A Date with Death: A Novel
Autor Kelly Creaghen Limba Engleză Paperback – 13 aug 2026
Helena Hart isn’t having the best night. Her date just ditched her, her Halloween costume bombed, and her only sympathetic ear is a dead silent partygoer in a Grim Reaper get-up. But when she falls off a balcony and he catches her with a very real skeletal hand, she realizes he may not be a party guest at all. Before she can process the near-death experience, he vanishes, leaving her to wonder if she hallucinated the whole thing.
Grim isn’t supposed to save souls. He’s supposed to reap them. And while he’s not sure why he spared Helena, he does know that if his superiors find out, he’s as good as dust—which is saying something for a guy who’s mostly bones. But keeping away from Helena is proving harder than expected—especially when she isn’t the least bit afraid of his monstrous form.
Worse, to his horror, Helena makes him feel. And for a reaper, feeling is a fate far more dangerous than death.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781668209837
ISBN-10: 1668209837
Pagini: 384
Dimensiuni: 135 x 210 x 23 mm
Greutate: 0.27 kg
Editura: Gallery Books
Colecția Gallery Books
ISBN-10: 1668209837
Pagini: 384
Dimensiuni: 135 x 210 x 23 mm
Greutate: 0.27 kg
Editura: Gallery Books
Colecția Gallery Books
Notă biografică
Kelly Creagh is a 2008 graduate of Spalding University’s MFA in Creative Writing program. When not writing, haunting bookstore coffee shops, or obsessively studying Poe, Kelly’s passions include the ancient art of belly dance. She lives with her squirrely, attitude-infused dogs—Annabel, Jack, and Holly—in the heart of Old Louisville, Kentucky’s largest and spookiest Victorian neighborhood. Kelly is the author of the Nevermore trilogy. Visit her at KellyCreagh.com.
Extras
Chapter 1: Helena
1 HELENA
Given that we’d reached mid-October—and, more importantly, Halloween season—I shouldn’t have been surprised to find a man dressed up as the Grim Reaper on the balcony of Anatole Manor. Still, the historic Gothic home turned event venue made him look so perfectly picturesque, I couldn’t resist investigating.
I rapped a knuckle against the sliding glass door, but the impossibly tall, hooded man didn’t look up. Instead, he stood in profile at the banister of the stone balcony, lonesome and cutting an ominous image, the handle of his huge scythe propped against his shoulder. Its curved blade gleamed as silver as the slivered moon that floated high above.
Opening the door with my free hand, my other cradling a plastic wine cup, still half full of cheap Chardonnay, I stepped into the night.
I closed the door behind me, muffling the thumping techno remix of “Monster Mash.” The music bled from the crowded ballroom that I’d given the slip—right along with my otherwise-occupied date, who hadn’t noticed my exit anyway.
As the sound subdued to a fainter heartbeat rhythm, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Was that why Tall, Dark, and Gruesome was out here? Maybe his ears—and nerves—needed a break from the ultra-kitschy spooky-themed tunes, too.
“Wow,” I said, turning to my fellow party absconder. “That costume is a ten out of ten on the epic scale.”
The figure didn’t move. And though he remained still enough to be one of those overpriced-lawn-ornament-type deals, the dramatic brooding act wasn’t fooling me. This guy had clearly spent weeks planning this. And no one poured that much time into a costume unless they were dying to show it off.
Not only that, but the man had implemented the special effect of gray fog tendrils curling off the tatty hems of his robes. I wasn’t sure how he’d accomplished that, but my educated guess was that he’d sewn dry ice packs into the fabric.
A glowing hourglass hung from his belt, multicolored orbs floating within—another off-the-scale special effect.
“Truly,” I said as I approached, the floor-length skirts of my sparkly lemon-yellow taffeta ball gown rustling with my movements, “that look is movie-level authentic. Did you rent those robes? Or maybe you made them. Either way, please tell me you’re entering the costume contest. I think there’s a cash prize. Runner-up gets a spa gift card. I guess you don’t have flesh, but you could still get your phalanges done.” I wiggled my rainbow-painted nails at him. “You’d certainly get my vote.”
