Today's excerpt: the spirits are done waiting around

 That the Dead May Rest comes out the day after tomorrow! (Gulp.) Today's excerpt is a longer one, spanning parts of two scenes. An explanatory note: Sam is an old flame of Rosie's, now a spirit. By this point, he has already succeeded in making contact with Rosie, and she's agreed to do some research into what's happening, but she's been stalling on actually reporting back on what she found out.

The italicized, centered name after the asterisks indicates the character whose POV we're entering. The first of the two scenes takes place in the afterlife.

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Sam waited for Jeri to sit back down and then slowly stood up, his hands in his pockets. It looked as if his fingers were fidgeting. “Rosie promised to find out what was happening and how often, but she hasn’t tried to get in touch with me since then. And she’s a professional medium! She’s just decided not to cooperate.” A couple of people groaned, and others muttered. Sam nodded agreement and added, “I’m about ready to pester her some more.”

Millie considered the problem. Being a medium for money was a time-honored way to con people, but if Sam had gotten through before, Rosie must have some genuine ability to span the divide between the living and the afterlife. What if she hadn’t realized it? And besides, it’d be natural enough to want to hide from the ugliness of what was happening. Millie would have been glad to do the same, if only she hadn’t been dragged into the middle of it. She raised a hand for Johnny’s attention and said, “What if she’s just taking her time, or not sure what to do?”

“Stalling? Yeah, she might be doing that.” Sam chewed his lip for a moment. “Well, I’ll just need to get her moving.”

Johnny looked around the group and said slowly, “You probably have the best chance of a real exchange, a back-and-forth dialogue. How about if we take advantage of it? Jeri, Robert, how would you feel about hitching a ride, so to speak, on Sam’s channel of communication with his friend?”

Jeri jumped up again, waving her arm. “Oh, let me! I could even ask this Rosie to get in touch with my sister!” Her face suddenly crumpled, and she fought her way through tears to say, “I could tell her I love her.”

Johnny came over and enveloped her in a bear hug, while Robert said more quietly, “I’d be glad to join in.”

Millie looked at them, and then at the rest of the group. Could she? Did she want to? Yes and yes. “Why not some more of us?”

Jeri raised an eyebrow. “Did you want to get in on this? What could you tell them?”

Millie looked her square in the eye. “I can tell them what you couldn’t. I could tell them that my body killed someone, and that I want it stopped. I want it to STOP.”

* * * * *

Rosie

Rosie had spent quite enough time running errands for her overactive imagination. And now her assistant was offering a necessary distraction. “It’s time for another séance, isn’t it? You did spend a substantial, if not inadvisable, amount of money on the new sound system, and the bill has come in.”

They arranged to set things in motion immediately for another séance as soon as they could collect enough people to attend it. They had to include some new clients along with the regulars, so extra staging would be prudent. She had Diane pull the high-end portable air conditioner out of the attic and place it where it would, at the appropriate moment, blow into the room, with the mood music on high enough volume to cover the sound. Then Diane showed the new clients where to put jackets and coats, as well as purses and other such articles. Some mediums would have their helpers search purses and coat pockets for useful information, but Rosie had no use for such crude methods. Mingling, eavesdropping, seemingly trivial questions, and Rosie’s keen ability to read people would suffice.

The clients, old and new, gradually took their seats. Rosie let them converse a little longer — reading lips was one of her more useful skills — and then slowly lifted her hands. “Welcome, friends,” she intoned, and went on with her usual spiel. As she uttered the words “spirit guide,” the cool air began to flow into the room, and the more sensitive among the clients looked around uneasily or went pale.

But then, impossibly, a wave of warm air flowed in and overpowered it, air carrying the scent of . . . roses. And as the murmuring around the table increased, she heard a familiar male voice say, in somewhat sarcastic tones, Time for a new spirit guide, Rosie. And I’m bringing some friends.

She almost let her jaw drop before gaining control of it. And speaking of control, she had better make sure she retained it. Could she go through the usual greeting to her supposed guide, and follow it with the contacts whose suitability she’d pieced together? Not a chance, not with Sam saying, Well, Rosie? Ready to meet them? They need to talk to you.

She looked around the room with an awestruck expression, which was close enough to her actual feelings that she could easily don it. “My friends, something unprecedented is taking place! My spirit guide, Aya, has yielded to the entreaties of another spirit who urgently needs to speak to us. His name, she says, is – speak louder, please -- is Thaddeus.” That’d show him. Take over her séance, would he?

Very funny. Now listen up.

— No, you just hold on a minute while I get ‘em ready for you.

Rosie had always been good at creating voices. It was even easier to mimic a voice she’d recently heard. She ran Sam’s words over in her head for a moment and then said in her own voice, “Listen, friends, to the urgent message Thaddeus has come so far to share with us, a danger he and his friends have sensed from the Great Beyond.” And then, at a lower pitch and in Sam’s rhythms: “I’m here to warn you all, and to ask you to warn others. There is danger coming your way, and you, all of you, the living, need to find out what to do about it.” And then, to twist Sam’s tail a little more, she added, “Thank you, Madame Rebecca, for giving me a way for my friends and me to deliver this warning.”

The clients were so riveted they were barely breathing. Their eyes went even wider as the breeze shifted from warm and floral to cold again, but clammy this time, and bearing the odor of damp earth.

Now came a new voice, a woman’s, not exactly old, but with the tentative, shaky sound that some women acquired before their time. Rosie obediently echoed it. “My name is Millie, and I know better than almost anyone else that something terrible is happening.”

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Today's preorder link goes to Amazon once again.

Tomorrow: a report from the field, not for the faint of heart.

Twin sisters, one on each side of the divide

Hello again! As we approach Release Day for That the Dead May Rest, I continue to post excerpts. This two scenes will introduce you to Janna, the teenaged girl whose twin sister died of anorexia. (If you've read many of my books, you may have noticed my fascination with identical twins.) After today, I'll focus less on characters and more on events.

