2024 COVERS

Lawless In Leather
Winterfall Destiny
Mated to the sapphic orc
Fae's Fate
Broken: A Romantic Science Fiction Eco Adventure
Wolf's Prize
Knightqueen
Wicked Ways
Unbreak My Heart
Curiosity Killed the Vampire
From Across the Sea
Angel In Armani
Edge of Night
The Witch's Tangle
Three Vampires And A Baby
Banshee, Death and Disarray: Holly Harrow: A Point Muse Cozy Paranormal Mystery
Damaris: A Scifi Alien Romance
The Shattered Court
Moon Blessed
Falling for Mr. Fake It

2024 covers

Welcome to the Dark Side!

We are writers mainly from Australia and New Zealand who write speculative fiction with romantic elements. Be it fantasy, paranormal, dark urban fantasy, futuristic and everything in between.

Thursday 19 September 2024

DarkLight On...Cathleen Ross: Growing Up Psychic!

 


Cathleen talks about growing up psychic in this post. 

Welcome Cathleen!


Growing Up Psychic


I’ve seen dead people since I was a child and no matter how many I’ve seen, I’ve never been scared. Perhaps because I come from a mother who saw them too.


My mother used to tell me about the ghosts she’d encountered in England where she grew up and it

Great Grandmother Laura Ross

seemed that it was a family thing. When Mother’s uncle, David, was a child, he told his mother, Laura Ross, that an angel had come down and taken the baby away. Laura looked into the cot and the baby was dead. I checked my family tree and there is indeed a baby born after David who passed away.


Mother would also tell me that when she was a child, perhaps younger than three, she saw a maid walk down the stairs and through the wall. She asked her mother if that was her nanny, but it was the nanny’s day off. She always said she was too young to have made it up but the fact that someone could walk through the wall, didn’t make sense to her, so she remembered it.

These stories seemed normal to me as a child, so when I saw my first ghost at the age of twelve, a young girl wearing a shroud, staring at me with hatred, I kept rubbing my eyes in disbelief but not fear. She slowly faded away to nothing. Although I never discovered anything more about that ghost, I did recognise she had an intense energy about her. Later, when my parents put the house up for sale, a lady had wanted to buy it, but she said she didn’t because she dreamed there was a horrid ghost on the stairs. I simply nodded my head in acceptance. After all, I had already met her.


It wasn’t until my thirties that I noticed the family psychic gift passed down to my daughter. My daughter started to see dead people around the age of two and refused to sleep in her own bed. This went on for years until finally I sought the advice of the school counsellor. The counsellor said that although she didn’t see anything herself, it wasn’t unusual for children to come to her and tell her that they would see someone sitting on the end of the bed with them at night. One day, my daughter came into our bedroom and said, “Mum, there’s a man in my bedroom.” I went in and of course, there was no one there. This man kept appearing to her both at night and in the morning. She was too young to have the word for Mambo, but she held up a shirt in my husband’s closet and said, “this is what he is wearing”. I showed the shirt to my mother who said, “That’s the shirt I gave your brother before he died”.


Mother Nanette Ross
When I was in my forties, I became more and more psychic. I would know things about people without asking them. It felt intrusive to me, so I went to psychic school to learn how to open up and also how to shut down. This is done by first breathing deeply, bringing in guides and angels, then imagining you have grown roots deep into the earth. I also imagine a column of light penetrating my crown chakra and descending through my body. It is when in this meditative state, I can channel for people, give them advice their loved ones wish for them to hear. For example, I was sitting near a man in a pub and my friend, Catherine Cockburn said Cathleen Ross is psychic. The man next to me scathingly asked me to tell his fortune, so I did. I had never met him before, but I could see that he was about to have a business meeting with another man in America and that he wasn’t going to accept the deal. He looked at me and said, “You can’t possibly know that.” When we went home to Catherine’s place, he sent his wife over to talk to me. The next minute Catherine’s neighbours were popping up over the hedge asking for readings. When I left, Catherine told me the village women were annoyed she’d let me leave without telling their fortunes. To shut down, I draw my aura in and close off each chakra, so I’m not bothered by other people’s intrusive thoughts and worries. 


Hever Castle

Recently I went to stay at Hever Castle. I put my hand to Anne Boleyn’s Book of Hours. Apparently, she carried it to the scaffold before she was beheaded. Unspeakable horror came off the book. No words. None at all. Just dry-throated horror. Although she went to her death a queen, appearing calm and dignified, Anne was human. I could feel her fingers clutching the book and her terror of what was about to happen to her. When I put my hand up to Catherine of Aragon’s Book of Hours, there was nothing but calm. It’s interesting that with my gift I can feel the sensations of people who have been dead for hundreds of years.


One thing I’ve learned having this gift, it that this life is not the only one we live. That our bodies are a place to house a soul. We do cross over to be with our loved ones when we leave this plane and that is very comforting. Do we choose to come back? Well, that’s a story for another blog.




Cathleen Ross’s latest release is An Unsuitable Bride, a historical novel set in the Blue Mountains in 1918.

It’s 1918, the war’s nearly over and people are looking for fun. Anna Hall is delighted when her wealthy, older fiancé, Max Elliot invites her on a holiday to the Hunting Lodge in the beautiful Megalong Valley, Blue Mountains. But once there, she finds everything is not as it seems. Everyone has secrets and she soon finds herself entangled in a dangerous web of lies and deception.

Anna has a secret too but she cannot admit it for fear of vilification.

Max has a secret that will destroy Anna’s life, only he’s not prepared to tell her until he’s had his fun with her.

Jack-of-all-trades at the Hunting Lodge, Thomas Rutherford, has three secrets. He’s fallen for Anna, knows the real story as to why her fiancé, Max can’t marry her; he also doesn’t wish to admit he has shellshock and can no longer work as a doctor.

But the worst secret of all is how did Max’s last fiancée, Cora Hanson die?

Will Anna be next?

Buy



Cathleen Ross

Cathleen Ross likes to write about the quirky side of life. Her characters often have psychic abilities because she comes from a family of psychics. She thought she was a "Sweet" writer until she was asked to write her first erotic story, sold it immediately and never looked back. Her first novel, Man Hunt sold to Black Lace/Random House. Man Hunt became the number one best selling erotic novel on the Publisher's website in 2006 and has been translated into German. She also loves writing historical stories. Highlander is the first in her Highlander Forbidden Fantasy series. When she is not self publishing she writes for Entangled Publishing. 

You can find Cathleen at her website.


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