Guest Post & Giveaway: Sharla Lovelace - THE REASON IS YOU

Hi Everyone. Please help me welcome Sharla Lovelace to the blog today! She is here to promote her new novel, The Reason Is You. Today she is going to talk about ghosts.

Thanks for having me!  I’m thrilled to be here talking to all of you.  

I know when it comes to the unusual, everyone’s tastes run in different streams.  Paranormal can go dark and scary, with demons or vampires—or light and mystical.  Mine runs on the light side.  Visions, empathic touch, special powers…

Ghosts…

Love me some ghosts!  Not the Paranormal Activity kind (I know, that’s a demon, not a ghost).  I don’t do things that grab your foot and drag you out of bed and down the hall.  (God, no…I HATED that part!  Kept me up eyeing my bedcovers for weeks)

But a sexy ghost?  That’s my calling card.

My main character, Dani, met her sexy ghost when she was sixteen.  He showed up to help her out of a bad situation, and became her best friend throughout her life.  Alex is every woman’s perfect man.  Well, except for that little ‘being dead’ thing.

And while many ghost stories depict spirits as see through or floating, I chose not to.  I wanted Alex and the other spirits in the story to look like the rest of us.  I wanted there to be a reason that a child with the gift of that particular sight wouldn’t know the difference between the dead and the living, when talking to people.  There are consequences for touching them—forgetting things, dizzy spells, strange déjà vu.  Those things that happen to all of us and we dismiss them without a thought.  Could we be brushing up against someone that has passed on?

It’s a thought…  

Hope you all enjoy the book!

~  Sharla

The Reason Is You

by Sharla Lovelace
Release Date: April 3, 2012

In the small river town of Bethany, Dani Shane never fit in. Being different pushed her to the fringes of society, and even leaving town for two decades didn't stop the talk. Now, with her sixteen year-old daughter Riley in tow, Dani is back in Bethany looking for a fresh start. Too bad her plans for staying under the radar are about to be thrown out the window.

Mischievous and sexy, Dani's old friend Alex still has the power to rock her world, but there's a big obstacle standing in their way—Alex has been dead for forty years. With a ghost popping up at inopportune moments and sparking conversations with her teenage daughter, Dani scrambles to find solid ground and get a grip—both on her sanity and her heart.

EXCERPT:

Preface:  Dani visits her mother’s grave.

I knew where I was going when I left, and it was the opposite direction from home. Within minutes, I wound through the neatly graveled figure eights, eventually landing at the end of a small rise. I got out and walked back two rows to the pinkish gray granite stone that sported my mother’s name and date of death. April 16, 1970. The day I was born.

My dad never let it be that way. Never once was my birthday anything other than my birthday. I only knew that my mother lived in the cemetery instead of at the house with us, and we kept flowers there for her and frequently went through the scrapbook she made when she was pregnant. I was six when I really noticed the date, and my dad explained it casually as being insignificant because she was just happy she got to see and hold me there at home where I was born, before God took her to heaven.

I never wondered if I killed her.

I did wonder why she never came around to tell me that herself. A million other people felt the need to tell me their postmortem thoughts.

“But not you, huh, Mom?” Nope. Never her. I took a deep breath. “We need you—me and Riley.”

It felt awkward to say that, having never known her or had any kind of relationship with her. I always visited, always talked to her about what I was doing as if she couldn’t possibly know otherwise. But I never asked for anything. Not even advice. Not even back then when I really needed a mom. I didn’t know how to have one.  

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Sharla once hunted for crab in a Honduran jungle, and explored an unknown cave on her belly through a rabbit hole. Not in the same night. 

Now, she lives in Southeast Texas by the Neches River with her family, an old lady dog, and 19 cockatiels. If you wonder how she writes with all that noise--the birds actually have their own house outside. THE REASON IS YOU is her debut novel.

When she's not writing, doing the day job, or doing the family thing, she's stalking her Twitter feed.

Sharla can be found at her website http://www.sharlalovelace.com

Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/sharlalovelace

Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/sharlalovelace

Goodreads at http://www.goodreads.com/sharlalovelace

Giveaway:

Sharla will be awarding a $20 Amazon or BN gift card to one randomly drawn commenter during the tour. The more comments you leave the better your chances of winning.

To Enter:

Leave a comment or question for Sharla and include your email address.

Be sure to visit the other blogs on this tour. Click on the tour button below for a list of participating blogs. Good luck and thanks for stopping by.