He didn’t answer. I didn’t care.
He didn’t own the balcony, and I needed to get away, too.
As the quiet wore on, a pleasantly chilly breeze stirred my wheat-blond hair, which I wore long under my crown. My dress didn’t have sleeves, but it had been warm in the manor, and thanks to the wine, I probably had a good ten minutes before I started to shiver.
“Nice and quiet out here,” I observed. “Are you waiting for someone?”
Could be he was loitering (sulking?) outdoors because his date had left him alone as well. Mine, an actuary I’d been chatting up on a dating app for weeks, had bailed on me the moment he’d caught the attention of a brunette dressed as a sexy librarian—a costume I wasn’t sure if I should be offended by since I actually happened to be a librarian.
I stopped next to the enormous looming, dooming Reaper Man, and straightening my spiky crown—spray-painted with love and dunked in gold glitter—I grinned up at him. “It’s obvious who you are. But can you guess what I am?”
He didn’t say anything. He still refused to move, too. But he wasn’t running away from me, so why not continue the one-sided conversation? So far, this interaction was still going better than any of my exchanges with Dale, who had already blocked me on the dating app.
I knew because, while I’d been sitting alone at our table, I’d had plenty of time to check my phone.
Maybe I shouldn’t have quoted Hamlet when he said he didn’t believe in ghosts.
Or maybe I should have worn something saucier.
“I’m sunshine!” I spread my arms. Then I snapped my multicolored spandex belt with my free hand. “And rainbows.”
Next, I lifted the hem of my dress, accented with cotton to simulate clouds, and flashed the rainbow, rhinestone-covered pumps that were officially killing me. “I made and repurposed everything myself. Thanks to my job, I’m pretty crafty. Not to mention thrifty. It was Abigail, one of my regular patrons—I’m a children’s librarian—who suggested this concept. She’s five.” I raised a finger. “And a half. Except, everyone keeps asking me if I’m Belle from Beauty and the Beast.” I shrugged. “But that’s cool, too, so… I just say yes.”
I took a big swig of the wine, which, to be fair, I’d already had enough of.
When I went back in, I’d call an Uber and scarf down some cheese puffs and bruschetta to counteract the effects of the adult grape juice. Then I’d go home and do my usual bedtime routine of washing my face, brushing my teeth, and reading about other people falling in love until I fell asleep.
“What do you do?” I asked him, but he kept the stoic shtick going.
Either he was annoyed, or he just wanted to stay in character. Possibly both were true.
But I could play along. I literally had a master’s in make-believe.
“Dead-silent type, huh?” I asked him with a wink as I gazed out over the grounds, which we hovered two stories above. On either side of the balcony, a set of curving stone steps swept down to meet with a dormant garden, the roses pruned back to near nubs. Quilts of leaves blanketed the rest of the barren beds and the cobblestone walkway, too. “Lonely lonesome loner. I get that.”
Plucking a stray golden maple leaf from the stone balcony’s cracked banister, I gave it a twirl before sending it floating over the ledge.
Though he still didn’t speak, he did move, lifting his head just a bit.
My curiosity exploded, and I craned my neck to gaze into that hood, which framed only blackness.
“Goodness,” I said, eyes bugging as I took yet another swig from my wine. “You’ve really gone all out.” I gestured to his lost-to-the-shadows face. “H-how are you doing that?” No sooner had I voiced the question than I held up a halting hand. “You know what? I don’t want to know. Honestly, I’m starting to think your way is more fun. Because, no lie, I’m kind of scared right now.”
And I was—a little.
“That’s what the unknown does to us, right?” I prodded. “That’s why you, the Grim Reaper, are so scary. You represent death. The greatest unknown there is. Really, though—and correct me if I’m wrong—I think you’re a little misunderstood.”
More silence from my menacing cohort, and suddenly I found myself trying to picture what dwelled beyond that solid wall of blackness that lurked within that hood.
