Tranquil Heights

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Hi. I’m Megan Speece

I write thrilling and spooky tales for enjoyment (both yours and mine). I’ve been a fan of all things horror and thriller for as long as I can remember, and have a notebook full of ideas to add my own flair to the genre.

When I’m not writing, you can catch me on skates with the local Roller Derby team, belly dancing with my best friend, or searching for the sun with my husband and dog.

Recent Posts

• Book Review: Pretty Little Wife by Darby Kane

  

  Pretty Little Wife was a delightful mystery with a great twist. The main character, though morally ambiguous at best, managed to be somewhat sympathetic. I did guess pieces of the big twist early on, but I think we’re meant to because the foreshadowing is pretty heavy. Eagle eyed readers may catch hints of the truth, but they were so small that I simply disregarded them. That had me saying “ohhhhhhh” out loud by the time I got to the climax.
  
  I was hooked from the very beginning and finished this book in record time for me. I found myself telling my husband that I just wanted to read because I had to know what happened.
  
  Overall, I give it four stars. Excellent story, but the main character’s apathy and stoicism were a bit of a turn off for me.

• Benson, In Concert

  Charles Benson lived alone in a stately old manor on the outskirts of town. Alone was how he preferred to be. He’d spent time living with roommates in college, and he’d shared hotel rooms and cramped bus spaces with his fellow musicians of a traveling orchestra. As far as Charles was concerned, he’d paid his dues, and now he deserved the quiet and solitude of this old place. He made his way to the ballroom, yes, a ballroom. It was part of what had attracted Charles to the property. The house was a bit run down, it had sat empty for nearly a decade before he’d come along with his life’s savings. He was still working on replacing fixtures, repairing cracked walls, and painting peeling crown molding. All of that was worth the ballroom, with it’s beautiful wooden floors, ornate rococo inspired trim, and many floor to ceiling windows that filled the room with natural light. The room was dark as he walked into it, stars winking in at him from the grounds outside. He hit the light switch, and took in the majesty of the blue and gold paint, the floors now gleaming after a clean and wax. His gaze landed on the black lacquered grand piano in the center of the room. When he’d toured the house, this had been the image in his mind. His beautiful piano at home in the center of a room as grand as it. The acoustics in this room were made for live music, and he hummed happily to himself as the fingers of one hand slid along the top of the piano in a loving caress. He set a small tumbler containing his whiskey, neat, on a coaster atop the piano as he took his place on the bench. He drew in a deep breath through his nose and closed his eyes, his fingers settling gently on the keys. And then Charles Benson began to play. He lost himself to the music and the way it filled the large space and bounced back at him, each note the gentle caress of a lover as it passed him by on its way to a silent death. He sat like that, eyes closed, playing a complicated classical piece for ten minutes. He opened his eyes as the last note wavered, clinging to the air, begging to stay in existence. He let out a small sigh, content and ready to retire for the evening, but as he reached for his glass, someone clapped.

• Novel Plotting Trello Dashboard
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• My Writing Journey

  

  my writing journey

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  I’ve loved to read for as long as I can remember. Getting lost in a fictional world that let my imagination run wild was the backdrop of my summers. My mom dutifully took me to the library every week all summer long so I could participate in their summer reading program. I was incredibly lucky to have a mom who worked as an education assistant, so she had the summers off to spend at home with me. I happily read all the assigned books in school, and fell in love with several. I grew up. I added more books to my dance card. I got an abundance of literary tattoos. I fell in love with horror and thriller books, movies, television, and podcasts. And I learned that I love to tell a story. I dabbled with writing during my undergrad. I wrote fanfiction based on The Outsiders of all things. I cringe about this now, but I was dedicated to a small fan base and published a new chapter of that fanfiction every day on my silly little tumblr blog dedicated to The Outsiders. (Yeah, I’ve been obsessed with that book since middle school. I never grew out of that. It is still one of my favorite books to this day.) Then I got what I called a “big girl” job working in a law office. And my creativity slowed down. I’m not really sure why. I had an intense need to be taken seriously, and I think I may have been under the impression that I wouldn’t be if I were overly creative. I am, for the most part, an analytical being. I work with data for a living. I have a Master’s in Public Policy and analyzing policy is my happy place. I quit a job that I was good at, and was important, in November of 2019. Unfortunately the department head was a nightmare and I couldn’t mentally handle working under someone whose goal seemed to be to make everyone around her miserable. My husband asked me to quit. He was deployed at the time, and could support our lifestyle without me working. So, I took a huge leap and quit with nothing lined up. I have always defined myself by my job. Let me tell you, I really enjoyed the first two months of unemployment. There was a sense of freedom I hadn’t felt since my undergrad days when I worked part time in a shoe store. I spent my time binge watching The Office, dancing, hula-hooping, and trying to figure out who I was when I couldn’t tell you what I did for a living. Enter COVID. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a job in the middle of a global pandemic that has largely shut down the economy? It’s really damn hard. So I spent eight months unemployed. And that eight months hit me hard. I had no idea who I was. I did get a job. I work that job now. It’s a decent job, but it doesn’t challenge me much. I had to find ways to challenge myself. So I thought about how I love to tell a story. And I thought about how I love to hula-hoop. And I thought about how I’d been hoop dancing for more than three years and it was one of the most joyful things I’ve ever decided to do. And thus Lessons From a Hula Hoop was born. It’s short, it’s sweet, and it’s all me. Writing that book showed me, again, how much I love to write. That book was meant to help others, but I think it actually helped me most of all. I thought “I wrote Lessons from a Hula Hoop, I can write a novel”, so I just did it. That sounds simple, I know. But it’s true. I just stopped questioning myself and I sat down and wrote the damn thing. And I have loved every minute of writing, revising, and editing. It’s the most fun I’ve had on a personal project in a long long time. Tranquil Heights will be releasing in October. I’m already thinking ahead to my next book. So when I think about my eight months of unemployment and my struggle to define who I was without having a job… I finally have an answer. I’m a writer.

