Shannon Simpson’s debut novel, won a writing contest resulting in a contract with Words Matter Publishing. 

I always knew I’d die on my 500th birthday. Alone. Then Aidan Crane turned my world upside down. Being a witch I could kill him with an errant thought. Being a vampire, he could lose control and drain me. Can our love overcome any obstacle?

Ashlie, a very powerful slow-aging witch, prefers to keep to herself. Save for her dog, Netter and her mind-reading ghost BFF, Stephenie, she lives a lonely existence. Ashlie longs for love, but fears it at the same time. Her ever-growing powers are controlled by her emotions. What if she were kissing an unsuspecting boy and set him on fire? What if she froze him as they walked across the street and he was hit by a car? Thoughts like these plague her. She has resigned herself to a lonely life.

Aidan Crane has no memory of his life before he became a vampire. He goes through life existing with no hope to find love. The moment he sees Ashlie he knows there is something different about her. She glows.

Try as they might they can’t ignore their attraction. Again and again, obstacles are thrown in their path are the Fates trying to show them they don’t belong together? 

Between resurrected loved ones, danger lurking around the bed, and unexpected side effects will Ashlie make the ultimate sacrifice for love?

Have you ever met someone and known immediately your life would never be the same? That’s how it was when I met Brian. One smile and my world was rocked to its core.

Everyone has that one love they can’t forget. The one that spoke to your soul, not just your heart. At twenty-six, I had never been in love. I thought I was broken. Then I met Brian. There was something about him that spoke to my soul. He was everything I dreamed the man for me would be, with one major flaw. He was married. Even if he wasn’t, I knew he wouldn’t want me. Overweight for most of my life, I was shy around men. I preferred to remain in the background never calling attention to myself. After being teased in my formative years, I had scars on my soul.

Brian offered me his friendship. I was happy to accept. I was careful not to talk much about myself. I thought if I hid my heart behind a stone wall, I’d be able to protect myself. I tried to be friends, truly I did, but sometimes friends sneak into your heart with no warning. I don’t remember when it happened. One day we were friends, the next I was in love with him. I tried to hide it, but I think Brian knew. There was something about him that my starving heart couldn’t resist.

When Brian finally said the three words I had longed to hear, I let fear keep me from saying the words I should have. In an attempt to protect what was left of my heart, I stopped seeing him. We stayed in touch at first, but as the years went by our communications were few and far between.

How can our friendship survive when loving him is forbidden? I won’t cross that line. I won’t be that woman. I love Brian enough to let him go. Will I ever get my happily ever after?

I didn’t want this life. I was content being a witch.

When I fell in love with Aidan I told him I didn’t want to be like him; a vampire. I was dying. To save me he did what he had to do. Life as a vampire has to be better than no life at all. Right?

For nearly 120 years Ashlie Belle lived as a witch. She planned to do the same for the next 380. Then she fell in love with vampire, Aidan Crane. As she took her last breath, he bit her. Will she be able to forgive him for betraying her?

Stephenie, Ashlie’s ghost best friend, has been stuck in their home, Mystic Manor for nearly twenty years. She watches the world change from the widows peak longing to explore the way she did when she was alive. Seconds before Ashlie died, she transferred her powers to Stephenie with an unexpected result.

How can Ashlie fulfil the prophecy her resurrected mother entrusted Alexander the Great with and protect her new found family from the danger in the woods while spending her days in a coffin? Can Ashlie adapt to her new life before it’s too late?

The Curse

You know how high school is supposed to be fun? Okay, so freshman year isn’t really fun. That is the year the seniors haze you by selling tickets to the elevator, so you don’t have to take the stairs. Or my personal favorite- access to the swimming pool on the roof that doesn’t exist. 

It’s really when you hit the junior and senior years the fun is supposed to begin. At least that is what I’d seen in all the movies. I believed it would be the same for me. After all, I was going to be with my best friend, Everleigh. We could face anything as long as we were together; even buying tickets to a pool that doesn’t exist and a pass to take the elevator to get there. 

No one told me about curses and what would happen if I kissed my longtime crush. Such things didn’t exist in the movies I watched. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back, back to when I believed anything was possible as long as I had Everleigh at my side. Back to when I was alive.

In between writing, I have my own TV show on WMP TV on Roku, Amazon Firestick and YouTube. On The Review I take on popular authors, such as Stephenie Meyer and Veronica Roth, but also do live reviews with authors. This is the only show of this kind, where the author gets their review live on camera. I don’t hold back.

Let’s be honest, I love vampires. I have for most of my life, so of course I read Twilight. I love it like a fat kid loves cake (hey, I’m fat so I can say that.) And yes I was thrilled when I heard Midnight Sun was finally being released. I ordered it the day pre-sales went live. I will be doing a review of it on the show. Will I hold back because of how much I love the series? No! I have been waiting for Stephenie to finish this book for over ten years, but that doesn’t mean I will be holding back when I review it. I didn’t hold back when I did the review on the Twilight Saga. It had some issues and I was quick to point them out. I will do the same for Midnight Sun.

