the interview. It’s not every day we meet a real live ghost whisperer.
Emma: (glares at Thelma) Did we really have to go there first? I don’t like to publicly talk about my…gifts. You know this, Thelma. We’ve been over it before.
Dan: Emma is sensitive about her…er…gift.
Emma: Like you don’t have issues with your own gifts?
Dan: Did you have to bring that up?
Thelma: What’s this? Last we spoke you were very much in the human category.
Emma: When he died and hid from the reaper on the ghost plane, he came back with the ability to touch something and see the owner’s memories. Comes in handy in his line of work. Officer Dan has been promoted to detective.
Thelma: Congratulations.
Emma: He also carries the Sword of Truth, one of four holy swords. It beefed him up a little.
Thelma: I did notice he seemed to have gotten in shape.
Emma: (smirks) Dan is like Captain America before the serum and the Holy Warrior is Captain America after the serum.
Thelma: Admit it, you are enjoying the muscles.
Dan blushes.
Emma: I liked him just the way he was and I like him now.
Thelma: Girl….
Dan: She says that until she needs a lid opened.
Mattie: Fine. I like his muscles.
Dan’s turn to smirk.
Thelma: (chuckles) Back to our interview. For those of you who don’t know, Emma has the ability to see ghosts and help them decide to move on. How has that been going for you?
Emma: (snorts) When the powers that be aren’t trying to smite me you mean?
Thelma: Why would they smite you?
Dan: Because she’s not supposed to exit or some such nonsense. She’s part reaper, part demon, part god.
Thelma: Wow. That has to be…
Emma: Aggravating. It’s more trouble than it’s worth, believe me. But it does help me when I’m hunting. Cass seems to have accepted me at least.
Thelma: Cass?
Emma: Cass Willow. He’s a hunter who I work with. He’s one hundred percent Cajun with an accent that can make a girl swoon.
Dan rolls his eyes.
Emma: You know he doesn’t do that for me. He’s like the irritating little brother I never had. One who forgets to mention he’s taking me into the middle of the freaking swamp with all the alligators. (Emma shudders)
Thelma: You’ll have to bring him along the next time you come.
Emma: Sure. He’d love that. He’ll charm all the girls out there.
Thelma: You said you’re hunting now. Care to tell us a little about that?
Emma: Just little things here and there. A few ghosts, a Roogie…
Dan: Rougarou
Emma: (shrugs) Whatever.
Dan: Don’t whatever me. That thing nearly killed you. Don’t you remember the curse that came along with that bite? You were thinking of eating people.
Emma: Don’t remind me. I’m still suffering the after-effects of that thing. It made all my insecurities come up, all my emotions got magnified, all my old fears…I still get afraid sometime. But you know, Amber, Apryl’s PA did some really fantastic teasers that will explain it a lot better than I can!
Thelma: It sounds like you had a rough time, but Dan was there to help you through it.
Dan: Always. She’s the most important thing in the world to me and…
Emma: (Slaps a hand over his mouth) Shhh…we want people to read the darn books, don’t be giving away everything.
Dan: (tries to talk and Emma glares)
Emma: (screeches) Eweeee…you licked my palm.
Dan: You didn’t mind it…
Emma again slaps her hand over his mouth.
Emma: Don’t you dare.
Dan grins wide enough so Thelma can see it behind Emma’s hand.
Thelma: Ahem. Maybe we should get back to this new adventure you came here to talk about?
Emma: Yes, lets.
Dan laughs, his brown eyes twinkling with mischief.
Thelma: What’s the new about? I think it’s called The Red Church?
Emma: (nods) Yes. The Hathaway Foundation got hired to deghost an old church, only it wasn’t ghosts. Well, there were ghosts there, but they were more like sentries, trying to keep innocent people away. It was something far worse.
Thelma: What was it?
Emma: a creature that made the first vampires. No one, not even my demon grandfather, Silas, knew how to kill it.
Thelma: But you did?
Emma: I did, but if the hunters ever find out how I did, I’ll end up on their supernatural hit list.
Dan: Not as long as I’m alive.
Emma: It wasn’t just that though. We knew someone had removed all my protections given to me by the goddess that was my metaphysical mother, but we discovered someone stole my memories of Silas. Someone hid me from him and I don’t know why. We’re working on finding that out, though.
Thelma: Sounds like you’re going to busy for a while.
Dan snorts, a habit he’s picked up from Emma.
Thelma: Something you want to add, Dan?
