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.
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.
