"Meeting Harry Potter" - Guest Post & Giveaway with Drowning Rapunzel Author Annette Gisby

Meeting Harry Potter - Or at Least His Alter Ego, Daniel Radcliffe

By Annette Gisby

I wasn't sure what to write about for this guest post. Writers usually write about something to do with writing or promoting and since I'd already written a few of those, I thought I might try something a bit different. Something fun.

I'd always loved books and that's what started me on my road to writing. We didn't have any children, but we had nephews and nieces who loved the Harry Potter books but we hadn't read any when they were first out. When the first film came out, the cinema near us was showing a special midnight screening. We decided to watch it on the spur of the minute and were very pleasantly surprised how much we enjoyed it.

For my birthday that year, my husband John got me all the books that had come out so far, I think it was four or five then. I was hooked and I became something of a Harry Potter fanatic after that. I'd read and re-read the books, watched the films countless times, wrote and read fanfic, bought all the merchandise you could think of: mugs, pens, bookmarks, stickers, diaries, watches, if it had anything to do with Harry Potter on the front of it, I was buying it. John took it all in his stride and started teasing me about my crush on Daniel Radcliffe. Every time he was mentioned I would blush like a schoolgirl and when Daniel Radcliffe appeared in Equus in London, John booked tickets for us to see the show for Valentine's Day.

But it wasn't until a year later when we were on holiday in New York that I finally got to meet him. After Equus, a few people were milling about outside the theatre and there were a couple of men dressed in suits who looked like security and they were setting up some metal barriers in the shape of cages. One looked at me (I guess I must have looked very interested, LOL!) and he said had we been to the show that night? Cue John with copies of our tickets and programmes. The security man asked if we'd like to meet him, that Dan would be coming out to sign autographs in a few minutes or so.

I nodded eagerly and the security man opened one side of the barrier cage. John stayed outside so that someone else who was more interested than him could get a chance for an autograph. Well we were all standing there for about five or ten minutes, if that. While we waited the security guard went through the rules. No pushing, photos could be taken but we couldn't ask for poses (and we'd left our camera behind because we thought they weren't allowed at the theatre, LOL!) Could have kicked ourselves!

Anyway, I was at the back of the cage, but when Dan came out, the security men removed the barriers and shifted them forward a bit and I ended up at the front. There were four people to the side of me who were getting their programmes signed and the nearer Dan got to me, the more my heart was beating and I was getting dizzy. I thought for a minute I was actually going to faint! Anyway, by the time he got to me my mind had gone completely blank and I mumbled something about how much we enjoyed the play. He said thanks very much and signed my programme and then on to the next person.

Dan was very polite and was smiling the whole time as he signed autographs and got pictures taken from all angles. He was also shorter than I had realised. I'm five foot four and he was shorter than me! Very cute though ;)

John still teases me about my crush, but that doesn't stop him from buying me lots of Harry Potter and Daniel related memorabilia.

Title:  Drowning Rapunzel
Author:  Annette Gisby

Reading Level:  Adult
Genre: Romantic Suspense

Find the book: Goodreads   | Amazon    | Barnes & Noble 

Recently released from a mental institution, Beth Gregory accepts a job as a live-in secretary/PA to the reclusive painter Josh Warrington. Beth's long red hair fascinates him from the first moment he sees her and Josh wants her to be his Rapunzel for a series of fairy tale paintings he's working on. 

Beth has two major fears: that she will be sent back to the mental hospital and the visions which landed her there in the first place will return. They do; this time giving her glimpses of murders before they happen. Beth becomes the main suspect in the murder investigation and then she has the most disturbing vision of all: she will become the next victim...

 

He wished he'd thought of the water sooner. It was easier that way, not so much mess. It was peaceful too, watching her hair fan out behind her like a veil of gold. She didn't struggle after his hands were around her neck, and he was grateful. It showed him that she accepted her fate dutifully, like she should. She should never have made him wait so long.

Now he was waiting again, but he didn't mind. He was used to waiting now. Waiting could almost have been his middle name. Actually, it was Alphonse, but anyone who knew that was already dead, and so it didn't matter anymore.

It was a while since he had hunted like this, anticipated the inevitable. Usually he preferred the quick kill, where they didn't know he was coming until they started screaming. He liked to hear them scream. Made it all seem that bit much more worthwhile.

But there was something different about this one; something that made him want to wait, to delay the final moment, to make it last. He wanted to frighten her long before the end, when she would beg him to kill her. He couldn't quite tell what it was; there was just an air of something other about her. She wasn't like the other girls, and he grinned broadly. Of course she wasn't. She was special. But then, they were all special. They were his.

Maybe it was the hair which attracted him. It was long, tumbling in red-gold waves down her back, almost to her waist. It reminded him of golden syrup. He loved golden syrup, loved to eat it straight out of the tin with his fingers. No mother to nag him about that. Not anymore. Fingers were fine, but sometimes he preferred bread, white bread, none of that wholemeal nonsense. He could almost taste it on his tongue, could almost taste her and he had to stifle a gasp at the image. No point in attracting undue attention to himself.

He glanced at the folder on the passenger seat, her name stark black against the buff-coloured folder. It had almost been too easy to get hold of her file, but no one knew what he wanted it for and he wasn't about to tell them, either. He lifted it up and traced her name with a gloved finger, feeling almost as if he was caressing her already. This one would be so easy to break; she'd already been in a mental hospital once. He had to be careful; if she was sent back he couldn't get to her, not there with their high walls and staff on alert all the time. No, he just wanted to scare her for a while, but not inflict madness on her once more. He gasped as he saw her walking towards his parked car, her head down, her loose hair being buffeted by the spring wind.

Maybe it wasn't the hair; maybe it was the grey-green eyes which seemed to see right down to his soul.  Would she recoil in terror at what she saw there, or would she welcome it like the others before her? They had all welcomed him in the end. Or maybe it was the way she dressed, so unlike her contemporaries in their short skirts and skimpy tops. Any time he'd seen her, she was always covered up in long dresses and baggy sweaters, as if she didn't want to show off any of her womanly curves. She had curves, the clothes could not disguise them, and he had long imagined his hands roving over her delicate skin.

He also knew that underneath all those layers, there was a wanton harlot waiting for him to let her out, just like all the others. How they loved to tease and torment him. This time he would be the tormentor.

But not yet. He would wait. He was getting good at waiting.

Annette Gisby grew up in a small town in Northern Ireland, moving to London when she was seventeen. She writes in multiple genres and styles, anything from romance to thriller or erotica to horror, even both at the same time. When not writing, she enjoys reading, cinema, theatre and travelling the world despite getting travel sick on most forms of transport., even a bicycle. Sometimes you might find her playing Dragon Quest or The Sims computer games and watching Japanese Anime. She lives in Hampshire with her husband, a collection of porcelain dolls, cuddly toys and enough books to fill a library. It's diminishing gradually since the advent of ebooks, but still has a long way to go.

Connect with the Author:  Website   

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