AFTER we’d done as much damage to birthdays (Many Bloody Returns) and to the Christmas holidays (Wolfsbane and Mistletoe) as we could, we started brainstorming about our next anthology’s theme. What hadn’t we covered? We’re sort of saving Arbor Day, and so many paranormals don’t celebrate the Fourth of July.

Toni brought up the summer holidays. Since we’re both moms with kids in school (albeit kids of very different ages), the idea made us gleeful. But we decided to broaden it a bit to include all vacations, because we didn’t want to leave out the possibility of a really good vampire skiing story. Unfortunately, as it happened, none was turned in to us by our stellar list of authors.

But we got some great stories, with settings as varied as a hotel in California, a family reunion in Ireland, the headquarters of a mysterious sect in Paris, and other interesting locales ranging from the exotic to the ridiculous . . . and we love them all.

Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve lined up house sitters, and we’ve packed our sunscreen and paperbacks. We’re officially on vacation. We’ll send you a postcard!

Charlaine Harris

Toni L. P. Kelner

Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author, has been writing for twenty-seven years. Her body of work includes many novels, a few novellas, and a growing body of short stories in genres such as mystery, science fiction, and romance. Married and the mother of three, Charlaine lives in rural Arkansas with her family, three dogs, and a Canada goose. She pretty much works all the time. The HBO series True Blood is based on Charlaine’s Sookie Stackhouse novels.