First, here's the introduction to Janna and her sister.

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It never surprised Janna to dream about her sister. In fact, it would have terrified her if she stopped dreaming about Jeri. They had, after all, been together since the moment that one small cluster of cells had decided to become two. And while they hadn’t spent every minute, or even every day, at each other’s sides, separation had always felt temporary, even when Jeri’s anorexia had become so extreme that an ambulance screamed its way to the hospital, carrying her out of reach until Janna could get someone to drive her there.

And then she’d died, and Janna’s world had fractured into unrecognizable pieces — but at least she had her dreams.

In this one they were watching TV, but not in the hospital. She wasn’t even sitting on Jeri’s bed, the way they had that last year. Instead, they were curled up on the living room couch, sharing the big fuzzy blanket, watching Ghostbusters: Afterlife and sharing a big bowl of popcorn —

Janna couldn’t help it — she jerked herself awake. Popcorn? Jeri sitting there casually snacking? And they hadn’t been little kids. They’d been about the age Janna was now. What the hell?

And there’d been something else. Jeri hadn’t looked exactly healthy, the way she was in some dreams, the ones it hurt to wake up from. But she hadn’t been the near-skeleton Janna had seen so often, and which Jeri had somehow never been able to see. Yes, she’d been thin, but not thin enough to make anyone wonder, let alone worry or stare. And her hair had color in it, the brown-red their mother liked to call auburn, and the bit of wave that made it different from Janna’s, instead of hanging dark and colorless and breaking off like worn-out thread.

But that wasn’t all. There’d been one more thing, but what was it? She squeezed her eyes shut, concentrated hard, and then she had it — and it made chills run down her spine and then settle in her stomach. Jeri’s clothes. She’d been wearing the outfit their parents had bought for her, the dark orange corduroys and forest green pullover that would’ve fit Janna, that they bought for the day they couldn’t stop hoping for, the day Jeri would come home to stay. They’d insisted in dressing Jeri in it for the funeral, even though it was so much too big. She’d been wearing it in the dream, sitting there next to Janna under the blanket, eating popcorn . . . and it had only been a little loose.

Janna fell back down on the bed and curled up small. It should be real. That should be their life, and it wasn’t and never would be again. She slammed her fist into the mattress and let the tears come. 

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This next scene takes place after the spirits have started trying to reach the living.

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In this dream, Jeri had sent Janna a postcard. But it wasn’t a postcard she’d ever seen in a drugstore or tourist shop. The postcards she was used to seeing had landmarks, or ocean scenes, or mountains, or cute animals like kittens and puppies. This postcard startled her, even in the dream, because it was so far from panoramic, showing only a few details, and yet looked exactly like the twins’ secret hideaway. The picture would have to have been taken from the base of the willow tree, looking up and outward through the swaying green branches with the spray of the waterfall visible between them. The warm glow of the light — “golden hour” light — brought back memories of brownie-and-cookie picnics, gobbled greedily while their mother called out to them that dinner was ready. . . .

Dream-Janna turned the postcard over, only to find another image. This one was no photograph, but a tarot card. She and Jeri had just started learning about tarot when Jeri went to the hospital the last time, the time she never came back. Janna had brought a Starlit Twins tarot deck with her to the hospital on a couple of visits, using her phone to call up one of the online guides to the different cards. This card looked like The Tower, which could mean too many things — from danger or crisis to more positive changes. What was Jeri trying to say?

Then the card changed, morphing into another: Strength. They’d laughed about this one (though Jeri’s laugh had an awful rattling sound that stopped Janna’s laughter) because, in the deck Janna had brought, the figure on the card looked a little like them. At least, like both of them before Jeri had started to look more like the skeleton on an antique Death card.

And then it shifted again, into a card from some other deck she couldn’t identify. It might be the Judgment card. She couldn’t remember what that would mean, but it must mean something other than the picture on it. Because the picture showed people standing up in their graves. What did it mean?

She woke up with that question echoing in her ears.

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Today's preorder link is for Bookshop.org, the site through which innumerable independent bookstores (like the wonderful Morgenstern Books in Bloomington, IN) take orders.

In related news, I've started a Substack! I'm still figuring out how to make it look the way I prefer, so bear with me. Please feel free to subscribe anyway.

Next time: the spirits get tired of waiting.

This Week, On "As the Dead Speak": Emma hears from her son

(The title of this post may ring a bell for those who remember the old daytime soap operas. I used to watch them with my mom.)

The countdown continues toward the release of That the Dead May Rest! Since I haven't posted the cover in a while, here it is again.

First up: Emma. If you've been following along, you'll have read the post where I briefly introduced her. Here's the second scene from her POV (point of view), which comes immediately after our introduction to Rosie in yesterday's post.

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Emma was trying to write a letter to her son. If people knew, they’d shake their heads and say sympathetically that she must be too grief-stricken, or simply too old, to know how pointless it was. But what else could she do?

When Robert was alive, she had somehow thought it a better use of her time to clean the house, or look at pictures of her ex-husband, or do exercises, or search for new clients, or do any number of things rather than to write to him. There would always be time later. She might deserve the agony that made up her days and her nights, for so idiotically assuming there would be time.

It was still hard to find things to say when she no longer had news to tell him, or new books to recommend, or any advice to give. Nor could she ask him about his day, or his job, or whether he had gotten serious about some woman, or when he would come to see her.

If she had written to him then, when he was still there to read it, would he have written back? What would he have said? Would his letters have been impatient, as he sometimes had been when she phoned him more than once a day? Or would he have been kind? If she closed her eyes, she could almost see his jagged handwriting slanting across the page, starting with Dear Mom. . . .

She closed her eyes, imagining it, and didn’t open them until she felt a strange spasm in her hand, almost as if her pen had twitched. On the page, under her own cramped handwriting, there was a line slanting down from left to right, a line she hadn’t meant to write. A line starting with an uneven shape, a sort of squashed circle, almost like a D.

Was she seeing things? Was the twitch in her hands the beginning of some sort of seizure? She should be frightened, but she was too tired to care. She left the letter on the table and shuffled to her bedroom. There was nothing, after all, more worth doing than to sleep.

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A little later, Emma tries again.

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An evening and night of fitful, interrupted sleep had left Emma both exhausted and restless, a miserable combination. She tried cleaning house, but could only manage the energy for the easiest jobs — the jobs she did more often, which didn’t need doing again. She reread her grocery list and added a couple of items she might never use, then one more that she almost never allowed herself — dark chocolate truffles. Maybe biting into a truffle would remind her what it felt like to enjoy something.

And then she gave up on all these useless ways of stalling, and sat down to write that letter to Robert.

She reached for the pad of stationery she’d been using, almost down to the last sheet, and saw that she hadn’t torn off the spoiled sheet from last time. She should call her doctor and get examined for conditions that could cause seizures. As she picked up the pen, she held it in the air for a minute, and then two. No tremors, no shaking. She got rid of the spoiled sheet, pulled the fresh sheet toward her, and started to write.

Dear Robert,

Last fall’s leaves are still on the lawn, and how I wish

The pen jerked across the page again. And then, as she gripped it so tight her fingers hurt, it spelled out, in barely legible letters,

Mom Mom it’s me

She almost dropped the pen, but managed to catch it. She brought it to her lips and kissed it, then held it point down on the paper again, whispering, “Robert, oh, Robert, where are you?” But it didn’t matter, because now she knew that he was somewhere. “Never mind that, oh, my darling boy, what did you want to say?”

Mom, we need your help

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Today's preorder link is for Amazon. 

Next time: Janna dreams about her sister -- and about tarot cards.

Next excerpt: meet Rosie, who goes by Madame Rebecca

As we continue the rollout of excerpts from That the Dead May Rest, it's time to switch focus to the folks still on Earth. First up: Rosie, who (as mentioned earlier) had some glimmers of psychic ability as a teenager, but has long since written them off as illusions. The only trace they left behind is her choice of profession. She's a medium, with an extensive repertoire of methods to deceive her clients and equipment to help her do so.

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Madame Rebecca (or Rosie, when not in professional mode) sat at the table, the heavy velvet curtains blocking the inconvenient sunlight, and sniffed the incense her assistant Diane had lit, assessing it and finding it good. Not strong enough to irritate nasal passages, but plenty for providing atmosphere, as did the deep bass notes of the music playing at the other end of the house, just at the threshold of audibility. The black tablecloth covered the round walnut claw-foot table, and her painstakingly recruited clients held hands around it, staring at the single candle in the center. The heat was turned up high enough that her clients would welcome it after the February chill — and would be all the more susceptible to the breeze from the fan Diane would turn on at the appropriate moment.

“Welcome, friends,” she intoned. “You have come together out of a shared yearning, a need to reach beyond the boundaries accepted by so many as impermeable, to welcome the spirits who themselves yearn to communicate with us.” She paused to look around the room, projecting warmth without anything so ordinary as a smile. “Now let all distractions and trivial concerns fall away, and open yourselves to the ineffable, as I await the touch of my spirit guide.” 

Maybe it was time for a new spirit guide — a man, a warrior or shaman, instead of the Egyptian courtesan she’d been trotting out for so long. She could almost hear the man’s voice, a warm baritone rumble, authoritative and masculine . . . .

Was she bored enough that her imagination had become intrusive? It almost seemed that she was hearing such a voice, that it was even demanding her attention. How ridiculous! She shoved aside the memory of her teenaged years, when her daydreams would be interrupted by the faint echo of mysterious voices, tantalizing, fading in and out. Without the naive hope that the voices would grow louder and prove real, and then the disappointment and anger when they faded away, she might never have seized on becoming a medium. It had been a sort of revenge on those thwarted hopes.

And now she was letting those old memories sabotage her. What expression had been on her face, these last minutes? She had better get down to business.

“She comes, she approaches! Welcome, Aya, gentle helper, and tell me what spirits you bring with you to speak to the living. . . .”

A wearisome time later, after“Aya” had conveyed her messages of love and reassurance, Diane collected payments from the clients and ushered them out. When they were all gone, Rosie pushed back from the table, stood up, stretched, and went to open the curtains. But the sunlight had fled.

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See Wednesday's post for a séance that goes rather differently!

Today's preorder links are for Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Tomorrow, you'll meet Emma.

Here come many more excerpts! -- starting with this one

 I'm counting down to October 17th, aka Release Day for That the Dead May Rest -- and that means an excerpt a day! 

Next up: two short passages from Chapter 3, when the spirits in the afterlife move from reacting to taking action.

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A woman who looked a little like Millie’s grandmother ground her fist into the palm of her other hand. “If we only had some way to reach our families! To warn them if they don’t know, and to find out if they’re all right!”

If only there were a way, indeed. The living could find out so much more about what was happening: when it started, whether it was happening more or less — and maybe, what was causing it. They must have some ideas, maybe even ways to test those ideas. If she could only know whether her own body had attacked anyone else!

But there was no way to reach back into the world, to contact the living. She muttered as much, apologetically, and expected either glum agreement or anger at saying the obvious. But another member — younger than most, only a girl, thin and with the energy of an adolescent vibrating through her, said defiantly, “How do we know that? Isn’t that like someone saying the dead never come back, that zombies — that’s what we’re talking about, we shouldn’t be afraid to say it! — are just a superstition? Or saying there’s no life after death, when here we all are!”

Out of the mouth of babes? Millie turned to her and asked, “If it’s possible, how would we do it? What can we try?”

A man who had said nothing so far stirred in his chair, cleared his throat, and raised his hand as if it were up to someone else to let him speak. When everyone else went silent and waited for him, he cleared his throat again and finally said, “Maybe it’s like the other things that are coming true. Maybe things like Ouija boards or crystal balls or séances actually work.”

