Mariposa
Children
of Mariposa
Book
One
Kim
Wells
Genre:
Urban Fantasy/Magic Realism
Publisher:
Daydreams Dandelions Publications
Date
of Publication: December 24, 2014
ASIN:
B00O9DCRDC
Number
of pages: 293 pages
Word
Count: 106,993
Cover
Artist: Lawrence Mann
Book
Description:
What
if the best night of your life was also your last?
On
the eve of a much-anticipated proposal, Meg is happier than she could
have ever imagined. The future she sees for herself on that magical
night is bright, one that’s full of love and laughter and dreams
finally realized.
That
is, until one random act of violence changes everything…
Consumed
by fate and forces she can’t comprehend, Meg finds herself at the
center of a spectral conflict that transcends life and death.
Her
very soul is up for grabs in this war, and what’s worse… she’s
not the only one.
Now,
she’s fighting not just for the love she lost, but the daughter she
would have called her own. She must fight the battle of her life, for
the sake of her friends and family, and find out for herself if love
can indeed be stronger than death.
Intertwined
with true-ghost stories, some heart-warming, some heart-breaking,
this love-note to San Antonio combines history, myth, and vivid
description.
This
is the full story of Meg & Amelinda's quest-journey, what author
Laura Metzger calls "A beautifully written story with compelling
characters that reach between the universe of the living and the dead
to embrace their mutual destiny" and author Elena E. Giorgi
calls "A beautiful tale of love and redemption."
Excerpt:
Meg:
Vanilla and Lavender
On
the day I died, I was wearing a great outfit. This is important to
know because it turns out that your default look for eternity as a
ghost is what you’re wearing when you die. I mean, seriously. Who
knew? If I’d have known that, I wouldn’t have risked any days in
mediocre clothes. In that respect, I was lucky I was on a date when I
was killed, but of course, if I hadn’t been on a date, on that
date, maybe things would have turned out differently.
Not
everyone gets to be a ghost. In fact, some people disappear
immediately, and I don’t know what happens. But they just wink
right out of existence, only out of their bodies for a few seconds.
Maybe it has something to do with intent, or their last actions, or
their own belief systems. I hope the good people go somewhere good,
no matter what they did in the last moments of life, that there is a
way for them to make up for those Big Mistakes.
Some
people, people who haven’t Figured Things Out, people like me,
linger for a while. We hang around those we love and sometimes try to
influence their choices, trying to keep loved ones from making Big
Mistakes.
My
grandmother had been my ghost–I was not surprised when it came
right down to it. Back when I was alive, I used to smell her perfume
in the apartment we shared, vanilla and lavender. I could never
figure out what actual perfume brand she wore to get that scent, and
believe me, I tried. I loved it and wanted that for my signature
perfume. I haunted the local drugstores, especially the old ones, and
vintage stores, looking for an old- fashioned perfume that featured
those fragrance notes, but never found anything that smelled even
remotely like hers.
I
guess it was just her individual magic that combined the scents that
way. It seemed to linger in our apartment, long after she had been
gone. Especially at certain important moments. I wouldn’t know
those moments were important ‘til later, but looking back, it’s
obvious.
I’m
getting ahead of myself, moving way too fast for normal people.
First, you probably want to know more about me, right? You can’t
just start in the middle of the story; you have to work up to these
big deals. I made it 23 years on the planet before checking out. I
guess you’d say I was pretty, although I was never very stylish or
together. I thought that would come with maturity, but I never got to
find that out. When I died, I had shoulder length wavy copper colored
hair, cut in a bob that was always tickling my chin and sometimes
made me want to cut it all off. I certainly never had the patience to
grow it all out. It was “in between” hair, lack of decision hair.
My eyes were basic gray, nothing exciting, although I desperately
wanted the “limpid blue” or “decisive green” eyes of a
romance heroine. A light plague of freckles scattered across the
bridge of my nose showed my Irish- Scottish mutt background, and I
had fair redhead’s skin that burned, rather than tanned, which kept
me indoors most of the time or slathered in sunscreen. 5’8’,
skinny without being too skinny. I did have my family’s big butt,
which we will not discuss.
Why
I have to go through eternity with that butt is beyond me. I tended
to prefer jeans and a comfortable cotton shirt, paired with flat old-
fashioned Converse tennis shoes as my daily outfit, but I could clean
up pretty nice when I had to.
About
the Author:
Kim
wrote her first critically acclaimed (if you call her fourth grade
teacher a critic, and she does) short story when she was 9 years old.
It was about Christmas in a Cave, and it featured such topical,
ground-breaking subjects as homelessness & cave dwelling. She's
been writing ever since. The state of publication depends on who you
ask.
She
has a Ph.D. in Literature, with specialties in American Lit, Women
Writers, Feminism, Sci-Fi/Fantasy & Film Studies but please don't
hold any of that against her. She teaches academic writing and how to
read literature at a university in her hometown and tries to convince
college students that it really is cool to like poetry.
She
lives in the South, has twin children (one girl, one boy) and a
husband who is the model for all her best romantic heroes. She also
has two cats-- one black and sassy, one stripey and fat, and also
kinda sassy.
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