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. He’s also an Odd. Unlike his teammates, Deja can enter the living worldβ€”unmaskedβ€”and 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 South’s already fallen and Omega North might be next. Agents are spread thin and Odds even thinner. Though Deja’s barely recovered from the mission that lost him half his team and half his memories, he’s sent back to the fieldβ€”haunted by the fear his history of hallucinations makes him a liability to the few teammates he has left. Which is fine! He’s 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.

Deja’s 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 Deja’s hallucinated warnings save his team more than once, he realizes those messages might be real, and his β€œhallucinations” a sign of memories waiting to be recovered. Only, the price of getting those memories backβ€”and the truth of how his first teammates were lostβ€”might just be the destruction of Omega North itself.

Someone is counting on it.

Like any Omega agent, Deja Vale’s

Praise for HEREAFTER LIES: R.I.P.

"Wow! HEREAFTER LIES: RIP

offers a vision of the afterlife and the Grim Reaper (Reapers?) like nothing you’ve ever seen before! Not only are there the usual ghosts and spooky cats and seances here, but also coffeemakers, veterinarian’s offices, profane parrots, clerical rabbits, and nursing homes in this tale of a badly battered spectral agent who’s not even sure what’s real anymore. Elijah B. Wilder’s novel is a β€˜spirited’ mix of daring originality, dazzling visuals, and derring-do! If you’re a fan of Shirley Jackson, old movies like HERE COMES MR. JORDAN, fantasy, or just good books in general, you’ll find lots here to love!"

β€”Connie Willis

Hugo- and Nebula-Award-winning author of THE ROAD TO ROSWELL

β€œ This debut novel by Elijah B. Wilder

is a rollercoaster ride of demented-level six ghosts, haunted RV’s, 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€”Melinda M. Snodgrass

Writer, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION 

Grim Reaper Cover Art Β© CRISTINA BENCINA (2024)

Buy the Book Directly from the Author!

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Buy the Book Directly from the Author! β™‘πŸ’€β™‘