. . .

“We could ask around to find out about friends or family or acquaintances — people still living — who would be most likely to hold séances or tarot sessions or the like. And then some of us could all try together to, to reach out to that person, over and over, in the hope of getting through.”

He stopped there, and the silence quickly filled with murmurs and exclamations quiet and less quiet. The thin girl leaned forward so far she looked folded and said, tripping over her words, “Yes! We’ve got to try that! If we get through, what should we say?”

Suggestions came from all over the room. “Ask if they’ve heard about bodies rising from the grave!” “Are people being attacked by zombies?” “Are people being attacked by anything unexplained? Are they finding bodies ripped up as if by animals?” And from the man who’d suggested Ouija boards, “Has anyone encountered a revived body that didn’t attack?” There was an idea that tempted one to hope. . . .

It was like a different group, now that people had something that passed for a plan of action. It was a plan that could fail at the very first step, let alone the later ones, but for the moment, at least, it eased the overwhelming helplessness that had been choking them.

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As usual, I'm including the preorder link for Amazon. (The nice part about folks ordering from Amazon is that I can easily see it's happened.) Or if you don't want to wait, and have joined (or want to join) NetGalley, you can download the book there. NetGalley is intended to increase the number of reviews a book gets, so if you use it, please seriously consider leaving a review -- on Goodreads before Release Day, or on any of many options after.

Highlights from a few reviews

 Hello again! Changing things up a bit, I'm sharing highlights from some early reviews of That the Dead May Rest before I go back to posting excerpts. These are mostly from Goodreads. Omissions, indicated by ellipses (. . .), are for length and to avoid spoilers.

-- “This unique book . . . offers a fresh view on zombie stories, . . . and has strong female characters as protagonists. . . . Despite the dark themes, it is not full of blood or gore; instead, the author uses emotions and well-developed characters to build tension and mystery. . . . That The Dead May Rest by Karen A. Wyle covers themes of guilt, death, healing, friendship, love, and doing what is right.” -- 5-star review from Readers' Favorite

-- “Unsettling, Atmospheric, and Surprisingly Tender: That the Dead May Rest caught me off guard in the best way! I picked it up expecting horror, and yes, it’s chilling and full of moments that made me uneasy, but what I didn’t expect was how much I’d care about the people inside it. . . . It’s rare for a horror novel to give me goosebumps and also tug at my heart, but this one did. What I love most is that it doesn’t leave you when you close the book. The questions it raises, about grief, about what we carry with us, about what we leave behind, linger. If you’re looking for horror with depth, something that creeps into your thoughts and stays there, this is absolutely worth putting at the top of your TBR.” – Valentina Morris

-- “Karen A. Wyle has crafted a haunting, deeply human story that takes place in two worlds. . . . By the end, I wasn’t just spooked. I was shaken, moved, and desperate for everyone else to read this so we can talk about it. . . . This is not just a must-read, it’s a must-experience.” – Katherine

-- “Chilling, Clever, and Completely Different from Any Zombie Story I’ve Read: This book doesn’t go for the usual infection/virus angle. The idea here is way darker and more personal: the dead don’t just rise… they rise as you. Your body. Your face. Your corpse. Out there hurting people. Just the thought of it made my skin crawl, and Karen A. Wyle leans into that dread perfectly.

   "But what impressed me most is that it’s not just about scares. The book digs into grief, guilt, and the way the dead and the living still try to reach each other. . . . The pacing is sharp, the atmosphere is vivid, and the whole concept feels original and unsettling in a way that sticks with you. If you think zombies are played out, this book proves there’s still plenty of life (and death) left in the genre.” -- Jessica

-- “The concept is so unique — spirits and living people teaming up to fight a zombie apocalypse. . . . The pacing was tight, the dialogue worked, and the characters were engaging. There’s a lot going on in this little novel, but it all comes together in a cohesive way. Creative, well-executed, and very enjoyable.” – BAM/Beth Anne

And for a grand finale, the following from Midwest Book Review:

   “That the Dead May Rest is a compelling and sophisticated exploration of memory, grief, and the shadows the past casts on the present—an engrossing read for admirers of historically grounded mysteries with a spectral edge.

    "Karen Wyle’s prose is elegant and evocative. Her meticulous attention to historical nuance anchors the narrative in authenticity, while the unfolding mystery sustains a quiet but relentless tension. The author thoughtfully drew the characters, and their inner conflicts resonated against the novel’s atmospheric backdrop.

    "Wyle avoids sensationalism, opting instead for a measured, haunting tone that lingers well after the final page.”

I'm still waiting for reviews from various book bloggers.

Today's preorder links are for Kobo, an international ebook vendor, and (once again) Amazon. (Or you can use my brand-new "universal" ebook link.)

Next time, I'll give you all an excerpt from later in Chapter 2, where we meet Daniel (described briefly in a previous post) and learn a little more about Millie's life.

Time for another excerpt!

Is time creeping along or flying by as Release Day approaches for That the Dead May Rest? Can it somehow be doing both at once?

In any case, here's another excerpt, this time from Chapter 2.

To set the stage: a few people have shown up in the afterlife with alarming tales to tell. Those who welcome new arrivals have started to gently question them about how they died. Millie, asking the question this time, has already heard the horrifying news that her own body had come out of its grave and killed someone.

(Trigger warning: suicide.)

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Then, one evening, came a man who responded as if her question had been an electric shock. He went rigid, his eyes wide and his jaw clenched. Millie sat quietly, trying to project reassurance, and he slowly relaxed, but all the way into a slump. Putting his head in his hands, he mumbled something she couldn’t hear. He must have realized it, because he lifted his head and said in a flat, hopeless tone, “I expected this. I assume I won’t be allowed to stay. Where will you send me?” The monotone changed to a high, panicked note as he added, “Is it hell? Is there a hell? Please, can I appeal somehow?” He was crying now. “Is there some way to ask for mercy?”

