"Since the car crash that took her father’s life three years ago, Emma’s life has been a freaky—and unending—lesson in caution. Surviving “accidents” has taken priority over being a normal seventeen-year-old, so Emma spends her days taking pictures of life instead of living it. Falling in love with a boy was never part of the plan. Falling for a reaper who makes her chest ache and her head spin? Not an option.
It’s not easy being dead, especially for a reaper in love with a girl fate has put on his list not once, but twice. Finn’s fellow reapers give him hell about spending time with Emma, but Finn couldn’t let her die before, and he’s not about to let her die now. He will protect the girl he loves from the evil he accidentally unleashed, even if it means sacrificing the only thing he has left...his soul."
Finn
Sometimes Emma made me
feel so alive, I almost forgot I was dead.
Almost.
I
sank down onto the side of her bed, amazed by the blazing wildfire that swept
through me whenever Emma was near enough to touch. I took a deep, unneeded
breath, and settled down on my side next to her. The mattress didn’t sink. The
springs didn’t groan with the weight of an extra body. The distance between us
was an impossible void. Inches that might as well have been miles. Miles that
left me wanting in so many ways that I ached.
Even
the sun couldn’t resist her. Its glowing rays caressed her skin, and stained
her hair the satiny color of summer wheat. Before I knew what was happening, my
hand followed their lead. Cells ignited. My skin burned, screaming with the
agonizing need to touch—
“What
do you think you’re doing?”
I
jerked my hand away just as Easton
melted up from the polished hardwood floor beneath the window. Like an oil
slick coming to life, he unfolded his long, shadowy legs until he was just an
ink blot against the square of tangerine sunrise behind him. His violet eyes
pinned me like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Which,
I kind of was.
“Nothing,”
I lied.
“Yeah,
looked like nothing.” He strolled across the room accompanied by a wave of
sulfur and smoke, the black serpent tattoo on his neck glinting. “What were you
planning to do, recite her poem? I swear to God, if you were still alive I’d
confiscate your man card.”
I
ignored the barb and scrunched up my nose. “Jesus, Easton . Don’t they have a shower somewhere
between here and the afterlife?”
“Screw
you. You didn’t just have to tow somebody’s grandpa to Hell.” He brushed
something chalky and grey off of his cloak and a shudder worked its way down my
spine. God only knows who or what it belonged to. “Besides I wasn’t the one
about to feel up a sleeping human.”
“I
wasn’t—”
“Save
it.” He waved his hand. “We have work to do. I don’t have time for your useless
obsession with the human today.”
“Will you please stop calling her that?”
“What?”
Easton glanced
up from Emma’s vanity, where he’d been inspecting the various lotions and
bottles like he was on some alien planet. Then again, Easton had been dead for something like four
hundred years, so all of her stuff probably was
sort of alien to him.
“The human. You make me sound like a
freak. It’s not like we’re a different species for God’s sake. We were humans,
too, or don’t you remember that far back?”
“Were. Past tense.”
We
could have gone back and forth like that for hours, but the call came. It
always did. It started in my bones—a cold so cutting that it sliced through me
like a machete. When I looked up, Easton ’s
jaw was clenched, his muscles taut and ready. He slowly closed his hand around
the handle of his scythe that burned black and softly smoked at his side. I
flexed my fingers as the icy ribbons of death worked their way through each one
of my limbs.
“Can
you take this one for me?” I asked. “You’re already going to be there, and I
just got back—”
“No,”
Easton said.
“Hell no. I have my own job to do. I can’t keep covering for your sorry ass.
Besides, you’re already on thin ice with Balthazar. Don’t push your luck, Finn.
Just keep your nose down, collect your souls, and thank the Almighty that you
don’t have my job. Now let’s go.”
“Yeah,
but…” My eyes returned to Emma. Sleeping. Perfect. Safe.
“For
the love of God. She’ll be fine, you pansy.” Easton clamped a hand over my shoulder and
dragged me from the bed.
“How
do you know?”
He
shrugged. “I don’t.”
With that he vanished, consumed in a flash by
the keening wails of the damned. The screams beckoned. Clawed at me from the
inside out. Rule
one as a seeker: Death doesn’t wait for anyone.
What do you think? I think this book sounds great!
Happy Reading!
Just saw this one over at Heather's blog and love the tagline and the premise for it! I'm not sure the cover is my favorite, but everything else about it seems amazing so I'll be adding it to my list for sure:)
ReplyDeleteOH I'm so curious about this one now. I do love a good ghostie story and this sounds good.
ReplyDeleteI definitely want to read it it sounds great, but i'm not a fan of the cover. It looks like a magazine cover and I don't see how it relates to the blurb at all O_O I guess maybe it will be more appealing once I've read it.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first I've heard of this one. I must live under a rock. LOL. Sounds good though. Thanks for putting it on my radar.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait for this one. It sounds like it'll be a good read. =)
ReplyDelete