These were the shows that scared the heck outta me when I was young. I can still hear that eerie music from Twilight Zone that told me we had entered a new dimension and I for one was frightened to death to be there! The crazy cacophony that ended in the blast of music from that sounded like a trio on the trombone No score has ever had a more profound effect, it brought instant fear, like I was Pavlov's dog or something.
And the shows, like the one where William Shatner saw a gremlin, or whatever the heck it was, destroying the wing on the airplane. It would hide whenever anyone else looked but he, by the end of the flight  Mr. Shattner's  character was insane!

Rod Serling had a voice that just gave me the shivers, just hearing it. Then when he told you the story, darn was I scared, every single time!! And the man wrote and produced almost every one of the scripts for each show. Rod Serling's seminal anthology series focused on ordinary folks who suddenly found themselves in extraordinary, usually supernatural, situations. The stories would typically end with an ironic twist that would see the guilty punished.Fantastic!

But then, then came the scariest of all TV shows. 

The Outer Limits!

I'll never forget it, when it came on, I would panic...

.

WWwwW

Who hasn't laid in their bed with hands over ears and humming. But you could still hear it. It really creeped me out. An anthology of street episodes, sometimes with a plot twist at the end. All I know is they scared me, so bad that I had night terrors for years. But the one thing that was the scariest for me ever was the move,

A Picture of Dorian Gray

His picture aged instead of him. When I saw the picture on TV I thought I would have heart failure. The best in classic Gothic horror! Oscar Wilde was at his best when he wrote this story in which a man sells his soul to stay young. The portrait is a grim reminder of every sin that he has committed, the soul of a man whose spent his life in debauchery. And he looked bone ugly in the oil painting of himself when he finally looked at it. 

Now I know that A Picture of Dorian Gray is a wonderful classic and should be read when one is not going to be up all night scared to death!

And nothing scares me in the movies now. Nothing, it ain't easy to get me to laugh out loud either So What do you have to say. Remember any of this anybody?? 

Not much romance huh?
What movie scared you the most when you were very young? Can anything scare you now?

Help me welcome our guest blogger, Rita Herron. I knew Rita before she joined Georgia Romance Writers. I won’t tell how long ago that was if she doesn’t. The woman is prolific!

Multi-published, award-winning author Rita Herron cut her teeth on mystery books and television shows like Alfred Hitchcock, The Outer Limits and the Twilight Zone. More recently, she’s added Medium, The Ghost Whisperer, and Dead Zone to her list of favorites.




She currently writes paranormal romantic suspense for Grand Central Publishing and category romantic suspense for Harlequin Intrigue.

With her new series THE DEMONBORN, she blends her love of dark, steamy romantic suspense stories with her other love -- the paranormal.

Set in the contemporary world, she explores the age-old battle of good versus evil, and that battle as it rages within each person. And of course, the ultimate question for the romantic – can love conquer all?

ROMANCE or FANTASY?

Both please
Where can we find both?
Between the pages of a romance novel!

Are the stories realistic? Are the men real? Do we expect our husbands/boyfriends/companions to talk, act or even look as hot as the men in our novels?
Not necessarily.
Books, like movies, may be more dramatic than our own lives, because, after all, sometimes our lives are BORING!

We read so we can escape into another world. We want to be swept up in the characters’ lives, problems, friendships, and love lives. These books feed our fantasies, our dreams, our hopes and provide us with entertainment.

They also provide us with the exhilarating fantasy of falling in love over and over again. Of great sex. Of a hero to melt our hearts, give us pleasure, and take us to erotic and exotic places we might never go.

In The Demonborn series, the heroes’ fantasies are steamy and run toward the forbidden.
Quinton Valtrez has dark hungers that he can’t deny. Hunger for the dark side. Hunger for vengeance. Hunger for a woman in his bed.
Hunger for Annabelle Armstrong.

Quinton’s brother Vincent had an insatiable desire for sex. He needed to feed daily to keep his compulsions for violence at bay. And he never slept with a woman more than once.
Until he met the elusive, psychic Clarissa King.
Quinton’s secret fantasies are wicked and naughty – he likes to watch.

What are your fantasies? Are they tame, or are you a tigress inside?
Maybe you hunger for dark chocolate? For spicy food? For adventure?
For the love of a good man? For him simply to hold your hand?
For him to make love to you slow and sweet? For his touch to skate over your body? His hands to tease you with mindless pleasure?
For his lips to trail kisses and tongue lashes along your spine?

Or maybe you want hot wild sex, fast and furious? Maybe you fantasize about his body pounding into yours until you are one in that moment in time. Or do you hunger to please him? To drive him wild with your lips and tongue and hands?

Whatever your fantasy, whether a romantic candlelit dinner in a secluded cabin with snow falling outside, a night of lovemaking on a crowded beach, a secret rendezvous in a foreign city, a mountain climbing expedition, to be tied up and pleasured, to indulge in a three-way, to find a lover who will last forever, you can find it somewhere between the pages of a romance novel!

Would we do all the things we read about in a romance novel? Maybe. Maybe not.
But fantasies are like foreplay and foreplay is fun! Foreplay builds anticipation. Foreplay is romantic.
Just as our fantasies feed our romantic lives, they take us to exotic places, to new experiences. To that heart-pounding place where we sigh and moan and go away feeling happy and euphoric.
I hope you feel that excitement when you read Quinton and Annabelle’s story in Dark Hunger!

What character or book have you read lately that gave you that feeling?

Leave a comment or question for Rita today and be entered in a contest for a copy of Rita’s first book in The Demonborn Series: Insatiable Desire. But don’t stop there! There’s a second contest for today’s readers. Visit Rita at her website www.ritaherron.com and sign up for her newsletter to be entered in a contest to a copy of both books in The Demonborn Series: Insatiable Desire and Dark Hunger. And, by signing up for Rita’s newsletter, you will also be automatically entered in Rita’s regular monthly contests. You can find extras on the Demonborn Series at www.thedemonborn.com. And visit Rita on Facebook, Myspace.com/ritaherron, and Twitter.com/ritaherron !