To make a promotion in the ever after,
she’s going to have to manage not only her own dating dilemmas
but those of her clutzy, dating-disaster assistant.
HOW TO DATE WHEN YOU'RE DEAD
A Paranormal Romantic Comedy
Lisa London
Released March 16, 2017
After an epic nosedive down the elevator of success, Ivy now finds herself in Purgatory having to start all over again from scratch but this time the stakes for getting promoted to the pearly gates are even higher. And to make a promotion in the ever after, she’s going to have to manage not only her own dating dilemmas but those of her clutzy, dating-disaster assistant.
Luckily she has two of the hottest men in the afterlife as her advisors. One who wants to help her get demoted to his bachelor pad down under and another who wants her to get her wings and live with him on a cloud. Did I mention they’re both super sexy with a wicked rivalry going on between them? Both determined to outdo the other to win her heart.
And that’s in between spending quality girl-time with her new besties, Satan and her soap opera addicted Purgatory Counselor.
This is a great read for anyone who loved ABC Family’s Teen Spirit with Cassie Scerbo. This is the adult version where the ghost [Ivy] and her hopeless dating assignment [Lucy] both get to date cute boys!
ONLY .99 CENTS
"Hello.
Is anyone there?" I called out. My own echo greeted me. "Hello. Is
anyone there?" That was just creepy. I tried it out once more to make sure
it really was just me.
"Hey,
there."
"Hey,
there."
I heard
myself a few more times and still received no response but my own. Maybe I was
dreaming. After seven years in marketing, it was possible my brain simply burnt
out from having to come up with new, creative ideas and trying to convince
people to eat more candy bars. Perhaps this was its way of taking a break. If
this were a dream, then maybe this morning never happened, and they aren't
really postponing my promotion announcement. Perhaps I'm only cold because I
accidentally kicked the sheets off my bed and the AC is on high. Too bad I
didn't decorate the fake dream room with something to sit on. I should have at
least given myself a stool to sit on, along with a raspberry martini to sip.
I looked down
at my beloved four-inch Louboutins with a mix of pride and regret. I closed my
eyes, thinking of my comfortable, oversized, white, micro-suede chair and its
fluffy embroidered pillows. If I thought about it hard enough, it should
appear, right? I opened my eyes and scanned the room, but only saw the same
whiteness as before. Maybe the pillows were too much. I closed my eyes and
tried again, but this time thought only of the chair, sans the pillows.
Reopening my eyes, the chair still hadn't appeared. I contemplated sitting on
the floor, but couldn't bring myself to do it when I considered the ginormous
credit card bill I still hadn't paid off for my outfit. Not to mention my
embarrassment if this was really a special conference room, which could be
entered and occupied at any time.
I heard the
elevator doors shut and whipped back in panic. What if this wasn't a dream and
I just missed my only ride back to the ninth floor? Looking down at my phone
again, I ran around the various corners of the room, willing it to find a
signal.
Maybe I was
dead. And if I were, why was I only given Purgatory as an option? What happened
to other two obvious choices? And where is everybody? On the plus side, being
dead meant not having to pay off my Neiman Marcus charge card while still
keeping the shoes.
Ding. As the
elevator doors opened, I looked for a place to hide, but my red dress made me
stand out even more in the white room. I held up my phone in front of my face
as a potential shield.
A tall blond
woman, dressed like she was headed for the Academy Awards, towered over me,
holding a pink clipboard in her hands. I finally met someone who outdid me when
it came to wasting money on expensive, overpriced clothing. "Ivy
Pinkerton?"
"Yes,
that's me," I answered. Her eyes lit up at my response. I checked the room
again just to be sure I was the only one in the waiting room, which I was. She
looked down at her clipboard and highlighted what I imagined was my name on her
sheet.
"Great,
follow me," she said, spinning on her heels and walking to what looked
like an empty corner of the room. "I'm really sorry about the waiting
room. I've having it redecorated so there's not much in the way of
entertainment."
"Who are
you? Where am I?" I asked.
Instead of
answering my questions, she stopped and opened a door, gesturing for me to go
through first. I peered in, leaning only my head through the door to make sure
it was safe before entering. As far as interior decorators went, it looked like
someone at Mattel had designed this for Barbie: pink walls, a pink table, a
pink computer, a pink phone and some more pink office supplies. Any fears I had
were extinguished when I spotted the oversized, micro-suede, matching pink
chairs. I ran through the door and plunged myself into the closest one.
"Ah, this chair feels like Heaven. And that waiting room of nothingness
felt like Hell," I exhaled as I slipped off my shoes.
"Actually,
you just came from Hell," chirped the blond.
