Today we have a first chapter excerpt of Tonya Kappes new book, A Ghostly Undertaking. This is the first in a new paranormal series and the second book comes out in March.
Here's a little bit about the book:
"Bopped on the head from a falling plastic Santa, local undertaker Emma Lee Raines is told she’s suffering from “funeral trauma.” It’s trauma all right, because the not so dearly departed keep talking to her. Take Ruthie Sue Payne—innkeeper, gossip queen, and arch-nemesis of Emma Lee’s granny—she’s adamant that she didn’t just fall down those stairs…she was pushed. Granny Raines, the widow of Ruthie’s ex-husband and co-owner of the Sleepy Hollow Inn, is the prime suspect. Now Emma Lee is stuck playing detective for Ruthie, or will risk being haunted forever."
Chapter 1
Another day. Another funeral. Another ghost.
Great. As if people didn’t
think I was freaky enough. But, truthfully, this was becoming a common
occurrence for me as the director of Eternal Slumber Funeral Home.
Well the funeral was common.
The ghost thing…that was new, making Sleepy Holly anything but sleepy.
“What is she doing here?” A
ghostly Ruthie Sue Payne stood next to me in the back of her own funeral,
looking at the long line of Sleepy Hollow’s residents that had come to pay
tribute to her life. “I couldn’t stand her while I was living, much less dead.”
Ruthie, the local innkeeper, busybody and my granny’s arch-nemesis, had
died two days ago after a fall down the stairs of her inn.
I hummed along to the tune of “Blessed Assurance,” which was piping
through the sound system, to try and drown out Ruthie’s voice as I picked at
baby’s breath in the pure white blossom funeral spray sitting on the marble-top
pedestal table next to the casket. The more she talked, the louder I hummed and
rearranged the flowers, gaining stares and whispers of the mourners in the
viewing room.
I was getting used to those stares.
“No matter how much you ignore me, I know you can hear and see me.”
Ruthie rested her head on my shoulder, causing me to nearly jump out of my
skin. “If I’d known you were a light seeker, I probably would’ve been a little
nicer to you while I was living.”
I doubted that. Ruthie Sue
Payne hadn’t been the nicest lady in Sleepy Hollow, Kentucky. True to her name,
she was a pain. Ruthie had been the president and CEO of the gossip mill. It
didn’t matter if the gossip was true or not, she told it.
Plus, she didn’t care much for my family. Especially not after my granny
married Ruthie’s ex-husband, Earl. And especially
not after Earl died and left Granny his half of the inn he and Ruthie had
owned together..the inn where Granny and Ruthie both lived. The inn where
Ruthie had died.
I glared at her. Well, technically I glared at Pastor Brown, because he
was standing next to me and he obviously couldn’t see Ruthie standing between
us. Honestly, I wasn’t sure there was a ghost between us, either. It had been
suggested that the visions I had of dead people were hallucinations…
I kept telling myself that I was hallucinating, because it seemed a lot
better than the alternative—I could see ghosts, talk to ghosts, be touched by
ghosts.
“Are you okay, Emma Lee?” Pastor Brown laid a hand on my forearm. The
sleeve on his brown pin-striped suit coat was a little too small, hitting above
his wrist bone, exposing a tarnished metal watch. His razor-sharp blue eyes
made his coal-black greasy comb-over stand out.
“Yes.” I liked. “I’m fine.” Fine as a girl who was having a ghostly
hallucination could be.
“Are you sure?” Pastor Brown wasn’t the only one concerned. The entire
town of Sleepy Hollow had been worried about my well-being since my run-in with
Santa Claus.
No, the spirit of Santa Claus hadn’t visited me. Yet. Three months ago, a plastic Santa had done me in.
It was the darndest thing, a silly accident.
I abandoned the flower arrangement and smoothed a wrinkle in the thick
velvet drapes, remembering that fateful day. The sun had been out, melting away
the last of the Christmas snow. I’d decided to walk over to Artie’s Meats and
Deli, over on Main Street, a block away from the funeral home, to grab a bite
for lunch since they had the best homemade chili this side of the Mississippi.
I’d just opened the door when the snow and ice around the plastic Santa Claus
Artie had put on the roof of the deli gave way, sending the five-foot jolly man
crashing down on my head, knocking me out.
Flat out.
I knew I was on my way to meet my maker when Chicken Teater showed up at
my hospital bedside. I had put Chicken Teater in the ground two years ago. But
there he was, telling me all sorts of crazy things that I didn’t understand. He
blabbed on and on about guns, murders and all sorts of dealings I wanted to
know nothing about.
It wasn’t until my older sister and business partner, Charlotte Rae
Raines, walked right through Chicken Teater’s body, demanding that the doctor
do something for my hallucinations, that I realized I wasn’t dead after all.
I had been hallucinating. That’s
all. Hallucinating.
Doc Clyde said I had a case of the “Funeral Trauma” from working with the
dead too long.
Too long? At twenty-eight, I
had been an undertaker for only three years. I had been around the funeral home
my whole life. It was the family business, currently owned by my granny, but
ran by my sister and me.
Some family business.
Thanks so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThe book sounds great Tonya! Congratulations on the launch.
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