No Strings Attached Blog Hop!

No Strings Attached! Okay, this is easy. For you and for me. I'm not even going to welcome you to my blog or invite you to read the blurb or excerpt. I might not even respond to your comments. At all. There are no strings attached. As a matter of fact, I copied and pasted most of this post from a previous No Strings Attached Giveaway Hop. I am being that lazy.

 

 

I'm not going to ask you a question. Just leave your email address (you can say something if you want) so I can contact the random winner of an ecopy of This Side of Dead. Don't feel obligated to click on the link to Amazon. But please do check out the other No Strings Attached participants. You know - if you want.  

 

 

This Side of Dead

5 Star Romance Writer's Review

Blurb:

On Memorial Day weekend, Cecilia Denton hopped out of her boyfriend Brad’s car and leapt off a bridge. Far from suicidal herself, she did it to save a jumper, but she had no idea of the chain of events her heroic stunt would set in motion. Because Cecilia cheated the Grim Reaper, Death claimed her boyfriend instead. Now, Cecilia and Malcolm, the stranger whose life she saved, must go on a scavenger hunt of redemption. Either they prove to Death that there’s more to humans than greed and despair, or Death claims both Malcolm and Brad. 

Malcolm Manchester didn’t ask to be saved, and he sure doesn’t want to be Cecilia’s partner in a game of Beat the Clock to restore Death’s faith in humanity. The heat is on Cecilia to give Malcolm a reason to live before time runs out—or send him off with a bang.

Excerpt:

 

In the car on the way home CC held the ring up to the light of the passing street lamps, shop windows and traffic lights. The street lamps were bright. The shop windows with their neon were sparkly. The traffic lights were shiny. The ring—not so much.

She’d dreamed of some day owning a ring that shone like one of those movie premier lights they flash into the night skies. Hold it up to the light and Batman would show up and ask, “What’s the emergency, ma’am?” And then she could ask him to give her away at her wedding…you know…someday…in the future. CC giggled to herself.

She felt the all-too-familiar bump bump bumpity bump of the old Crossroads Bridge. Built in the forties, it had always given CC the willies. As a child, it had reminded her of a dinosaur lumbering across the river to eat her and use her bones as toothpicks. As an adult, she didn’t want to share the bridge with an oncoming bus due to how narrow the bridge became in the midsection.

“Why are you going this way?” she asked.

“Traffic.”

The evenly spaced lights reflected resplendently on her new diamonette ring, distracting her from the morbid notions she had about the bridge.

A pedestrian in the shadows of the bridge’s columns caught her eye, disturbing her joy. The figure peered over the rail and peeled away a coat, letting it drop to the ground. CC tensed. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. The person climbed the safety rail, glanced briefly over his shoulder at their approaching headlights, and then jumped from the bridge and into the swift running river below.

No! Her heart seized. “Stop!”

“What? Why?” Brad asked.

CC reached out and grasped his sleeve. Her other hand clutched at her heart. “Just stop.” No other cars were in sight. Brad hit the brakes. CC’s body lurched forward, stopped only by the safety belt. She unlatched the clasp and flung open the car door.

“Cecelia!” Brad called after her.

She was only vaguely aware he pursued her. Grasping the rail, she leaned and saw a body thrashing in the water. The fall hadn’t killed him. Not this. Not today. Not again. She couldn’t save her parents all those years ago. She’d failed to save her little sister. Without thought for her own safety, CC scaled the rail. Doesn’t look that far, she thought right before she leapt to the icy water. Regret hit her the second the thousand pinpricks of painful freezing water did.

Over the sound of the rushing river, she heard the faint sound of her own name called out. It faded and dissipated like dust scattered in the wind. CC struggled to paddle toward the shadowy shore. Screw the jumper. What was I thinking? Diving into a river of melted mountain snow was not like diving into the city pool on open-swim day. It was lunacy.

The current battered her downriver toward the tree-lined bank. Freezing cold river water slapped her face and splashed into her open mouth instead of the air she sought. Suddenly she rammed into something solid. Correction, someone solid. Determined not to die in vain or die alone, she seized onto him with aching, icy fingers, pulling him toward the shore so she could kill him with her bare hands.