Millie hurried to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Please don’t be frightened. I don’t think there’s anything like hell. I wasn’t accusing you of anything. I — we’re asking everyone this question now, for a reason that has nothing to do with you.” Or so she hoped. She could only hope. “Please tell me, and then I’ll find the best way to help you.”

The man’s sobs subsided, and he took a deep, shaky breath. It reminded her to wonder, as she often had, why they still breathed, and ate, and did so many things they had done in life, but not the more unpleasant ones. But she needed to concentrate on the shaken man in the chair, who was (perhaps unconsciously) now gripping the sides of the chair as he forced out the words, “I killed myself. Committed suicide.”

That would mean counseling from someone who knew much more than she did. But now that the man had brought himself to make what he obviously saw as a confession, she should do more than simply pass him along. Using both hands now to gently massage his shoulders, she asked in as soothing a tone as she could, “Do you want to tell me what was happening to you, to bring you to that point?”

It might have been a mistake. He started sobbing again, his shoulders bowing and shaking under her hands. “It was — it was what — my wife, my wife, I saw what happened, my wife, and I couldn’t stop it, I tried, but I was too late, she was already — already — all torn and bloody, blood everywhere, and she’d been screaming and then moaning, and then nothing . . . she was like a torn, bloody blanket on the ground, and the thing ran off into the woods, it crashed through the trees and was gone, and my wife was, she was . . . .”

Millie wanted to do some moaning herself. She let go of the man’s shoulders for fear of gripping them too hard. She could have asked what the creature looked like, whether it looked human, or like anyone in particular. But it would be kinder not to press him for details, not yet. And she couldn’t bear to think what he might answer.

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Today's preorder links go to Barnes & Noble, for both the ebook and the paperback, and Amazon. If you have a local B&N store, they may well be able to order the paperback for you. If not, you can order it online and pick it up at the store. There's a lovely excuse to spend some time book-browsing!

Introducing more characters from upcoming paranormal novel

What say you -- are you ready to meet some more characters?

An earlier post introduced three major characters -- Millie, Rosie, and Emma -- at the beginning of their character arcs. Here are some additional characters, significant but not quite as central to the story and themes.

-- Janna and Jeri: Janna and Jeri are adolescent identical twins. Of the two, Janna is more levelheaded, Jeri more impulsive. Jeri suffered from anorexia. The girls played around with tarot cards, something they could do together even when Jeri was in the hospital. Jeri died not long before the book's beginning. Janna and her mother are both devastated, and Janna is angry. As spirits in the afterlife start trying to contact the living, the twins' bond provides one avenue.

-- Paul: This young man attends a crucial, revelatory séance only because an acquaintance dragged him along. He's self-employed in a technological field that gives him a flexible schedule, useful for the missions he gets landed with. He has some maturing to do. He'll be getting a chance to do it.

-- Sofia: Sofia is a kindly, maternal spirit who looks after Millie (see previous post) when Millie finds it difficult to cope. Millie's personal growth, in the course of the story, may require some adjustments to this relationship.

-- Daniel: a dignified, elegant gentleman, he is the first spirit to come to Millie and reveal that he too has met a victim of his own body. (For the confrontation in which Millie learned the same, see this previous post.)

That's all for now -- except today's preorder links. Besides Amazon, here's one for Bookshop.org, a great alternative for those who want paperbacks but would rather not get them from a giant corporation.

See you soon!

the Prologue

 My first excerpt from upcoming paranormal novel That the Dead May Rest skipped right over the Prologue, starting on the second page of Chapter 1. But I hope my readers don't follow that example. The Prologue clarifies a couple of points I consider important: (1) What kind of zombies are we talking about? (2) Where will the action take place? There's also an attempt to prevent the frustration that might afflict readers if they expect a certain revelation I chose not to provide.

So without further ado, here it is.

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the chronicler

The creeping peril, the quietly emerging plague, was not the sort of zombie epidemic pictured in late 20th and 21st century entertainment. Living humans did not, within seconds or minutes of being attacked, become the shambling undead. It was an older menace, one with ancient, mostly abandoned, and generally ineffectual remedies, that resurfaced. The bodies that now roamed to attack the living had been resting for days or months or years before some mysterious force drove them to emerge, like shoots of noisome growth, once more above ground. All those generations of mourners who loaded stones on the lids of coffins, laid sickles across the necks of corpses or drove iron rods through their cold chests — they knew what to fear.

As you read, do not divide your attention waiting to learn of a perpetrator or virus or other cause. I will tell you now that humanity has not yet learned why this occurred.

The terrestrial portion of what follows could be happening anywhere: Concord, or Wichita Falls, or a suburb of Boise. Picture somewhere you know, even somewhere you love. Picture its houses grand or modest, well maintained or run down; its lush greenery or desert shrubs; its asphalt or gardens; its uninterrupted flatness, or its hills that challenge the fitness of pedestrians. Picture home. 

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Release Day is October 17th, and every post until that date will include at least one preorder link. Today it's for Amazon, because Amazon makes it easy for authors to keep track of preorders. Many of most -- I'll guess most of us -- deal with some anxiety during this last stretch before Book Meets World, and it's soothing, heartening, to see preorders mount up. (The paperback is reasonably priced, but the ebook is a positive bargain. This would be a nice time to say, "What the heck!" and order a copy.)

three weeks to go -- time for some character teasers!

My paranormal novel That the Dead May Rest comes out in three weeks (heart skips, stomach flips). So this seems like a good time to introduce my readers/potential readers to some key characters. For now, I'm keeping these introductions short. I'll probably expand them in the coming days and weeks.

Let's start, as the book (after the Prologue) does, with Millie.

When we first meet Millie in the afterlife, she's quiet, timid, content with simple domestic comforts. We don't learn many specifics about her life, but she lived in a near-constant state of instability and fear. The afterlife has provided her with the relief of safety and peace, and she's deeply grateful.

Next, Rosie, still very much among the living. She's a professional medium calling herself Madame Rebecca, relying on costuming and a range of tricks to delude her clients into thinking she's in touch with The Beyond. She rarely allows herself to remember that as a teenager, she actually heard faint, tantalizing echoes of mysterious voices, and hoped they would grow louder and reveal their origins.

She has a surprise coming.

And finally (for today), there's Emma. Emma makes me think there should be a word like "widow" for a mother who has lost her child. Since her adult son Robert died, she's hidden in her house, doing little and enjoying less. Sometimes she writes a letter to Robert, as if he could receive it. She has no hope of that, or of anything else. 

Things are going to change for Emma -- for all three women. They're going to change a lot.

There are other important characters -- Paul, Janna, Daniel, Sofia, and more. We'll get to those another time.

Do any of these quick character sketches, or the excerpt already published here, interest you enough that you'd like to be one of the first to get hold of the book? Here are some preorder links.

-- Amazon (Kindle)

-- Amazon (paperback)

-- Bookshop.org (paperback)

-- Barnes & Noble (ebook)

-- Barnes & Noble (paperback)

-- Kobo (ebook)

And here's another look at the cover.

(I hope you like it. I do.)

A date with two meanings, and a peek at Chapter 1 of my next novel

 Today is September 17th, a date that echoes of the past and the future.

One month ago, August 17th, was my parents' anniversary. They were married almost seventy years, my father dying three months and one day before they would have reached that landmark. Here's a photo from their wedding day, in 1947.

I've always thought that my mother bore some resemblance to Olivia deHavilland.

As for the future, my next novel, That the Dead May Rest, comes out on October 17th. Here's the cover.

(I just opened a box of paperbacks, twenty in all, purchased for a book signing the day after the release -- and hurrah! Huzzah! They have no obvious defects preventing me from using them!)

I posted the teaser a few weeks ago (at this link), and it seems crass to post it again this soon -- so I'm doing something different. I usually wait until much closer to the release date before I post excerpts . . . but I don't usually have so long a wait between finishing a novel and releasing it. I did so this time because my daughter very sensibly suggested that with the subject matter and cover of this book, it might do better if released during Halloween month. That'll be my excuse for posting the following excerpt from Chapter 1. The point of view is that of Millie, a woman who died in middle age and is about to welcome a new arrival to the afterlife.

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Reception, where all the new arrivals came, transformed every time to reflect the arriving spirit’s conception of the most benign possible afterlife. As the welcomer helped the spirit understand what had happened to them, the surroundings would gradually shift to accommodate any details the conversation revealed about what would most deeply satisfy the spirit’s needs and hopes. Sometimes the result was quite different from what she’d expected. A man who arrived dressed in velvets and silks like a king (what he’d been buried in, perhaps) might turn out to cherish the thought of a sunny cottage with a ticking grandfather clock.

This time, Millie entered a spacious circular hall with pale marble columns dividing intricate mosaics, the tiles’ colors as bright and cheerful as a kindergarten crayon box. The tops and bases of the pillars had gilded trim, and the same trim framed the mosaics. The scene, though grand in its way, reminded her of the needlepoint tapestry one might expect in the living room of a very traditional American Christian family, especially since the mosaics featured winged cherubs and blue-robed Madonnas and a brown-haired bearded Jesus with his arms spread wide. She had seen such living rooms through house windows in her own town, and the pillars and mosaics might have been inspired by the most opulent of the town’s churches.

The man who sat on a cushioned bench along one wall looked as if he would normally carry himself with some degree of authority. A mayor, perhaps, or a councilman. He wore a suit, not closely tailored but fitting him well, though the buttons of the jacket strained slightly over his middle. She couldn’t see his features as she entered, and presumably he couldn’t see hers, but he started to stand with an air of polite deference, gentleman to lady. And then he froze, and staggered backward against the bench before scuttling around it and backing against the wall, arms raised, covering his face.

The man’s terror made her heart pound and her pulse race. Struggling to catch her breath, she told herself over and over: I’m safe here. I’m safe. Even if he wants to hurt me, even if he strikes out in his fear, he can’t hurt me here. No one can. I’m safe. He’s just scared. He’s scared. I know what that feels like. I have to find out why he’s so frightened, so I can help, so I can make him feel safe, so I can feel safe again.

Another member of the welcoming committee — Johnny, a large, quiet man whose voice had the warmth and depth of melted chocolate — had appeared and was now holding the man’s hands, speaking softly to him, coaxing him to sit. Millie moved quietly toward the wall and tried to remember how to blend into the background. It was a skill she’d been so happy to leave behind . . . .

Her efforts made no difference. The man had been calming down, but when he glanced her way he sat bolt upright and pointed a shaking hand at her. “You! What are you doing here? What is this place, if you’re here? Are you here to drive me crazy? Isn’t it enough that you killed me? That you, you — ” He turned and clutched Johnny by the arms, shook him, shouted: “She came at me, with her fingernails like claws, and her, her teeth, she clawed my face and she tore it with her teeth! And the smell, she smelled like rotting flesh and, and falling-down houses, I’d never smelled anything like it . . . .” He paused, as Millie stood with eyes wide and mouth open, staring at him, trying to find any sense in what he was saying, in any of this. “She . . . .” He took a slow step toward her. He spoke to her, this time. “You don’t smell like that anymore. And your clothes were rags, dripping with something like oil, or mold. And your eyes were, were dead eyes, you looked dead, like a corpse pulled out of the grave . . . .”

Millie shook her head, trembling. “It couldn’t be. None of this. I’ve been here, not there. I’ve been here for . . . .” Did she even know? What was time, here? But surely her life had ended months ago, or years. “I’ve been here. And I would never have done anything like that. It couldn’t have been me.” She gulped. “I’m so sorry that happened, that you died that way. No one should die that way. But it’s all over now, all different. You’ll be all right now. You’ll be safe.”