Dan: Let’s not talk about busy. If you could see what Apryl has us doing in the new book, busy is like comparing Black Friday to Sunday mornings in Walmart.
Thelma: How are you both getting along with Apryl these days? Still giving her hives over all the crazy you make her think up?
Emma: Her? What about us? Do you know the nightmares I’ve had after that one scene in the swamp? The slime…the.
Dan: Don’t give to much away.
Emma: Even you have to admit the slime was a bit much. (Emma has a full body shudder)
Dan: I don’t want to repeat that again.
Thelma: If you could sit in a room with your author, what would you tell her?
Emma: You really want her to not like me don’t you? Then imagine all the crazy she’d put me through.
Dan: Squirt’s being dramatic. We love Apryl. I mean despite all the pain, the anger, the heartbreak, not to mention the whole dying and hiding from reapers thing…well…yeah, best not put us face to face with her. We’ll admire and plot her death from afar.
Emma: She’s not all bad. She gave us an amazing ending in The Red Church.
Dan: (smiles softly) Best one yet.
Thelma: And on that note, we’ll end it here. Thank you both so much for joining us today and sharing a few things!
Emma: (jumps up and waves her hand before the camera pans away) Wait, you didn’t let me tell you about the giveaway Apryl is hosting!
Thelma: Oh, my I forgot!
Emma: I did promise I’d tell everyone about it. She’s giving away a $15 Amazon gift card and a Crane Diaries charm bracelet.
(Flashes card with the giveaway link at the camera)
Dan: Uh, we forgot something else!
Thelma: (frowns at them and glances at her watch) Go ahead, Dan.
Dan: First here's a little bit about Apryl Baker, our creator who we usually love, but sometimes want to strangle for putting us in certain situations...
Emma: Like Ollie the snake.
Dan: (shudders) Yeah, Ollie. Any way here's a bit about Apryl:
So who am I? Well, I'm the crazy girl with an imagination that never shuts up. I LOVE scary movies. My friends laugh at me when I scare myself watching them and tell me to stop watching them, but who doesn't love to get scared? I grew up in a small town nestled in the southern mountains of West Virginia where I still currently live.
Growing up in a small town, I learned a lot of values and morals, I also learned parents have spies everywhere and there's always someone to tell your mama on you. So when you get grounded, what is there left to do? Read! My Aunt Jo gave me my first real romance novel. It was a romance titled "Lord Margrave's Deception." I remember it fondly. But I also learned I had a deep and abiding love of mysteries and anything paranormal. As I grew up, I started to write just that and would entertain my friends with stories featuring them as main characters.
Now, I live Huntersville, NC where I entertain my family and watch the cats get teased by the birds and laugh myself silly when they swoop down and then dive back up just out of reach. The cats start yelling something fierce...lol.
I love books, I love writing books, and I love entertaining people with my silly stories.
PS: DO NOT GET IN MY WAY IF THERE IS A SALE ON AT TARGET - my home away from home!
(PS, you can read her work here free on Wattpad until it’s published)
Thelma: Okay, thanks so much for reminding us of that, Emma! Thank you both and let’s hear it from our sponsor, Writer’s Anonymous, for those who just have a problem with writing way too many stories at one time!
(Dan and Emma leave the studio arguing about who is going to drive home)
(Fades to Writer’s Anonymous commercial)
by Apryl Baker
July 2nd, 2019
Genre: NA Horror/Paranormal
In the swamps of New Orleans sits an old church.
Its history is steeped in blood and death.
For over a century, this abandoned church has inspired fear, and the rumors of the creatures that inhabit it have kept the locals away.
The church has been sold, but work on the property has stalled. Centuries-old fears resurface when accidents start to befall the construction crews and ghosts are seen wandering the derelict stone building. No one dares go back until the property has been cleansed.
The Hathaway Foundation is hired to rid the property of ghosts so that work can begin again, only Emma Crane soon discovers it’s not the ghosts they have to fear, but something far more evil.
There was a reason the church was abandoned, a reason a powerful protection spell was put around the property, and a reason everyone from her father’s priest to Silas, her demonic grandfather, is warning her to stay away.
But now that she’s discovered what roams the halls, she can’t walk away. She can’t be responsible for innocents dying when she might have prevented it.
She’ll gather her team and go up against something she thought existed only in books and movies, something even the hunters in the area fear—a primordial evil, a creature that spawned the first vampires.
But can she stop the creature before it’s too late, before its family destroys hers?
