An Agent's Inbox #15

Dear Ms. Martindale,

When newly deceased Rebecca learns she must play matchmaker for an entry ticket to Heaven, she’s totally up for the challenge. Armed with a handful of enviable abilities and charged with finding true love for a pretty college student, Alexis Beckman, Rebecca assumes her task will be fun--and easy. That is, until the boy meant for Alexis steals her own heart instead.

At first, Rebecca thinks Michael’s tendency to turn her insides to melted butter is a freak side effect of Alexis’s obviously growing feelings for him. But the first time Michael and Alexis kiss, only one girl walks away insanely jealous, and it isn’t Alexis.

Feeling cheated of life and love, Rebecca bends Heaven’s rules to get closer to Michael. In the process, she uncovers a haunting secret: not only was Michael’s brother killed six months earlier, but Alexis might have unwittingly played a role in his death. Rebecca knows she holds the one card that could tear Michael and Alexis apart, and must decide if a last chance at love is worth breaking Alexis’s heart…and enduring the h***ish consequences of failing Heaven.

As three fates hang in the balance, Rebecca is only certain of one thing: nothing about her mission is as simple as she thought it would be--especially letting go of life before death.

LIFE BEFORE DEATH is a 78,000 word paranormal romance, with POV alternating between Rebecca and Alexis.

Thank you for your time and consideration,
G.M.C.


LIFE BEFORE DEATH

Of all the white things I would’ve expected to see in Heaven--brilliant white light, fluffy white clouds, angels in white robes--the rear ends of two massive white horses weren’t on the list. Yet there they were, swaying from side to side as they towed the carriage I sat in.

It should have struck me as odd that the man at the reins, dressed in a red tailcoat and black top hat, grinned at me with warm familiarity in spite of the fact that I’d never seen him before. And the fact that I had no idea how I’d wound up in that carriage. It was as if I had materialized from thin air, landed in this moment, and one by one, my senses became aware of everything around me.

Every one of those senses told me I hadn’t gone to Heaven after all.

I’d died, and that much I knew. But the white clouds and white-winged, white-robed angels? Not a one. There was a white light, though--in the distance, emanating from a marbled moon. It bounced against the sky in rhythm with the carriage, causing the ocean beneath it to shimmer. Stout cliffs formed shadowy bulges along most of the shore, topped with palm trees and more glowing dots of light from buildings and streetlamps and cars.

Cars. Not carriages.

Fingers of chilly apprehension uncurled in my stomach, but I forced them down. I wasn’t in Heaven, but I knew a place this beautiful couldn’t be Hell.