The man stared at her, his large hands opening and closing spasmodically. “How can I be safe here, if you’re here? You killed me, and now you’ve followed me here! Unless . . . .” His voice dropped to muttering. “Unless I’m supposed to kill you now, to make things right. But I’ve never killed anyone. Is that what I’m supposed to do? Is that what I’m here for?”

Johnny gripped the man’s shoulders and pulled him back toward the bench. He would find something to say, some way to make things better, but Millie wouldn’t stay to hear it. She backed out of the room.

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If I've been fortunate enough to intrigue you, you can visit the book's web page here. From there, one click will take you to three links (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and bookshop.org) for preordering.

I'll be back, probably next month, with more excerpts. In the meantime, I hope you're reading something you love!

the quest for reviews of my upcoming paranormal fantasy THAT THE DEAD MAY REST

 Well, I've done it again -- written a novel. And again, I've branched out into a new genre, or rather a new subgenre of fantasy, namely paranormal. To the surprise, not to say shock, of people who know me, it even involves zombies -- though it takes what I fondly hope is an unusual approach to the subject, as described below.

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After a life of peril and fear, Millie has reached the peace, beauty, and security of the afterlife. But one day, when she is performing her glad duty of welcoming a new spirit, that spirit recoils from her in horror—because her body had become a zombie, and had brutally killed him.

As more spirits make the same terrible discovery, they ask themselves, and each other: is this somehow my fault? When will it end? And finally: what can we do? Is there something we can do to stop this?

And are there people among the living who can help them to do it?

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That the Dead May Rest comes out on October 17, 2025, in time for Halloween. I fancy the cover is seasonally appropriate.

Now that the book is finished and formatted, I've begun the process of telling people about it and hunting for reviewers. Besides posting on Goodreads and contacting various book bloggers (and a magazine or two), I'm trying new approaches.

One is BookSirens. This site is a paid, but modestly priced way to get reviews. Visitors to their page can find books to review, while authors and others can direct people to a particular page -- like this book's. As I write this post, no one has "joined my review team" yet, but it's early days.

The other is Revvue. The Revvue site (link goes to my book's page) rewards authors for reviewing other authors' books. Reviews earn coins, in quantities dependent on the book, and amassing sufficient coins (an amount also depending on the book) allows one to request reviews. It also requires coins to pick a book to review. The author chooses whether to accept a more limited category of review, e.g. Amazon-verified reviews only, or to be less choosy. One lovely reader has already chosen my book for review.

When my publication date gets closer, close enough that it isn't long before reviews can go live on Amazon, I'll take one more step, a bigger one. You may have heard of NetGalley, a site where a great many authors and publishers make their books available prior to publication (and afterward). It isn't cheap to put one's book there, but there are ways to make it more affordable, including joining any of several author associations. I'm a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, and through AIA and an associated group called BooksGoSocial, I can get a substantial discount.

Will all this help me get more reviews for my book? Maybe, and every one helps. 

Different ways of writing villains

I read quite a bit of historical romance, most of it set in Regency England (roughly, though not precisely, the early 19th century period when George III's son, also George, acted as his regent). These novels tend to come in series based on a particular extended family, so one can easily gobble them up in sequence. There are, of course, differences in how various authors treat the historical period, the characters, their romance arc, et cetera. One such difference that has struck me lately is how two authors in particular approach villains.

The villains in Grace Burrowes' novels can be vividly nasty, but sooner or later the reader is likely to learn something about how they got that way. They can (though not all do) even end up moving in the direction of being more sympathetic characters. Such surprising shifts can give the book added depth, with the reader given the chance to leave the book with a broader, more thoughtful perspective. On the other hand,  Mary Ballogh's villains tend to be utterly and consistently despicable. (In the only Ballogh book I've read so far where a villain is eventually characterized as more foolish and shallow than wicked, his father has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.) This makes it particularly satisfying when she provides a devastating comeuppance.

I've also written a villain or two. My sci-fi thriller Playback Effect features a sociopath, and wasn't he fun to write! (What that says about me is for you to decide. . . .) As for my historical romance series -- Cowbird Creek, set in latter 19th-century Nebraska -- there's a significant villain only in the fourth one, What Wakes the Heart. The book description mentions the heroine's "traumatic encounter with the president of her teacher's college," but that understates how persistent his villainy proves. Otherwise, all you'll find is a loudmouth bully here and a self-important, narrow-minded preacher there, along with the occasional family members who do harm by not understanding their relatives better or not being flexible enough to step outside their own world views.

How do you like  your villains? Do you prefer the "love to hate" kind, or the more nuanced?

Historical fiction, including historical romance -- and yes, it's included

 I've finally reached the last of the genres I write. (Will I write in other genres at some point? I can't see myself writing horror, but I wouldn't bet too much that it'll never happen....) Here are my works of historical fiction, including my probably-ongoing historical romance series. As with my other books, you can probably have your local bookstore order them, but I'm including some purchase links.

I'll start with my most recent novel in this category -- one based on a crucial moment in family's history, and yet focusing on a man my father and uncles met for only a few minutes. They never knew his name, let alone how to explain the blatant contradictions they observed in his appearance and behavior. So I set out to imagine some answers.

"A Life of Contradictions, and A Moment of Truth

It is autumn of 1938, in Hitler’s Germany, in the capital city of Berlin, perhaps a month before the devastating anti-Jewish violence of Kristallnacht. Three Jewish boys have received new bicycles — because their family has, with difficulty, arranged to leave Germany, and they will not be allowed to take much cash with them. Two of the boys are experienced bicyclists, but the youngest is less so. On a downtown street, the latter’s lack of skill causes an accident. And the traffic policeman on the scene wears, just visible under his uniform, the brown shirt of a member of Hitler's storm troopers.

"What did the policeman do? The answer is known, because the preceding paragraph describes an actual event. But why did the policeman make the choice he did? What life did he live that led him to make it? And what happened to him, while the boys and their family escaped, lived, and thrived? This novel imagines possible answers to these questions. In doing so, it takes the reader into the heart of the experience of wartime, and the repercussions of such conflict for years thereafter."

