What would you do if you woke up dead? Gabriella remembers only parts of dying. She knows when she wakes up in a casket that she didn't survive the crash. But being dead doesn't mean she can't enjoy the afterlife. Antonio is mysterious, lonely, and charming. Fortunately, he's dead too. With only two days before the end of the Day of the Dead festival, they have to figure out how to catch a murder, avoid the Grim Reaper, and get their Spirits to the Other Side before the Gate - between the living world and the realm of the dead - closes for another year.
Excerpt
I felt dead. I couldn’t tell you exactly what it felt like, but I knew the moment I woke up that I wasn’t alive any more. It was a sort of inner silence, the lack of my body’s natural mechanisms ticking and tocking – no heartbeat, no gurgling stomach, no wheezy lungs.
Scattered around my casket were bouquets of flowers – rich golden marigolds and butter yellow chrysanthemums. The air smelled of their sweet perfume, and of sugar. I sat up, my body stiff and cold. Looking around, I saw I was surrounded by headstones, each garnished generously with orange flowers, fine decanters of wine or brandy, and plates of cookies shaped like skulls.
The cemetery was also full of people. Men and women with brightly painted faces, in lavish clothing, knelt by the headstones, chatting, drinking, and sharing food. As far as I could tell, mine was the only open grave. Curious, and tired of sitting in a hard casket, I tried to stand. But my body wouldn’t co-operate. It was like I had no balance. Grabbing onto the sides of the casket, I carefully got my legs under me, and then used the side of the hole to pull myself up. It was easier than I expected to haul myself up over the lip of the hole and onto the grass. It was as if the muscles in my arms didn’t care how much I weighed.
Sitting on the edge of my own grave, I looked around to see if anyone had noticed me climbing out of the hole, but nobody was looking my way. I began to stand up, just as a man stopped at the foot of my grave. I glanced down into the hole, uncertain how to explain how I, a dead person, had moved from my casket to the grass... But I was still in the hole.
Author bio
H.G. Lynch is a Scottish paranormal romance author. She lives with her boyfriend, five bunnies, two hamsters, and a cat. When she isn't writing, she likes to watch Star Trek or Supernatural.
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