My backlist special for the rest of February and March is “Heaven Can’t Wait”. It is only 99c on the Dreamspinner site. You can find it here.
This novella was published in 2014 as part of Dreamspinner’s “Daily Dose”, their summer anthology series. I think for that reason, people who didn’t subscribe to the Daily Dose may not have seen it or read it. Which is a shame, because this is one of my favorite novellas that I’ve ever written.
I’ve always been a fan of metaphorical stories. I studied philosophy for a few semesters and loved it! I almost got a masters in it, except I talked myself out of it, thinking it wasn’t practical. But as a protestant minister’s daughter, and later an uber liberal who was interested in Buddishm, New Age ideas, near-death experiences, as well as the paranormal, I’ve always been interested in what lies beyond this world and various concepts of heaven, hell, judgement, God, etc.
I remember how delighted I was when I read Anne Rice’s “Memnoch the Devil” because in it, Lucifer goes into whole chapters of discussion about creation and why he rebelled and what was wrong with God’s whole scheme. I ate up that shiz. Years later, as a thriller writer writing under the name Jane Jensen, I wrote a huge novel about the meaning of good and evil and life after death called “Dante’s Equation”.
“Heaven Can’t Wait” is the Eli Easton, lightly-tapdancing-on-the-metaphyiscal expression of that interest. In this m/m romance, an intolerant young man wakes up to find himself dead. His soul is on the tipping point between heaven and hell, so in order to redeem himself, he has to go back to Earth as a ghost and save the life of a bullied young man (and maybe find the guy a boyfriend too).
If it sounds heavy, it’s not. This is a humorous take on the subject, with our intrepid ghost Brian screwing up at every turn, and his mentor in heaven, Peter, being rather impatient and sarcastic. But despite the humor, there are some interesting ideas in the story, I think. Peter explains to Brian why people are born gay, for example. And in the end, Brian realizes a lot of what he believed when he was human is just plain wrong.
But whether the ideas interest you, or you just read it for a fun romance lark, I think you’ll enjoy “Heaven Can’t Wait”. Check it out while the sale lasts!