You can order this book from Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million.

On to my Cowbird Creek series, with a short detour: on what basis do I include "historical romance" in the historical fiction genre? Besides the most obvious reasons -- "historical" in the genre label and a setting in the past (not, by the way, an alternate past, which would make it "alternate history"), there's the nature of the writing process. I don't believe there's a way to write good historical romance without plenty of research into the place and time in which the story is set. (One can, to some extent, piggyback on the work previous writers have done, but there are risks in relying on someone else's research too much.) The Decision and my Cowbird Creek books have back matter describing the extensive research I've done for that book. I used to list all my sources, including every website I consulted, but the lists got so long they were increasing the printing costs for the books, so I now ask readers who are sufficiently interested in the sources to get in touch with me.

If you read much historical romance, you probably know that a series in this subgenre typically revolves around either a particular family or a particular place. In the case of Cowbird Creek, that's the fictional small town in southeastern Nebraska that gives the series its name. It's also common for the names of the books in a series to be related in some way, and mine all use the format "What [verb] the Heart" -- starting with What Heals the Heart.

"Can they help each other heal?

"Joshua Gibbs survived the Civil War, building on his wartime experiences to become a small town doctor. And if he wakes from nightmares more often than he would like, only his dog Major is there to know it.

"Then two newcomers arrive in Cowbird Creek: Clara Brook, a plain-speaking and yet enigmatic farmer’s daughter, and Freida Blum, an elderly Jewish widow from New York. Freida knows just what Joshua needs: a bride. But it shouldn’t be Clara Brook!

"Joshua tries everything he can think of to discourage Freida’s efforts, including a wager: if he can find Freida a husband, she’ll stop trying to find him a wife. Will either matchmaker succeed? Or is it Clara, despite her own scars, who can heal the doctor’s troubled heart?"

Joshua and Clara appear in the succeeding books to a greater or lesser extent, and a couple of secondary characters in this book take center stage in those later books. While the books all have a setting in common, and are all romances (including the essential element of the probable Happy Ever After), they also feature different psychological and societal issues. Joshua Gibbs, as the above description shows, suffers from PTSD. The key male character in What Frees the Heart has a physical disability, while the key female character is in a shunned profession. The female lead in What Shows the Heart is in a related profession, and the male lead carries a serious amount of guilt over past actions. (The story also falls within the subgenre of "second chances.") What Wakes the Heart features both sexual harassment and religious differences.

I was hoping to use just one set of purchase links for the whole series, but it turns out the pattern of which retailers carry which of the books is somewhat erratic. So here are the book names and the links for each.

What Heals the Heart: Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Walmart Business, Mighty Ape (New Zealand) 

What Frees the Heart: Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Walmart Business, Waterstones (UK), Mighty Ape (New Zealand)

What Shows the Heart: Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Walmart Business, Waterstones (UK) 

What Wakes the Heart: Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Target, Walmart Business, Waterstones (UK), Mighty Ape (New Zealand)

Well, that's the lot! If you're shopping for books this holiday season, I hope you'll look at some of the books I've highlighted in these posts. Merry holidays!

Two very different fantasy novels

As the holidays rush toward us, I'm reminding folks of the books I've written, hoping one of them might turn out to be the perfect gift. After summing up my science fiction (first my SF with aliens, then my near-future SF) and my picture books, I'm now ready to talk about fantasy. As with all my books, you can probably order copies of these novels at your local bookstore -- but I'm including purchase links as well.

 

 

I've written two fantasy novels, though if there's a subgenre called "afterlife fantasy," the first of them, Wander Home, falls within it. Here's the teaser.

"Death is what you make it. . . .

"Eleanor never wanted to leave the daughter she loved so much. The overpowering urge to wander -- to search, without knowing what she sought -- drove her away. She left little Cassidy in her family's loving care. But Cassidy and the others died in an accident before Eleanor could find her way home. Now, they are all reunited, in an afterlife where nothing is truly lost: places once loved may be revisited, memories relived and even shared. Surely this is a place where they can understand and heal. And yet, the restlessness that shaped Eleanor's life still haunts her in death. Somehow, she must solve the mystery of her life -- or none of them will be at peace."

This book taught me that if you start writing a story with a mystery in it without knowing the resolution to that mystery, the answer won't necessarily appear when you're ready for it. I ended up having to go in a direction I hadn't anticipated. Does it work? So far, I haven't had a review saying otherwise....

You can pick up Wander Home on Amazon, bookshop.org, Books-A-Million, and Thriftbooks.

My other fantasy novel, like my near-future SF novels, has lawyers in it. In fact, the main characters are the father-daughter legal team of Abe and Adira. So where's the fantasy element? Read on.

"Negotiating with the Fair Folk is a tightrope walk over deadly perils. And even the most skilled can misstep.

"The many wondrous realms the Fair Folk inhabit offer tempting opportunities for mortals hoping to benefit from faerie magic. But making bargains with the Fair Folk is a dangerous business, for the fae have a habit of leaving loopholes to snare the unwary. Father-and-daughter lawyers Abe and Adira have made a career out of helping their fellow humans reach such agreements safely.

"Abe and Adira know the rules for dealing with Fair Folk: don't reveal your true name, don't say thank you, don't accept gifts, don't eat fae food, don't tell even the slightest of lies . . . . Oh, and always, no matter the provocation, be unfailingly polite.

"A moment of carelessness, a brief lapse, and a professional defender of mortal interests may be in dire need of rescue."

Far From Mortal Realms would be a good choice for someone who loves picturing exotic and/or beautiful fantasy settings, or for someone who enjoys trying to design a wish that a hypothetical genie couldn't turn against them . . . or for someone to whom parent-child relationships are important. You can get it on Amazon, Walmart, or Thriftbooks.

Next and last list: historical fiction, including historical romance. In the meantime, happy reading!