Was he cute? He could be.
And was I flirting with him? I could be…
Normally, I flailed in that arena.
Something about his silence made being myself easier, though. Because it didn’t matter that he wasn’t laughing at my jokes, or that he hadn’t said anything about my costume. If he was the Grim Reaper, why would he? He wouldn’t. Because he was just being himself, too.
“Again,” I went on, “correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the Grim Reaper is death. I think you just… collect the souls of the dead and kinda… scoot-aloo them along to whatever’s next. You’re like a modern Charon. You know who that is, right?” I scoffed and shook my head, embarrassed. “Of course, what am I saying? You know your roots. That guy’s probably your great-great-great-great-great-great-uncle or something. But what I mean is, you’re like the ferryman. You just transport souls. It’s not like you use the scythe to kill people. You just shave souls off dead husks. Thankless job but somebody’s got to do it, right?”
Another nervous laugh escaped me because, now that I thought about it, he could be a serial killer. Though he didn’t give off the slasher vibe—not that I necessarily had a barometer for detecting murderous intent. But if he was here to hunt for his next victim, why would he be out on the balcony alone?
Then again, I hadn’t seen him inside. Maybe I wouldn’t have noticed him, but with his height, that scythe, and his literally misting robes, he did stand out.
“Anyway,” I said, “that’s what I think. I think that the archetype you represent is… well, unfairly judged. Take the Middle Ages for example.” I waved my wine at the moon and the sky, with its slow-moving, tattered-lace clouds. “Death was so rife—indiscriminate, too. Kings and vagabonds alike bit the dust, but that doesn’t mean you were the one who brought the plague upon them. The rats did that. You were, and are, just… well, I guess you’re just the messenger, aren’t you? Though, at the same time, you’re a little more than that. Or a lot more, I guess. Am I making sense?”
Squinting, my head light and swimming from the wine, I spun to put my back against the banister.
Clasping my almost-empty cup between both hands, I peered down into the sip that remained and waited again for the answer I knew wouldn’t come.
“There’s probably an art to it,” I said. “What you do, I mean. Which is true of anything that requires skill, wouldn’t you agree? Anyway, in your case, I can’t imagine the responsibility. The workload. The pressure. There’s likely little room for error, too. Not at all like my job, which is messy and chaotic—but in a good way. The best way. By the way, did you know they recently changed the alphabet song so that LMNOP no longer runs together all willy-nilly? There’s now a pause right before O, if you can believe it. It’s been an adjustment, I’ll say that.”
Silence, silence, silence.
I sucked in a breath, and clutching the cup even tighter, I peeked up at him and blurted my next question. “Are you here alone?” My nerves twisted tighter, spitting sparks. “Technically, I’m not but, I mean, I also kind of am. He, my date, wouldn’t miss me, I mean. Isn’t missing me. I know you don’t know me, but if… if you wanted to get out of here and, I dunno, catch a midnight movie or hit up Wendy’s for a pretzel burger, I’d totally be, um, game?”
He turned toward me, and my face, already heated from the alcohol I wasn’t used to, caught fire.
“You’re married,” I guessed. “Aren’t you? Everyone’s married these days. I mean, I’m not. Mom says that, at twenty-nine, I should be—but dating hasn’t been going too well. But… we’re not going to talk about Mom, the careening approach of my thirties, or the emotionally unavailable werewolf I came here with. Or getting married because, on the off chance that you’re not already, where would we find an officiate at this time of night anyway?”
I laughed but then stopped myself and shut my eyes. I gritted my teeth and, frowning, commanded myself to unweird this monologue—stat.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to come out here and pester you like this. Sidenote, now that I think about it, is there such a thing as an emotionally available werewolf? Probably not. So, again, LMNOP, joke’s on me.”
Another nervous laugh bubbled out of me, but it died off in the continued and unending silence.
“Listen,” I said next, “I’m going to get out of your hair, er, I mean your skull now and head back in. I really do like your costume, and I hope you have a nice night.”