I look for particular categories when I read a book. If the book doesn’t cut it in those categories it gets a low rating. I break it down into five categories- Cover Design, Concept, Plot/Subplot, Character Development and Entertainment Level. I rate each category 1-5 stars then give the book an overall rating. The only reason I don’t give a  zero is because I know how hard it is to be an author. Everyone deserves at least one star.

If you know of a series or book you’d like for me to review, please reach out to me and let me know. I am happy to review most anything. If you are an author and would like to have your book reviewed on the show, contact me. I can be reached on here or on Twitter at @shaspellbound or email me at shannonsimpon191@gmail.com. Be prepared for honest feedback. I was born and raised in the south. I don’t sugar coat what I have to say.

Welcome to my website! Let me tell you a little about myself. I’m an author, well duh! You obviously already know that. Why else would you be on my website? I was born and raised in a very small town aptly named Townville. Not to be confused with Townsville where the Powerpuff Girls lived. Townville is one of those little towns that you will miss as you drive through if you blink. There are no red lights and barely any stop signs. If I had to take a guess, I’d say the people are outnumbered by the cows and chickens. When I was growing up I wanted to escape as quick as possible. We moved to Greenville, South Carolina when my sister had my niece. City life wasn’t for me. The only plus was having Walmart less than five minutes away. When my niece was ten we moved back to Townville. We live in our own little family community. My grandmother lived less than a block behind my house before she died and my aunt and great uncle live less than half a mile away. Pastures surround us on all sides. Yes it smells horribly sometimes!

Enough about my childhood, though I’m sure at some point it’ll come back up. I love to read! My aunt would give us book gift cards as we were growing up. I loved going to a bookstore and finding my next adventure. This was in the time before there was an Amazon! Shocking, I know, that I am that old. I even remember when their was no such thing as Walmart! The HORROR! Anyway, when I was thirteen, I started my first job; cleaning my aunt’s two story Victorian. She loves books too. She worked third as a nurse and before coming home she’d swing by the bookstore and come home with two huge bags of books. Part of my job was to take the books she’d read upstairs to the room I called the book room. Sadly it couldn’t be called a library as there were no shelves just stacks of books. I picked up a Harlequin Romance novel by Carole Mortimer; Engaged to Jarod Stone. The back sounded interesting and I was at that age where boys were no longer yucky. Before my mother would let me read it, she had to make sure there was nothing my delicate eyes couldn’t see. Once I had the go ahead, I read it in a day. I loved it! The next weekend I was cleaning, I picked up a few more books by the same author. I loved them. I began to think about becoming an author.

Up to this point I’d thought I wanted to be a teacher. It was around my teenage years, I realized two things. One I don’t have the patience to be a teacher and two, I could write my own story. My first attempt at writing was with some of my friends. We would take turns writing different parts of the story. It was what these days would be called Fanfiction. It was a little story about myself and my friends with our celebrity crushes from the soap opera, Days of Our Lives. Some of my friends were a little more detailed in certain scenes than my mother thought inappropriate at our age. That story ended up in the shredder. I wasn’t about to let that stop me. My next attempt was written just by me. It was about me and two of my friends staying overnight in a haunted house with our celebrity crushes. I mean come on, who hasn’t fantasized about themselves and a hot celebrity at least once in their lives? That story was less than ten pages hand written. I began to write more and more changing up the celebrity as our likes changed. When I first started writing I was doing good to come up with ten pages. Now I’m lucky if I can stop at two hundred.

As you can see, I am long winded. Instead of going on and on here, I will shut up and let you explore the rest of my site. You’ll discover how I became the author I am today as you go through the links. I’m so happy you decided to join me on this crazy adventure I call life. Hopefully you’ll enjoy yourself along the way.

When you’ve gotten through all these links and my new blog posts I’m going to attempt, feel free to contact me. I love hearing what my readers think. That’s why I write, to touch the lives of those who read my books in the way my life has been touched by the books I’ve read. That and if I don’t the stories will overpower me and I’d end up wearing one of those plain white jackets that lets you hug yourself.

Meet my little Daisy! She is so sweet and spoiled! She loves to play peek-a-boo!

With COVID, things have changed a lot as I’m sure you know. Book events are just beginning to start again. Once things are semi back to normal, okay lets be honest it was never normal, then I’ll be doing book signings. Until then reach out to me. I can’t wait to see ya’ll!!!

“You may not write well everyday, but you can always edit a bad page.  You can’t edit a blank page.”  –  Jodi Picoult