"So
that's what Hell is? A standing room only where you've arrived with four-inch
heels and no ballet flats to change into? "
"No,
Hell is Chicago," she replied.
"Chicago?
Like Chicago, Illinois on Earth, Chicago?"
"I know,
right? What person with free will would ever choose to go there? Chicago is
only the main headquarters down below, but we all have stations on the surface.
Hell picked Chicago, Heaven chose San Diego, and we have New York," she
smiled. That explained a lot about the dating options in Chicago, actually.
If you’re like me, you have a million ideas running through
your head at any given time. All of them equally amazing, exciting and awesome.
They fill you with enthusiasm, a spark that bolts you out of bed in the morning
and a renewed sense of purpose and meaning in your life. You’re a creative
person who dreams and fantasizes entirely new worlds, completely new beings
into existence. Your imagination has no limits.
So, what’s the problem? Well, unlike some of our characters,
we’re not immortal, we don’t have time machines and there is no fairy godmother
coming to send us back to age 15 for a do-over. If only…
Instead, we get one lifetime to do everything that we could
possibly want. And luckily we’re so creative, we want to accomplish a gazillion
things. But unfortunately, we’d need a few more lifetimes to make it happen.
Well, I have an easy 3-step solution for all of you kindred multi-passionate
authors out there.
These three steps will vastly improve your ability to focus
and help you to accomplish more in less time. Ready?
Step One: Decide What
Your Focus Will Be
The Problem You
can do anything but you can’t do everything. Whether it comes to multitasking,
dating multiple people [alright, unless it’s a Siren romance novel] or choosing
a romance subgenre to write in, your ability to select one area and stick with
it is a prerequisite to success. How can you succeed at anything if you’re
always changing direction. Putting in 10,000 hours into any area will lead to
expert, genius status. Compare your first novel ever to your latest
work-in-progress. Sheer repetition alone will make you a better at any
skillset.
The Solution Not
sure where to focus? Read The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind
Extraordinary Results [Free on Kindle Unlimited].
Step Two: Be Decisive
In a study of over 500 millionaires, the one thing they had
in common: decisiveness. http://www.businessinsider.com/rich-people-are-decisive-2015-6
The Problem While
your competition is analyzing, researching and possibly taking yet another
course or getting another degree, you’ve already committed, executed and are
now adjusting your future course of action based on what you’ve learned. The
typical person makes 70 decisions a day, most of them unimportant and trivial.
How much time have you wasted looking for the perfect adjective when you
could’ve written another entire chapter?
The Solution Know
that you have all of the information you need to move forward in any area of
your life or writing. Go with your gut, learn to trust yourself and free up
more time for other activities. Never put off a decision until later. Make your
mind up right then and there, no matter what the topic is.
Step Three: Guard
Your Mind
Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, said that the quality
and fulfillment of his life improved immensely when he stopped trying to be
interesting and instead focused on things that interested him.
The Problem For a
long time, I bragged about how I had an impressive sounding job title at a
large, global corporation just to see the gleam of admiration during dinner
parties but the truth is I had zero interest in my job or the company and
instead dreamed about being a romance author but was too afraid I’d be laughed
at for declaring it so. We often complain about the lack of support and
understanding by spouses who look down upon what they see as a frivolous hobby
and family and friends who ridicule your latest title. But sometimes, we do it
to ourselves. We alter entire life paths to impress people who not only don’t
matter but do not really care.
The Solution Let
people know kindly but firmly that unsolicited opinions are unwanted and
unwarranted. Go with your gut and listen to that little voice inside your head.
That’s the one that counts the most!
Lisa
London is a romance writer who also does freelance graphic design at
PrettyFabulousDesigns.com
because she, too, still suffers from being multi-passionate.
Hello, I’m Lisa London, creator of secret fantasies you love to escape with, bringing you an overload of bad-boy angst and heart-wrenching moments of truth on every page.
I’m so glad you’re here – because we’re a lot alike, you and I. We both love to escape to a world where true love is found in life-defining moments that build character, turn boys into men and make you question everything you’ve ever held sacred. Good boys are boring and oh so blah. But bad boys. You know…the ones to whom rules don’t apply to. The ones that do what they want, take what they want and use who they want and don’t give a damn. Yah, those guys. They’re also the ones that make you hot with desire, dripping with anticipation and wishing your phone would ring at 2 am afterwards.
I write in a variety of romance genres: 1) Hot + Steamy: These are fast + dirty short stories that are high on the heat scale 2) Amateur Sleuth: Think Stephanie Plum meets White Collar 3) Paranormal: Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you stop dating and 4) Author Platform Building: The Romance Roadmap Quickies are How-To guides on everything indie authors need for online marketing.
Thank you so much for sharing for the tour!
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