HEREAFTER LIES
In this witty, genre-bending dark fantasy, the Hereafter has been modernized but persecuted ghosts start pushing back.
Grim Reaper Paperback Cover Art
Β© CRISTINA BENCINA (2024)
directive is to contain those ghosts hell-bent on ensouling the unborn to rejoin the living. Heβs also an Odd. Unlike his teammates, Deja can enter the living worldβunmaskedβand see past the fog cloaking it from nonliving eyes. Apart from prompting puns and pop culture deep cuts that nobody on his team appreciates properly, his Oddity takes its toll.
But Omega Southβs already fallen and Omega North might be next. Agents are spread thin and Odds even thinner. Though Dejaβs barely recovered from the mission that lost him half his team and half his memories, heβs sent back to the fieldβhaunted by the fear his history of hallucinations makes him a liability to the few teammates he has left. Which is fine! Heβs fine. No hallucinations around here! Gordon Ramsay gives ultra-specific ghost-fighting and risotto-seasoning advice to all the nonliving girls through the TV, this is all just fine.
Dejaβs team is dispatched by ever-shifting train to police a cross-section of American Gothic: Possessed parrots, Victorian murder-children, crazed Canadian clowns, and man-eating forests. Between it all, they discover a pattern. Someone is teaching these ghosts to fight back. But when Dejaβs hallucinated warnings save his team more than once, he realizes those messages might be real, and his βhallucinationsβ a sign of memories waiting to be recovered. Only, the price of getting those memories backβand the truth of how his first teammates were lostβmight just be the destruction of Omega North itself.
Someone is counting on it.
Like any Omega agent, Deja Valeβs
Praise for HEREAFTER LIES: R.I.P.
"Wow! HEREAFTER LIES: RIP
offers a vision of the afterlife and the Grim Reaper (Reapers?) like nothing youβve ever seen before! Not only are there the usual ghosts and spooky cats and seances here, but also coffeemakers, veterinarianβs offices, profane parrots, clerical rabbits, and nursing homes in this tale of a badly battered spectral agent whoβs not even sure whatβs real anymore. Elijah B. Wilderβs novel is a βspiritedβ mix of daring originality, dazzling visuals, and derring-do! If youβre a fan of Shirley Jackson, old movies like HERE COMES MR. JORDAN, fantasy, or just good books in general, youβll find lots here to love!"
βConnie Willis
Hugo- and Nebula-Award-winning author of THE ROAD TO ROSWELL
β This debut novel by Elijah B. Wilder
is a rollercoaster ride of demented-level six ghosts, haunted RVβs, possessed parrots, a unique vision of the afterlife, and a fascinating, smart-mouthed hero with no memory of what killed his last team and left him with inexplicable wounds. The best news is that this is the first book in a series by a brilliant new voice in the field, so settle in for an amazing read, and listen for the whispers of the Reapers.β
βMelinda M. Snodgrass
Writer, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION