I Never Stopped
A ghost romance novel Seattle Book Review called, "A chilling and heartbreaking journey you won't forget," I Never Stopped is about opposing needs and desires.
Francesca lived through the car crash that killed her lover. After almost a year of grief and moving through life like a zombie, she takes a trip to Italy to see her mother. There, she discovers possibilities and sees what a healed heart could look like.
Sloane died that night and has been with Francesca since. All Sloane wants is to come back, to hold her love once again. That's far easier said than done when she's trapped in an in-between place she calls The Gray.
With deft language that engages readers' hearts, I Never Stopped explores grief, loss, and the many stages of healing.
Top to bottom, left to right: 1. I Never Stopped in a stack of books at a writer's conference / 2. Happy reader Ben Gorman (a.k.a. my very first customer as an author) / 3. Another reader photo / 4. mood board (Pinterest images saved long ago, so no credits, sadly) / 5. what's up inside the book / 6. A swoony photo taken just before my first reading
Excerpt
Sloane
After
Francesca crumpled at the sound of Sloane's name, the smell of her sweaters, the honk of their model-car home phone, even leftovers she refused to deal with in their refrigerator.
Sloane watched and trudged through a surrounding muck as though a failing iron lung breathed for her. With a hazy filter tinting Sloane's world, an emptiness settled in next to the pain.
Being silenced by fog, Sloane could deal with, but the desperation to see a slight impression where she lay or see a wisp of Francesca's hair move when she attempted to brush it from her face consumed her. Sloane tried to rub her back or wrap herself around Francesca as she always did–forever the big spoon–but she'd slip right through.
The first time it'd happened, the first time her hand had slid through Francesca’s, Sloane's scream could have ripped the universe open. She’d exploded, the sensation akin to dropping from the top of a roller coaster. Each time following made her gasp; each time her sounds were swallowed.
For months, all Sloane could do was break into pieces–with Francesca, but without her; beside her, but missing her skin's warmth.
* * *
Francesca sat in her large leather chair, wrapped in a cable-knit blanket. A book lay on the stacked wine box table beside her, open and faced down.
Sloane gently cupped Francesca's cheek. "It'll be alright, my love. I'll figure something out, I promise. I've been working on it."
With a start, Francesca cracked swollen brown eyes open and let shaky fingers brush her face as she looked around. "Sloane?" Wiping her freckled face dry, she admonished herself aloud. "Sure. Haven't you only wished that a thousand times?" Francesca hated waking up–she'd cried that out so many times it rattled in Sloane's head like loose dice. Francesca's voice became small. "Sloane? I miss you. I've said that so many times by now you'd have told me to shut up." A barely noticeable smile flashed.
Sloane nodded shakily. "I wish we could be saying our, 'I love you's,' not 'I miss you's,'" she said–but her words were sucked up. Only she could hear herself now.
