Trip the Eclipse: Pandora #Paranormal Box Set Author Showcase: Susan Stec

Blurb:
Toni's grandmother is a psychopath.
Her sister is a ghost.
Her boyfriend is possessed.
And she has no idea who she is.

Summer vacation is ruined when Toni's twin sister, Sara, dies. Instead of walking into the light, Sara stomps directly away from it, totally pissed she didn't die in her skinny jeans. That's when Sara finds out their grandmother has a gift for talking to dead people, and two spritely spirits and a nasty soothsayer named Bartholomew are all working their angle with Toni's future caught in between.

Dear old Granny's determined not to be the last necromancer in the family, but with the death of her promiscuous granddaughter, her only option is Toni, who must remain a virgin until her eighteenth birthday without any ghostly interference from Sara.

Sara's not having any of it; especially since the guy Granny's conspiring with is the same guy that assisted in Sara's demise. Toni needs help! But protecting her sister is complicating all the ghostly fun on the other side!

Can death stop a twin? Maybe not, but Granny knows Dead Girls Never Shut Up.

***(PG rating) Contains mild adult content and profanity

Excerpt:

Several things happened at once.

Behind Toni, Sara lost her fight with the steak knife—it sliced through her throat—and blood squirted from her jugular all over the stout guy, and then she promptly fell face first into her salad. Paul let out an anguished cry, grabbed his throat, jumped out of his chair, and staggered back several steps, choking.

The room sounded like one big gasp.

Toni pounded on Paul's back.

Sara's date jumped up, knocked over his chair, and fumbled back a few feet, wiping blood from his face and chest. He lost his footing in the mess on the floor, passed through Ruth, and landed in an ass-cracking fall at her feet.

At the same time, the knife hit the floor and slid a bloody trail a few feet before it tripped a waitress. She sent a tray laden with food and drinks flying. Two patrons in the path of the tray yelped, slid into each other, and began to do what looked like an inebriated tango as they tried to stay afoot.

Toni put her hands around Paul's torso and began to administer the Heimlich maneuver. "Will everyone calm down? You're not helping! Someone call an ambulance. He can't breathe!" Toni shouted, face against Paul's back as she made a two handed fist and squeezed his torso.

Ruth steadied herself, stepped into the stout guy's stomach, and then leaned under the table as the whole bar fell into uncontrollable chaos around her. Several patrons ran through her buttocks on the way to the front door and her rear-end looked like a fluttering sail in the wind. She asked, "Will y'be needin' some help, Martin?"

Martin growled at her and wiggled out of the floor. He floated up from under the table about the time a fragmented puff of smoke started to rise from Sara.

"Oh dear, I'm afraid we'll 'ave some explainin' t'do, Godrest'ersoul," Ruth whined, stepping through the table to stand next to the smoke forming into a cloud of mottled pink and white, looking an awful lot like Sara.

"What the hell? Where am I?" Sara's ghostly image croaked. "Is that me in my salad?"

"Yes, dear, I'm afraid so," Ruth answered.

"Sara, help me, dammit!" Toni shouted from across the room as she tried to maneuver Paul around so she could see her sister.

"Help you?" Sara spat, floating over her dead body. "I'm the one with her face in her salad. You idiot! Let go of the stud-muffin and get your ass over here!"

"I'm afraid she can't 'ear ya, dear."

Toni caught sight of her sister and screamed, "Ohmigod! Sara! That's my sister!"

Paul grabbed Toni's shoulder, gagged, and choked out, "I'm so sorry."

"Great! Just great!" Martin spat. "Bartholomew did it again. Let's hope incredibly noisy and obnoxiously vain over here can at least give us some information about Old-Navy-Boy over there." His finger pointed from Sara to Paul.

Martin whipped to one side as Toni ran past, Paul following like a well behaved marionette.

"Is that blood on my neck?" Sara shrieked, swiping her hand through the cadaver's throat.

"We 'ave a bit o'bad news, dear," Ruth said, patting the tips of her fingers through Sara's shoulder.

"You've friggin' got to be kidding me. I'm dead? Dead as in… freakin' dead? This has got to be a nightmare!" Sara lunged for her flaccid body and fell right through it.

"Oh my, now we 'ave t'get 'er out o'the cellar, we do. Come along, Martin," Ruth said, taking a nosedive into the floor.

Martin tapped his foot in and out of the floor, watching the chaos as lookey-loos congregated around the table.

Several teens, cell phones filming, were carrying on frantic conversations as Ruth burst through the floor with a screaming Sara in tow. Sara erratically hovered over the table and glared at her sister. Toni stood beside Sara's body, with her hands over her mouth, face horror stricken, head moving back and forth.

"Give me a good shake," Sara said. "Just shake me, Toni! I know if you shake me I'll come back to life."

Toni wrapped her hands around her stomach and rocked as tears streamed down her cheeks. She gagged, retched, and then vomited all over the table in front of her sister's body.

Sara's fists streaked through Toni's torso several times as she shrieked, "Uck! Eck! She pukes? She F'n upchucks? That's just nasty! Now I not only have Bleu cheese salad dressing all over my face and a gaping hole in my neck, but puke in my hair!" She tried to grab a handful of Toni's red curls but only made them flutter like leaves in a soft breeze.

Working up some attitude, Sara slapped her hands into her hips and shook her butt; fists embed in her pelvic bone. "Just kick me—slap me—do something to get my friggin' heart beating again! I need a damn shower!"

Paul tried to hand Toni a napkin and guide her away from the table.

Sara shoved her nose halfway into Paul's face. "Oh-no-you-don't!" She turned on her sister. "Stop your blubbering! Grab the napkin! Wipe that shit off my face; I've about had it with you!" Sara kicked her smoky foot through Toni and ended up floating horizontally in front of her.

"Don't you think we should say something to her?" Martin asked.

"Godbless'er, I think we should let 'er carry on a bit, love," Ruth said from the ceiling above the table. "Won't be long, it won't. They should be draggin' 'er carcass out o' 'ere soon enough."

About Susan:

I've always been weird, even as a child. Might've been influenced by all those fairies and trolls living in and around the streams behind Grandma's house. Today it probably has something to do with five crazy vamp-women, a fanged tyke, fairy, troll, werewolf, demon, and several sexy immortals living in my head.

In reality I live with my husband and my three King Charles Spaniels on 50 acres of woods, fields, and streams in upper Michigan; hunt deer with my Ruger or crossbow, paint watercolors, sculpture stained glass, and chase butterflies with my dogs.

One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead~~Oscar Wilde