Title- A Thin Slice of Heaven
By- p.m. terrell
Genre-Ghost Story/ Romantic Suspense
Publication Date- May 1st, 2015
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Blurb-
She had arranged to meet her husband in Northern Ireland for
a second honeymoon, but when Charleigh arrives at the remote castle, she
receives a message that he won’t be coming—and that he’s leaving her for
another woman. Stranded for the weekend by a snowstorm that has blocked all
access to the castle, she finds herself three thousand miles from home in a
country she knows nothing about.
She is soon joined by Sean Bracken, the great-grandson of
Laird Bracken, the original owner of the castle, and she finds herself falling
quickly and madly in love with him. There’s just one problem: he’s dead.
As the castle begins to come alive with secrets from
centuries past, she finds herself trapped between parallel worlds. Caught up in
a mass haunting, she can no longer recognize the line between the living and
the dead. Now she’s discovering that her appearance there wasn’t by
accident—and is more sinister than she ever suspected.
Many thanks to p. m. terrell for this wonderful guest post, I always love finding out more about authors I love! Don't you?? As always I am forever fascinated by anything Irish and/or Ireland. The country, the beauty of all there, the swoonworthy accent that melts your bones when someone says your name in that amazing lilt. Sigh...off I go to dream myself up an Irish lad who is devoted to me.
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Can you tell us about your inspiration for A Thin Slice of
Heaven and your ties to Ireland?
The inspiration for A
Thin Slice of Heaven came from two books: What Dreams May Come and The
Ghost and Mrs. Muir.
Years ago, I read What
Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson. It was a book unlike any other I’d
ever read. It is the story of a couple in love; their lives together cut short
by the sudden death of the husband. But that is where the story begins, as we
are led through the veil to another realm. The concept has fascinated me for
years and I particularly find it intriguing when I discover a story from a
child who remembers past lives and things they could never have known—or those
who encountered near death experiences and returned to tell fantastic stories
of the other side.
I also love The Ghost
and Mrs. Muir by R.A. Dick. Though it is a short story, it brings to life a
home on the coast of England that is haunted by its original owner, a sea
captain. However, there were two things that made the book (and subsequent
movie) feel incomplete to me: first, when Mrs. Muir turns to another romantic
interest, and second, that her relationship with the captain did not go far
enough.
It left me wondering what
if? What if it was possible to transcend the veil between the living and
the dead, and have a relationship with a spirit that was as real as two humans?
What if, despite the fact that the man had died a hundred and fifty years
prior, it became the most satisfying and loving relationship one could imagine?
I am a stickler for research so of course I began
researching spirit sightings, the whole concept of succubus and incubus, and
why some remain on earth to haunt their old homes despite the centuries that
follow.
I also researched the three stages of dying, which had
originally been told to me by hospice personnel when a dear friend was passing.
I placed it all together into this romantic suspense: a living being in more
need of romance than even she could realize; a spirit able to pull her beyond
the veil; a mass haunting reconstructing a battle that killed and wounded many;
and a love that transcends through time itself.
I set the backdrop to the book in Northern Ireland. I didn’t
know at the time why I gravitated toward Northern Ireland to a spot about fifty
miles west of Belfast. I only knew that was exactly where the castle needed to
be; a place that is cut off from the rest of the world through a sudden and
unusual snowstorm.
After I’d written the first draft, my sister traveled to
Northern Ireland in pursuit of information about our ancestors. To my
astonishment, she found out that our ancestors, the Neely family, had once been
the Laird and Lady of Ballygawley, a tiny village in County Tyrone. It is
roughly fifty miles west of Belfast.
Like the family in my book, the Neelys were granted the land
and all that existed there by the British monarchy. They had been living in
Scotland near the border of England, and were originally granted the land
because of their loyalty to the crown. However, as the years went past, they
fell in love with Ireland and they did not always see eye-to-eye with the
crown, which resulted in their possessions being taken away from them. They won
them back after the next king took the throne.
When the last Neely living in Ballygawley passed away, the
extended family (who had since moved to Londonderry/Derry and Belfast) returned
home to bury him. They interred him in the cemetery in Ballygawley, not the
family cemetery in nearby Glencull. When they returned home from the services,
they were astonished to see the spirit of the dead man in his home. They
immediately had the body exhumed and transferred him to the family plot. Once
he was interred there, they no longer saw his spirit.
I suppose, with stories like that in my background, it was
no wonder that I would eventually write a ghost story…
I have come to realize that there isn’t a book
that p.m. has written that I haven’t loved. She plys her words like a fine wine
aged to just the perfect taste, and I cannot get enough. Charleigh was so
unhappy and just didn’t expect her husband to deny her their second honeymoon.
The shock of his text causes her to do something she might not have otherwise
and she enters a world that seems to be tailored to her every wish.
I cannot say that I did not wish more than
once to be Charleigh, and I could see what was going on a little better than
she could. I got so invested in this story, that coming out of the book was
like a culture shock and I didn’t want to be out here. It is a truly beautiful
story of love, death and the circles that actually exist so closely together. I
highly recommend this story to everyone, a story of haunting proportions
securely tied with love that never dies and finished up with an Irish bow that
we cannot help but love. I want to thank p.m. terrell for giving me her book to
read and review, as always an extreme pleasure! Five stars for A Slice of Heaven.
p.m.terrell is the pen name for Patricia McClelland Terrell,
the award-winning, internationally acclaimed author of more than twenty books
in four genres: contemporary suspense, historical suspense, computer how-to and
non-fiction.
Prior to writing full-time, she founded two computer
companies in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area. Among her clients were the
Central Intelligence Agency, United States Secret Service, U.S. Information Agency,
and Department of Defense. Her specialties were in white collar computer crimes
and computer intelligence.
A full-time author since 2002, Black Swamp Mysteries was her
first series, inspired by the success of Exit 22, released in 2008. Vicki’s Key
was a top five finalist in the 2012 International Book Awards and 2012 USA Book
Awards nominee, and The Pendulum Files was a national finalist for the Best
Cover of the Year in 2014.
Her second series, Ryan O’Clery Suspense, is also
award-winning. The Tempest Murders (Book 1) was one of four finalists in the
2013 International Book Awards, cross-genre category. The White Devil of Dublin
(Book 2) was released one year later.
Her historical suspense, River Passage, was a 2010 Best
Fiction and Drama Winner. It was determined to be so historically accurate that
a copy of the book resides at the Nashville Government Metropolitan Archives in
Nashville, Tennessee.
Songbirds are Free is her bestselling book to date; it is
inspired by the true story of Mary Neely, who was captured in 1780 by Shawnee
warriors near Fort Nashborough (now Nashville, TN).
She is also the co-founder of The Book ‘Em Foundation, an
organization committed to raising public awareness of the correlation between
high crime rates and high illiteracy rates. She is the organizer and
chairperson of Book ‘Em North Carolina, an annual event held in the real town
of Lumberton, North Carolina, to raise funds to increase literacy and reduce
crime. For more information on this event and the literacy campaigns funded by
it, visit www.bookemnc.org.
She sits on the boards of the Friends of the Robeson County
Public Library and the Robeson County Arts Council. She has also served on the
boards of Crime Stoppers and Crime Solvers and became the first female
president of the Chesterfield County-Colonial Heights Crime Solvers in
Virginia.
Beautiful Celtic Butterfly Suncatcher similar to the one
mentioned in the book, symbolizing both the never-ending cycle of life and the
metamorphosis of a butterfly
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