   

   

   

• The Vampire of Geranium Way

  The moving truck came in the middle of the night and was gone before the first crest of the sun rose over the distant mountains. A small girl by the name of Vanessa Peters watched the moving crew move impossibly fast as they unloaded large antique furniture into the house in the middle of the lane. She told her mother of the truck, the men who moved so fast they were a blur. Her mother placated her with many uh-huhs and wows as the Vanessa babbled on over her pancakes and orange juice. Her fathers eyes twinkled as he listened, hiding his face behind the newspaper to keep from showing his daughter the laughter.

  Mrs. Peters bent down to kiss Mr. Peters, and whispered against his cheek, “Such an imagination.”

  “Such a fun age,” Mr. Peters responded.

  It wasn’t until Mr. Peters left for work that he realized that Vanessa’s ramblings about her midnight witnessing weren’t necessarily the remnants of a fantastical dream. For, there, in the driveway of 418 Geranium Way, was a sports convertible, gleaming black in the morning sun. He called his wife to tell her that someone, indeed, had moved into the house in the middle of the lane in the middle of the night.

  Mrs. Peters called every Mrs. in the neighborhood and by ten in the morning, they all stood on the sidewalk, across from 418 Geranium Way, discussing the new neighbors that no one had yet seen. At eleven, a woman exited the front door and marched across the street, a wide smile stretched across her pale face. She wore skirt suit in a dark red that looked beautiful against her ghostly skin and dark brown curls. The lipstick shade matched perfectly, the eye makeup was understated. She accessorized with plain gold jewelry at her wrist and ears, and a strand of white pearls that held a heavy red jewel.

  Mrs. Peters stepped forward and offered her hand to the newcomer, who shook it readily. “Hi, I’m Lillian, I live in 421, just there kitty corner to you,” Mrs. Peters said.

  “Elizabeth Sutton. It’s nice to meet you. You all bring out quite the welcome wagon,” Elizabeth gestured at the group of women. Her face was calm and pleasant, the smile still plastered in place, but there was something sarcastic in her tone. As if she said “I see you being nosy, now knock it off.” A flutter of unease drifted through the group, though they laughed easily and smiled at the newcomer.

  “Forgive us. It’s just not often that people move in in the middle of the night,” Mrs. Peters said. Her face also stayed pleasant and welcoming, but her tone said just as plainly “Don’t act like you have something to hide and we won’t be nosy.”

  “Ah yes, I suppose I can understand the confusion. My husband and I work nights, so we’re used to running everything on a night schedule. It’s just easier to maintain our equilibrium that way,” Elizabeth explained.

  “And what is it you do for a living?”

  “Lucas and I own and run The Chat Noir,” Elizabeth said to many gasps, a few titters of excitement, and even one or two signs of the cross.

  The Chat Noir was an exclusive club downtown, where one could meet exotic people and watch exotic performances. The clientele tended to be rich, elite, and entertained by a little danger, which is exactly what The Chat Noir offered. For a rather hefty cover charge, one could meet a vampire or were-anything of the flavor you chose. You could have dinner with them, dance with them, watch them dance, or even, some said, be their dinner. It was all perfectly legal. But it was also all perfectly scandalous to the women who lived on Geranium Lane.

  They gathered later in Mr. and Mrs. Peters’ living room. Vanessa was supposed to be upstairs playing in her room, away from the women. “So the adults can talk,” her mother had said. But she sat now at the base of the stairs, listening to the voices grow higher, some with excitement, others with panic.

  “Imagine!” Exclaimed Mrs. Reisen from down the street. “A vampire! Right her in our neighborhood.”

  A thrill of excitement ran up Vanessa’s spine and she quickly retreated up the stairs to her room, where she took up post at her window to look at 418 Geranium Way. The house looked no different than it had the day before. It still stood pale blue and tall on in its manicured lawn. To hear the women talk in the living room below, one would have thought that the house had turned black and sprouted gargoyles.

  A movement in one of the windows caught Vanessa’s eye and she gave a hoot of excited delight to see a small girl, probably about her age, waving at her from that window. Vanessa waved back and set to scheming, figuring out a way to make sure she got to be friends with the girl in the vampire house, so that she could meet the vampire of Geranium Way.