My book is about a budding (African American/Jamaican), photographer Gabriella Dixon who goes on the vacation of a lifetime, with her childhood friends Xavier (African American), Ash (Scottish), Inez (Brazilian), and Jess (Caucasian). An accident leaves Gabriella less than whole.
Gabriella dies during the accident and is revived by some other vacationers that happen to be nurses, but she has left something in a realm called The Between. During her short moments of death, her soul is torn in half. One portion Gab retains when she is revived and the other half remains in the Between.
While in the Between Gab catches the attention of not only the Forgotten souls but also a malevolent soul who intends on piggybacking a ride on Gab to escape the infinite prison of the Between, to the world of the living.
Gabriella and her friends must take life-threatening and soul-crushing measures to retrieve the missing half of her soul before the entities that took it come for the rest of it.
Excerpt:
When you think of death, you usually think of a place your soul goes when you die; Heaven or Hell. Well there is a place, a weigh station, if you continue to that place beyond life, and after death called, The Between. It is full of forgotten memories, darkness, and sadness. I have been in “The Between” for at least a hundred years. I have lost the memory of my name, but I have retained bits and pieces of my original past. The one thing that is crystal clear is how I got here.
I remember being in the prime of my life; a young man of old wealth. Unable to recognize boundaries is what landed me here. One night, I was driving through the heart of town with one of many beautiful debutants I had been courting. We were drinking and laughing, when I rear-ended a car stopped at an intersection. The driver got out and walked up to me, pulled out a revolver and shot me in the chest where I died on the spot.
Next thing I knew I was walking through a yellow door into darkness surrounded by shadowy figures called The Forgotten. They seized me and in a quick in one fluid movement, the largest of them snatched my soul leaving me an empty sad shell, then just as quickly, they disappeared back into the darkness.
Alone and confused, I began to wander through the darkness, where I eventually realized time is different here than in the world of the living; time does not exist. To keep my sanity, I convinced myself that I was on an adventure. Instead of aimlessly wandering, I explored my new surroundings.
I now know this place like the back of my hand. The Between has a plethora of colored doors that serve different purposes. The yellow one is the most important as it is the entrance to The Between, and it appears and disappears according to the lunar cycle.
The red door is the Hall of Despair; it calls to souls that have no destination and souls that died of suicide.
The blue door is where transitions take place such as reincarnation, exiting to other realms (Heaven, Hell, or other). This is also where the elders reside, lay down judgement, and discipline.
That is the door that I have become familiar with. The blue door is where the elders summoned me after what I considered a time of six years. They felt that I was a good candidate for reincarnation.
My first host was an archeologist named Fernand Shanski. In 1930, he was digging in the jungles of the African Congo. Fernand (I) was translating some ancient text for an incantation for jumping from soul to soul. I did not realize at the time how beneficial the incantation would be.
Since I had access to this incantation, I was able to jump to a wealthy and prominent host; never again would I get my soul dirty with any riffraff or poverty-stricken host. Although there were a few narrow escapes that forced me to jump to an ordinary commoner.
In 1945, in my host’s body, my team and I were on a dig in North Sinai when the entrance to the site collapsed, trapping us inside. Amid our panic, they realized that the oxygen was running out. I instantly remembered the incantation. Praying that it worked, I quietly recited it to myself as I focused on one of my team members outside of the collapsed entrance.
Just as I was taking my last breath, I was suddenly outside the tomb. At first, I was confused and a little disoriented as the people around me screamed dig before it was too late. I realized that the incantation had worked. I did not like it, but it was better than being dead again and stuck in The Between.
For the next three decades, I jumped from dying soul to living soul all over the world. Then one day, the elders finally caught on to my scheme. It was around 1978, I was in the process of jumping from, yet another dying soul named Shamus Cringe. The elders appeared as I was chanting the last of the incantation. They reached inside my dying host, hurling me back to The Between.
I was judged and convicted of desertion, utilizing unauthorized spells, and sentenced to infinity in The Between with no possibility of release. I felt like I died all over again but only worst; because I knew exactly where I was. The devastation of being trapped here sent me into an uncontrollable rage.
Since then I have slowly been losing myself to bouts of delirium, desperation, and unsurmountable rage. My time is spent terrorizing The Forgotten; I feed off the consistent flow of souls that either pass through or become permanent residents.
My burning rage absorbs the power of The Between and gives me the ability to occasionally reach beyond the boundaries to speak through conduits or see through a seer’s eyes. It is only a temporary fix to my imprisonment.
My ultimate desire is to be back in the world of the living. Lucky for me the brightest soul I have come across just dropped into The Between; the soul of Gabriella Dixon. Her soul teeters on the borders of both the living and the dead. This is a rare attribute and a perfect way for me to travel out of here.
I plan to keep her here long enough to bind her soul to mine. I will then pull all the power I can from The Between to force open the yellow door, push her back to the world of the living, piggybacking her soul.
My only desire is to be back in the world of the living.
Stacey Lynn Patterson resides in Pittsburgh, PA. She spends most of her time lost in her thoughts. When she emerges to involve herself in the outside world, she chooses to share her inward adventures through her writing; whether it is fiction, poetry, or children’s books.
She is an eclectic reader. She has ten books to her credit, (genres) 1 children’s, 6 poetry, 2 fiction books and an affirmation journal. Her poetry has been published in The International Library of Poetry, Throwing Stardust, the Patterns of Life anthology series, and Into the Mystical, the Eternal Portraits anthology series.
Get to Know The Author Stacy Lynn Patterson:
What is your book about?
A young African American photographer named Gabriella Dixon. She travels to Brazil with her closet friends and she finds out that there are many dimension of life and death.
While snapping shots of her friends, she falls off a cliff into the ocean and drowns. In that short time of death, she ends up in a place called The Between; a kind of limbo. There are forgotten souls that reside there with nowhere to go. They feed on other souls that pass through in hopes of replenishing what they’ve lost. The forgotten are the mildest of the entities in The Between. These other more powerful beings wish to escape the Between and intend on using Gabriella as a way out, by any means necessary.
Gabriella is revived but the forgotten tear her soul in half as she returns to the world of the living. She is left with the feeling of being torn and must find a way back to The Between to retrieve the other half of her soul.
How did you get your book published?
I reach search several self-publishing presses and decided on Outskirts because they had a lot of packages and options for me to utilize.
Do you plan to publish more?
Yes, I am currently working on another fiction novel called, “Someone is Always Watching,” which is a spin-off from one of my short stories in my, “Strange Happenings” book about a serial killer. I am also co-authoring a children’s book with my eleven-year-old granddaughter, and I am writing a new poetry book.
Have you published any other books?
Yes, I have six poetry books, one children’s book, a short story book, and an Affirmation Journal published so far.
What is special about your book?
I will transport the reader to other realms and maybe make them wonder if there are other realms parallel to ours.
What types of readers will be interested in your book?
Adults, YA, and lovers of supernatural and strange
Why did you decide to write it?
I had already written several poetry books, a children’s book, and a short story book. The short story book, which had many strange events and people, inspired to try my hand at a small novel with supernatural beings.
How to Find The Author and The Book:
Purchase links for Torn Between:
https://www.BarnesandNoble.com
https://www.outskirtspress.com
https://www.amazon.com/author/staceylpatterson
web-links:
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