Friday, January 15, 2016

Featured Author: Helen Downing

Welcome Today's Featured Author
Helen Downing!!! 



Awake in Hell
By
Helen Downing


Meet Louise Patterson. She's dead.

She's also in Hell: A place where everyone must face the challenges of being damned. This includes below code living arrangements, a supernatural closet that makes getting dressed every day punitive, and absolutely horrible coffee.

When Louise was alive, she was one of those “Go Big or Go Home” kinda people. As an underworld dweller, she’s getting used to the fact that living “larger than life” may have had some not-so-great consequences in the afterlife.

That is until she loses her job in Hell. In her search for gainful employment in Central City, Hades, she finds a post-it note that gives her something to look forward to for the first time since arriving down below.

Louise discovers the “Second Chance Temp Agency” along with its enigmatic CEO Mr. Deedy, who gives her so much more than a job.

Foul-mouthed and seemingly unlucky, Louise gets pulled into a truly Hellacious adventure--filled with demons, ghosts, angels, magic, temp jobs, wardrobe malfunctions, and quite possibly…redemption.


Excerpt

Here comes the part you’ve been waiting for, the part where I tell you how I got here. See, the note that is now sitting quietly in my pocket is screaming in my mind. Do I belong here? I can’t honestly say I know, without a doubt, that I deserved to go to Hell. However, I do know that I didn’t in any way, shape, or form earn a ticket to Heaven either. I didn’t do anything. And I don’t mean that as an indignant “I was framed” kind of defense. I mean I didn’t do anything with my time, with my talent, with my life. I was born Louise May Patterson. All things considered, I had a normal childhood and a very nice set of parents. I was in my mid-forties when I bit it, but I was still acting like a teenager. I lived at home with the aforementioned parents, or on the street, or with the occasional lover. I was always managing to never pay a single dime in rent, ate for free, and never reached the mentality of a true adult. I used to joke with Linda, back when she was still partying, that if I ever got a job she should shoot me in the head and put me out of my misery. We would laugh at all the “rats running the maze” every day, going to work at ‘o’dark thirty’ in the morning to try and screw the other rats out of the title of “assistant manager of paper clip requisitions”, or something equally meaningless. Wake up, rush through a cup of coffee, spend nine to five at a job they all hated, go home and go to bed just to do it again the next day. That was never me, and never would have been me. I mean, really, what’s the point?

So, every day was a holiday for me and those in my circle at the time. This circle I speak of was always changing. My “lost boys and girls”, because everyone else grew up and left me. It didn’t bother me much. They all thought they were smarter than me, and I knew I was smarter than all of them. I would move on just as they moved on. I’d take on the newly single, the addicts, the newcomers to town, the young ones... Occasionally I’d find a sugar daddy, usually a married one, to take me away from the small, one-horse town, where I grew up and still lived.

But I always came back. It might have been the charm of my home town that drew me back, but I sincerely doubt it. More likely, my adulterer and I just got bored with each other. I’d tell you the name of that town, where it is on a map, what great state it sits smack dab in the middle of, if it mattered. But it doesn’t.


About the Author

Helen Downing has aspired to be many things in life. An actress, a writer, a trophy wife, a publicist, and a bang up media sales executive. In reality, she's a chubby, middle-aged, twice-divorced battleaxe who is addicted to sci-fi and social networking. Please buy this book. It's her only chance of ever fulfilling her full potential, and possibly getting into heaven.

Helen Downing on Social Media



Other books from Helen Downing

Remembering Hell mybook.to/rememberinghell!

No comments:

Post a Comment