Spooky Legends & Giveaway: Jeri Smith-Ready’s Logan Keeley on the Loch Ness Monster & win ENTHRALLED

The author of one of my favorite paranormal YA series is joining the Spooky Legends event today.  Jeri Smith-Ready is one of the 16 authors contributing the the anthology ENTRALLED (available now from HarperTeen), her story is part of her heartbreakingly wonderful Shade series about a generation of teens who see ghosts.  One of those ghosts, Logan Keeley, is giving us his take on the Loch Ness Monster legend today, and Jeri is giving away a signed copy of ENTHRALLED and a Shade swag pack.  See details below. 

Click to see the Spooky Legends Master List with links to all the previous posts and giveaways

Logan Keeley on the Loch Ness Monster
by
Jeri Smith-Ready

Hey!  It’s me, Logan Keeley, from the SHADE trilogy by Jeri Smith-Ready (or as I call her, the Woman Upstairs).  I’m a punk rocker who died and became a ghost when I was seventeen years and a few minutes old.

***(OH! My birth/deathday is tomorrow, Tuesday, October 18, and we’re having a #forever17 party on Twitter. If you tweet me (@keeley_logan) a music video, you can be entered to win free CDs, some Keeley Brothers swag, and a signed hardcover of ENTHRALLED: PARANORMAL DIVERSIONS.  I have a story in that anthology.  The cover is pink and has a girl on it, but I’m secure enough in my dudehood I can handle that.  I think.)***

For my urban legend, I figured I should do a ghost story.  But that hit waaaay too close to home.  I’m not a poltergeist, but there are some subjects that make me seriously want to break stuff.

So I decided to do the Loch Ness Monster.  This might surprise SHADE readers, because my arch-rival Zachary Moore is Scottish, like the monster.  He’s the other “point” in the love triangle with me and Aura.  We’re both good for her—I’m her first boyfriend and I have a band and I make her laugh and I’ll love her until the end of time.  And Zachary…well, he has a pulse.  That’s his advantage.  (Okay, and the accent.  Shut up!)

But I figured this’d be a good olive branch, a show of respect.  Demonstrate that I’m not petty or bitter.  Because I’m—

Arrgh, dammit, ghosts can’t lie!  Okay, the real reason I’m doing the Loch Ness Monster: My Twitter buds dared me.

ANYWAY, the monster of Loch Ness, or Nessie, as some like to call him (no one knows if the monster is a boy or girl, but for my purposes, I’m going to use male pronouns), supposedly lives in a loch, which is the fancy Scottish word for “lake,” in northern Scotland.  He’s allegedly been seen as far back as the ninth century AD, but sightings started to pile up in the 1930s, after this photo surfaced (heh, get it?  Surfaced?):

SCARY, huh?  Well, maybe not compared to the HOSTEL movies, but whatever.

Most people call this the “Surgeon’s photo,” because it was taken by a gynecologist, Colonel Robert Wilson.  (I’m so not making this up—if I were, would I name the guy something bland like that?)  After the photo came out, suddenly EVERYONE was seeing the monster, either on land or in the lake.  Depending who you asked, Nessie had:

- two humps, or one hump, or three humps, but the humps were definitely short

- a body anywhere from 8 to 45 feet long (I’m guessing this varied with water temperature)

- a 4-foot-long neck, often leaning at an angle

- the appearance of a “rigid, pole-like object”

Sounds pretty…exciting, huh?

Turns out, it’s total bullshit.  There’s no such thing as the Loch Ness Monster, and there never was.  See, Scots like to yank our chain by making stuff up just to see if we’ll believe it (for instance, Zachary told the girls at school that his last name in Scottish Gaelic means “big”).  So it’s no surprise that they’re the masters of urban legends.

That photo up there?  A hoax.  This other guy, Marmaduke Wetherell (now THAT’s a great name), had a grudge against the Daily Mail newspaper, so he had his son build a fake Nessie using a toy submarine and plastic wood.  Then Wetherell took the pictures and gave them to Dr. Wilson, who sent them to the paper but wouldn’t let them use his name with it (oh, that’s why it was called the “Surgeon’s photo”—forgot to mention that up there).

So this “great horrible beastie,” the Loch Ness Monster, who brings in millions of tourist pounds every year and has a roller coaster named after him at Busch Gardens?

Nothin’ but a little piece of plastic wood.

Jeri here: Ahem, sorry, Logan spent more time talking about himself than about the legend, but that’s how he rolls.  Anyway, you can follow him (@keeley_logan) and his archrival/page-brother Zachary (@moore_zachary) on Twitter, for their thoughtful insights on music, love, and death.  Okay, it’s mostly just dick jokes—they ARE 17, after all.

Comment to win a signed paperback of ENTHRALLED: PARANORMAL DIVERSIONS, edited by Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong, featuring stories by 15 of today’s most popular YA paranormal authors, plus me.

You can find me on all the internetz, including www.jerismithready.com and www.facebook.com/jerismithready, but mostly at http://twitter.com/jsmithready.

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About the author:

Award-winning author Jeri Smith-Ready lives in Maryland with her husband, two cats, and the world’s goofiest greyhound. Jeri's plans to save the earth were ruined when she realized she was more of a “problem maker” than a problem solver. To stay out of trouble, she keeps her Drama Drive strictly fictional. Her friends and family appreciate that. When not writing, Jeri she can usually be found—well, thinking about writing, or on Twitter. Like her characters, she loves music, movies, and staying up very, very late.

Visit Jeri Smith-Ready online: Website|Blog|Twitter|Facebook Want to read more from Jeri Smith-Ready

Giveaway provided by Jeri Smith-Ready

One signed copy of ENTRALLED by Jeri Smith-Ready et al & a SHADE swag pack

 

Available now from HarperTeen

Description:

A journey may take hundreds of miles, or it may cover the distance between duty and desire.

Sixteen of today’s hottest writers of paranormal tales weave stories on a common theme of journeying. Authors such as Kelley Armstrong, Rachel Caine, and Melissa Marr return to the beloved worlds of their bestselling series, while others, like Claudia Gray, Kami Garcia, and Margaret Stohl, create new land-scapes and characters. But whether they’re writing about vampires, faeries, angels, or other magical beings, each author explores the strength and resilience of the human heart.

Suspenseful, funny, or romantic, the stories in Enthralled will leave you moved.

Enter the giveaway via the widget below

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**Don’t forget to visit Dark Faerie Tales today for her Spooky Legends guest blog with Chloe Neill and a chance to win DRINK DEEP**