Paranormal Romance/Fiction
Date Published: October 20, 2022
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Is there love after death? Laurel Palmer is about to find out. Thanks to a
little shove by her husband, Laurel wakes up dead. And there’s no sign
of that white light people are supposed to go into. Now a ghost stuck on
earth, Laurel is determined to find out how she can get into heaven. On her
search for the light, Laurel meets Teddy Rule, a hunk of a ghost who
coincidentally was also murdered by her husband. Turns out, he didn’t
get that light either. As they work together to figure out what’s keeping
them on this earthly plane, feelings develop. Not knowing if heaven will
separate them, they must decide whether or not to cross over.
EXCERPT
When I woke up, I was dead. It took a minute to sink in.
When it did, I sat up, immediately shooting toward the ceiling twenty feet above the first-floor landing. Confused, I looked down and saw myself, or what used to be myself, sprawled at the foot of the stairs. I waved my arms, wondering if that’s how I would need to propel myself in my current insubstantial form.
Actually, it only took thinking to be able to float down, where I hovered a few feet above the empty shell that used to be me, Laurel Palmer. I examined the still figure critically. I had been beautiful, hadn’t I?
My body was lying there picturesquely, almost gracefully, face up, large brown eyes wide in shock, long sable hair spread around my head like a dark halo. Or I could have pulled that off if my arms and legs weren’t bent at strange angles, and a crimson liquid wasn’t pooling on the hardwood floor, with strands of that sable hair soaking in it, and my normal olive complexion wasn’t unusually pasty, with maybe a little gray creeping in.
Floating, both physically and emotionally, I smothered a sob as I scrutinized the body on the floor, fighting to control my skyrocketing anxiety. I had no lingering connection to said body after all, so I should’ve been able to watch it dispassionately. As if. Hand over my mouth, I waited to see if it did anything. Like breathe. I gave a soft, choking laugh. Not likely, since I was here, and I would have been there if any life remained in the corpse.
I settled onto a step a few up from the body previously known as Laurel Palmer, rested my elbows on my knees, and pondered the meaning of life. Being dead and still here, I mean.
A flash of color caught my eye. Glancing down, I noticed a broken fingernail resting on the step beside me, the ragged edge a shredded mess. Torn off, perhaps, as I grabbed for the railing while plummeting down the stairs? I spent a lot of money on those mani-pedis, recently changing the color used on my nails to a light sky blue, a color that perfectly complemented the blue hues in my filmy organza dress. Fearfully, I held up my hand to inspect the damage, and felt a brief joy at seeing that all my manicured fingernails were attached.
I was still wearing the clothes I’d died in. No wispy, billowing shift like you might see on an angel in a movie, thank God. I’d chosen my outfit well, not knowing I would be wearing it for eternity. My designer dress and shoes brought a fleeting smile to my face.
Something nagged at my brain, but for the life of me, or make that the death of me, I couldn’t remember what it might be. I was suddenly so witty. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone around to appreciate it.
A worried thought hit me. Where was my husband? Why wasn’t he here sobbing over my body and calling 911?
I tapped a finger on my lips. It wasn’t like me to be clumsy. I’d never missed a step or stumbled on the stairs, despite hundreds of trips up and down. Never once. Before I could contemplate that further, I heard rustling and thumping sounds coming from the second floor. Curious, I floated up the steps and followed the sound to my open bedroom door, where I spotted my husband, Ethan, searching through my underwear drawer, flinging Natori and La Perla over his shoulder and muttering to himself, “Where the hell did she put it?”
What had he done to our beautiful bedroom? The dresser drawers and armoire doors stood open, contents strewn all over the floor or tossed onto my carefully made king-size bed. A passing thought crossed my mind that he never knew how to find anything in the house, unless it was the TV remote or the expensive bottles of Scotch reverently stored in the liquor cabinet in the butler’s pantry.
Narrowing my eyes, I had two thoughts. What was he looking for and, more importantly, why didn’t he care that his wife was sprawled dead at the bottom of the stairs?
Unless…
Yes, it was possible Ethan had pushed me.
About the Author
Pam got a late start in writing but has made up for it with several
published novels and a few more on the way. A serendipitous conversation
with a writer friend launched her literary career, and the fact that she
might never have had that particular conversation is enough to make her
believe that fate played a hand in sending her down the path to becoming an
author. All four of her published books have won the Mom’s Choice
Award Gold Seal, and the first book in her Pekin Dewlap Mystery series was
the winner of the American Book Fest Children’s Fiction Award.
She’s lived in Southern California most of her life and is thankful to
have a loving family and supportive friends. Spending time at home during
the COVID pandemic advanced both Pam’s writing and her relationship with her
My Cat From Hell TV star, Allie, who manages to exude just enough affection
to make her scary feral ways tolerable.
Contact Links
Twitter: @Pam805
Instagram: @PamelaMcCordAuthor
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