Mystery
Date Published: April 1, 2019
Publisher: Literary Wanderlust
Only by looking into the past can Audrey save her future.
Audrey Eames is happy living the wanderer’s life. After a near-death experience in her teens, Audrey can see people’s past lives whenever her skin touches theirs, and afraid of being labeled delusional, she’s never stayed in one place too long or made any deep connections.
So when Audrey’s estranged aunt dies and leaves her the historic Soberly Inn and Public House on the scenic Oregon coast, Audrey wants nothing to do with it. She’s determined to sell the inn and leave town before someone discovers the power she’s been hiding from the world, but clauses in her aunt’s will seem to block her at every turn.
Yet once ensconced in Soberly’s small town life, the people—particularly the inn's bartender, Kellen Greene—start to grow on her, and she begins to feel that maybe she’s finally found a place of her own. As accepting as the townspeople seem, Audrey fears their reactions—and Kellen’s rejection—and decides to keep her visions a secret. But all is not well in Soberly. Soon after Audrey arrives, people in town start dying in the same manner as in their past lives—but in this lifetime it’s murder. When suspicion starts to fall on Audrey and Kellen, Audrey vows to use her gift to find the murderer and protect the people she loves—before it’s too late.
Excerpt:
I can see into the past. Every human body, from the moment of their birth to their last breath, carries within them the memories of lives lived before, something that once existed in another time and will live on again in a new body when this one expires. The religious call it the soul. The non-believers call it consciousness. I call it curious, and when my flesh presses another’s, I get a glimpse of it.
Guest Post:
Guest Post:
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Past Presence
- PAST PRESENCE wouldn’t exist without the song Selling the Drama by Live. Its lyrics were what gave me the idea for Audrey’s ability, and that was what I crafted the book around.
- The town of Soberly, Oregon, is made up, but it’s based loosely on the real-life towns of Newport and Manzanita. The inspiration for the inn is the Sylvia Beach Hotel.
- There’s a town I drive through several times a year in central British Columbia called Moberly, and that’s where my fictional Soberly got its name from.
- It took 86 days to write the first draft of PAST PRESENCE—but not 86 consecutive days! It took about two and a half years to finish it, although 18 months of that I took a break from writing.
- While PAST PRESENCE is mainly a mystery, it also incorporates fantasy thanks to Audrey’s ability to see people’s past lives, and historical fiction from the flashbacks. It’s a true genre mashup!
- PAST PRESENCE got its publishing deal thanks to a tweet I posted during the #DVPit pitch party for diverse writers. #DVPit helps match up agents and publishers with marginalized writers (neurodiverse, in my case).
- PAST PRESENCE was called UNTITLED NOVEL the entire time I was writing and editing it because I couldn’t think of a title I liked; it wasn’t until I was ready to query it that I came to the conclusion that I actually had to give it a name.
- I had to make a spreadsheet to keep track of all the present-day characters and their past lives, along with the relationships between them, so I wouldn’t get them mixed up.
- Most of PAST PRESENCE was written in a garden shed in my backyard.
- Only two people in the world know who one of Audrey’s past-life characters is: me, and my sister.
About the Author
Nicole Bross is an author from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where she lives with her husband, two children and one very large orange cat. When she’s not writing or working as the editor of a magazine, she can be found curled up with a book, messing around with her ever-expanding collection of manual typewriters or in the departures lounge of the airport at the beginning of another adventure. Past Presence is her debut novel.
Contact Links
Twitter: @brossypants
Purchase Links
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thanks for hosting
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