A
Call to Heaven
Jo
Kessel
Genre:
contemporary romance
with
a paranormal twist
Publisher:
J.K Publishing
Date
of Publication: January 27, 2017
ISBN-13:
978-1540490049 /
ISBN-10:
1540490041
ASIN:
B01MQU65MT
Number
of pages: 260 paperback /
320
kindle book
Word
Count: 68k
Cover
Artist: Ivan Cakic
Book
Description:
"Everybody’s
loved, everybody’s lost.
Grief
strips you raw and makes you feel as if you’re sleepwalking through
life, like the pain will never go away.
I’m
Amy Tristan. I’m no different than anyone else. I’ve loved, I’ve
lost and it sucks. I’ve got a five-year old son and an abusive
husband. My mother died six months ago and I miss her like crazy.
I’m
the biggest skeptic when it comes to other-worldly stuff, so when I’m
told that I can pick up the phone and call my mum in Heaven, I should
disbelieve it, right? Wrong. I pick up that phone, because there’s
nothing I want more than to hear her voice trickle into the receiver.
And
you know what? It works. I get to speak to my mother. It’s a
miracle. If only it could stay this way, with those calls just for
me, but someone up on high wants me to choose three other people to
make a call to Heaven too. Who should I pick? How can I trust them to
keep the phone secret? Making the choice is agonizing - if I get it
wrong, my calls will stop. I wish I hadn’t told Daniel anything.
He’s this hot doctor that I’ve come to know. But doctors are
scientists, and scientists are bigger skeptics than even me. He
didn’t believe in the phone. He thought I should be admitted to a
sanatorium. Telling him was either the best decision of my life, or
the worst. I’ll let you decide…"
Book
Trailer: https://youtu.be/6qQLxZbVs50
Excerpt:
Everyone’s
looking at me. I’ve got the yellow telephone in my hands and I’m
not sure what to do with it. I take a seat at the end of the table
and lay the phone down in front of me. Beth is to my left, Ben is to
my right. Daniel is opposite me. I look from one to the other and
feel color flood my cheeks. My gaze finishes on Daniel and stays
there for a beat. He nods, his eyes encouraging me. I return the nod,
take a deep breath and count down from three to one in my head.
“I’ve
got to tell you all something.” My voice comes out as a thin
squeak, but actually I’m surprised I manage to articulate at all.
I’m hot, so hot. I lift the hair off the back of my neck, flapping
it around to try to cool my sticky, clammy skin. I can’t breathe, I
need air. I unlock the patio doors, flinging them wide open. The
inside of my mouth feels rough as sandpaper. I’m desperate for a
tall glass of water packed with ice-cubes but, when I turn to see six
eyes staring at me, I dare not leave to fetch one. I feel like an
exhibit in a museum and in some ways I wish I were. I could hide
behind a Perspex box next to the yellow telephone with panel blurb
doing the explaining for me. I could be part of a new exhibition
entitled ‘Incredible Discoveries’. I would share the same hall as
the dinosaurs and anything else which took aeons for people to
believe existed. I draw a deep breath and continue.
“You’re
probably going to think I’m mad, but I’m going to tell you
anyway.”
A
breeze blows through the open patio doors.
“What
I wanted to tell you is this.” My voice is soft as a whisper. I
sense all their bodies leaning closer towards mine, straining to
hear. “I’ve recently started talking to my mother.”
There,
I’ve said it.
I
feel a great sense of relief, both that I’ve said it and that I no
longer have to keep this to myself. Beth relaxes in her chair with a
sigh, leans across and takes my hand, patting it. She’s got wavy
brown hair and a kind, open face. She tilts her head sympathetically.
“Oh
honey, you must have tried out that clairvoyant you mentioned. Please
tell us all about it.”
I
should have seen that one coming.
“No, you don’t
get it.” I lift up the yellow phone, as if to demonstrate how to
use such a contraption. In one hand I take the receiver, in the other
the plug. “I don’t speak to her through a medium. I speak to her
on this telephone. I plug it into a socket in my bathroom and I’m
allowed to call heaven.”
There,
I’ve said it now.
Nobody
moves.
Not
a muscle.
Their
mouths all open, Daniel’s is the widest. I don’t think any of
them even realize they’re doing it. As feared, they are looking at
me like I’m certifiably insane.
“I
can see you all think I’m mad.” I actually manage to pull a small
smile. Now that I’ve started, I feel much calmer. “And, if I were
in your position, I would think I’m crazy too. But one night my
mother came to me in a dream and told me I could use this phone to
call her in heaven and, bizarre though it must sound, it turns out
she was right. That’s why I stopped coming to Grief Support Group
every week. I wasn’t grieving so much because my mother had come
back into my life.”
The
three pairs of eyes grow wider and wider, as if I’m slowly
sprouting four serpent heads. I replace the receiver back into its
cradle and drop the plug, holding out my hands in submission.
“You
can believe me or not. It doesn’t matter. But the reason I’ve
gathered you all here is because I’ve been asked to choose three
other people to call to heaven.”
I
sound like a fairy godmother or the good witch in the Wizard of Oz. I
do not sound normal. I pause. The effect is dramatic although it’s
not intended to be.
“And
I’ve picked you guys.”
I
look at them one by one.
“Beth,
I know how much it might mean to you to be able to speak to your
daughter and know that she is safe.”
Beth
nods. Her gaze turns glassy.
“Ben,
I’d do anything to be able to give you a chance to speak to your
brother again.”
Ben
nods, his mouth still formed in a perfect ‘O’.
Daniel
is the hardest one for me to look at. He’s not nodding anymore and
his eyes are no longer urging me to continue. Instead he’s shaking
his head, a slow, subtle movement, but I catch it all the same. His
full lips have now formed a thin line. He’s the only one who looks
like he still thinks I’m certifiably insane. Hell, he’s a doctor;
perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Part of me wonders
whether I should abort this whole escapade and pretend it was all a
joke. I’d do anything to not have Daniel stare at me in this way.
He looks ready to call the local sanatorium and send them round with
a straitjacket. But I can’t abort and I must continue. What happens
next is up to him.
“And
Daniel, I thought that maybe you might like to speak to Katie.”
He
opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something, but clamps it
shut again without speaking. Nobody else says anything either. They
all shift in their seats, pretending to take sips of coffee and look
around the room. Perhaps they’re checking out the photos on the
mantelpiece above the fireplace, trying to work out if I look like a
madwoman in any of them. I pick up the knife. Now I probably do look
mad or, at the very least, dangerous.
“Right,
who’s for some more pie?”
About
the Author:
Jo
lives in London with her husband, three children and Jerald the cat.
In addition to being a novelist she works as a TV and print
journalist (Sunday Times, The Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the
Express.) If she could change one thing about her life it would be to
introduce the thirty hour day, because twenty-four hours just isn’t
long enough to squeeze it all in! Many a late night has been spent
with a glass of red wine (preferably French) at her desk trying to
keep her eyes open long enough to write these stories which keep
demanding to be written. If only her cat didn’t constantly jump
onto the keyboard as she writes, this book might have been finished
months earlier. She loves yoga, skiing, travelling and English
custard - though not necessarily in that order.
Website/blog:
www.jokessel.com
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/jo_kessel
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/kesseljo/
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/jo_kessel/
Thank you so much for featuring my new book, A Call to Heaven, on your blog today. Do you wish you could make a call to Heaven, and if so, who would you like to speak to?
ReplyDelete