Jen
MacLellan has hit a dead end…
Jen knows tattooed, blue-haired
Jack Norris is trouble the minute he opens his front door. And being a
mortician in the avante garde East Side of Providence, Jen has seen a lot. Jack
has recruited Jen’s teenage brother Drew to play drums for his
less-than-respectable punk band, and Jen has no choice but to follow their gigs
to keep her little brother out of trouble. But when Drew goes missing, she
finds herself in the awkward position of asking for Jack’s help. Shocked that
he agrees, Jen decides she may have misjudged him. Worse, she might even like
him.
But when Jen is brutally
attacked, she awakens in the hospital where a Sid Vicious look-alike greets her
with the news: she’s dead, and he’s the reaper assigned to take her away. Yeah,
not so much. Refusing to leave, Jen’s spirit watches helplessly as her loved
ones suffer, powerless to ease her family’s grief or prevent the police from
accusing Jack of her murder. Desperate to help them, Jen convinces the reaper
to bring her back. But reanimating corpses isn’t as easy as it looks, and
neither is finding a killer before it’s too late…
REVIEWS:
"Wow! What a thrilling novel! This exciting novel,
written by Ms. Nessie Strange, is one that will grab a reader from the first,
and much like a roller coaster, not let go." –Night Owl Reviews
“This book threw me into a tornado of emotions. It
took me out of my comfort zone, yet would place me back into it, only to be
ripped back out again.” –Book Reads and
Reviews
"This is one hell of a ride, and a seriously
emotional one at that. I still feel for Jen, and I have so much more I want to
say about that, but I really don’t want to give spoilers away." --Happy
Tails and Tails Blog
“It's witty
and keeps you turning pages. The dialogue is fresh and youthful and the
characters are flawed, but still maintain their lovable characteristics.” –Author Renea Mason
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
Nessie is a
Massachusetts native and mother of two who has dabbled in everything from
abstract painting to freelance sports reporting. She also loves a good story,
whether it’s reading or writing one. Active membership in a writer’s critique
group has helped erase the memory of two horribly written practice novels.
LIVING DEAD GIRL is her first real novel.
EXCERPT:
Providence, Rhode Island
Was it a full
moon? Because it seemed like crazy hit town and we got flooded. The funeral
home was packed with more bodies than usual. I’d spent the past half hour
explaining to a grieving family why an open casket really wasn’t the best
option for their grandmother who’d been dead for over two weeks. Believe me, it
wasn’t. I’d never been so happy to lock the front door.
Dad and I were
cleaning up the prep room when my nineteen-year-old cousin Ethan appeared in
the doorway with his hand shoved in a bag of chips. Like all the men in the
family he towered over me, a height that was punctuated by another three or so
inches of reddish-brown white boy ’fro. “You guys want the bad news or the
really bad news first?”
The beginnings
of a migraine pulsated in my right temple, growing more insistent by the
second. It was now after ten o’clock at night. The only thing I wanted was to
shower and get ready for bed.
Dad closed the
stainless steel cabinet where we kept all the bottles of embalming chemicals.
“Just lay it all out there.”
“Man, you guys
are no fun.” He stuffed another chip in his mouth, then wiped his hand on the
front of his Naruto T-shirt. “All right. We got another stiff, and Drew’s at
some shady party getting hammered.” Ethan grinned.
“What?” I said.
“Drew is…what?”
“You know,
getting sloshed, shitfaced, cocked, drunk—”
“I know what it
means, you ass.”
Dad looked at
me, frowning. “Isn’t he supposed to be working on a science project?”
“What, like how
many beers does it take to get to the center of a—?”
“Ethan, knock it
off,” I snapped. “Yes, he was supposed to be working on a science project. I
should’ve known.”
“Right? Nobody
does homework on Friday nights.”
“You’re really
not helping.”
Dad sighed and
slumped his shoulders. “Well, one of us will have to go get him.”
“Why don’t you
guys flip for it?” Ethan held a quarter between his thumb and forefinger and
waved it in front of my face. “C’mon. Heads, Jen gets him; tails and Uncle
Andrew does it. It’s foolproof.”
Foolproof? Ha.
Right. Try suckered. Dad and I looked at each other and shrugged. My
sixteen-year-old brother deserved the mother of all ass-kickings. Was it wrong
that I was hoping for tails? Tails meant filling out some paperwork and
escorting a body from the hospital morgue. It meant no aggravation. That body
wasn’t going to argue or give me an attitude. My brother?
Yeah, different
story.
Ethan slapped
the quarter onto the table and lifted his hand. “Heads, my lovely cousin.”
Wonderful.
I climbed into my car, wondering why I
always had to chase after that little puke. Maybe I’d seriously pissed someone
off in another life. My fate seemed to be to relive this scenario over and
over, and it didn’t look as though it was going to stop anytime soon.