Why did it never fail? Always in these situations—situations with guys—I did something to make a fool of myself. I said too much. I did too much. I was too much.
I drained my wine and, tears already pricking at my eyes, I moved to push off from the banister, mortified.
Before I could get my footing, the stone railing supporting my spine cracked and jolted backward, crumbling. I dropped my plastic cup, which bounced away with quiet taps.
Eyes wide, I toppled with a shriek, following after the chunks that broke free, blond curls rushing ahead of me, screening my view of the hooded man who, instinctively, I reached for.
He moved fast—too fast, somehow unfurling into smoke and vapor before rematerializing in front of me to seize the wrist of one outstretched arm with a freezing and literally skeletal hand.
“Omigod!” I gasped as he yanked me to him, the fallen chunks of balcony cracking loud as gunshots on the flagstones below.
My feet under me again, I teetered on my two-dollar Goodwill heels, my free hand going to his chest.
Instead of plastering themselves against a solid pectoral, my fingers dipped into the black fabric, curling around… ribs?
I snapped my hand back as if burned, and swiveling me away from the broken balcony, he released me.
Skittering in reverse with a cry of shock, I lost my balance a second time, my heels snagging in the hem of my dress, and I went spilling onto the stone floor.
I landed on my hip, catching myself with my hands, palms seared by the stone, my crown knocking askew, one knee screaming from the jolt.
But then, I wasn’t lying broken and bleeding on the flagstones below, was I?
“H-how?” I managed as I swung my head back toward my rescuer.
Except he was gone. Vanished from the balcony altogether.
But that… was impossible.
Behind me, the sliding door shushed open. “Oh my God,” fussed a woman, her heels clomping fast as she hurried over to me. “Are you all right?”
“Is she okay?” asked a male voice.
“What happened?” questioned a second feminine voice.
“This door is supposed to be locked,” answered the first voice.
People crouched around me, but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t tear my gaze away from the now-missing portion of the balcony. Because I’d nearly gone with it. Been smashed, too, on the stone below.
Right at that moment, I could have been dead.
Right at that moment, I would have been.
If not for the man with the skeleton hand.
Except men—people, living people—didn’t have skeleton hands.
Or touchable ribs.
But the real Grim Reaper… supposedly did.
1 HELENA
Given that we’d reached mid-October—and, more importantly, Halloween season—I shouldn’t have been surprised to find a man dressed up as the Grim Reaper on the balcony of Anatole Manor. Still, the historic Gothic home turned event venue made him look so perfectly picturesque, I couldn’t resist investigating.
I rapped a knuckle against the sliding glass door, but the impossibly tall, hooded man didn’t look up. Instead, he stood in profile at the banister of the stone balcony, lonesome and cutting an ominous image, the handle of his huge scythe propped against his shoulder. Its curved blade gleamed as silver as the slivered moon that floated high above.
Opening the door with my free hand, my other cradling a plastic wine cup, still half full of cheap Chardonnay, I stepped into the night.
I closed the door behind me, muffling the thumping techno remix of “Monster Mash.” The music bled from the crowded ballroom that I’d given the slip—right along with my otherwise-occupied date, who hadn’t noticed my exit anyway.
As the sound subdued to a fainter heartbeat rhythm, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Was that why Tall, Dark, and Gruesome was out here? Maybe his ears—and nerves—needed a break from the ultra-kitschy spooky-themed tunes, too.
“Wow,” I said, turning to my fellow party absconder. “That costume is a ten out of ten on the epic scale.”
The figure didn’t move. And though he remained still enough to be one of those overpriced-lawn-ornament-type deals, the dramatic brooding act wasn’t fooling me. This guy had clearly spent weeks planning this. And no one poured that much time into a costume unless they were dying to show it off.
Not only that, but the man had implemented the special effect of gray fog tendrils curling off the tatty hems of his robes. I wasn’t sure how he’d accomplished that, but my educated guess was that he’d sewn dry ice packs into the fabric.
A glowing hourglass hung from his belt, multicolored orbs floating within—another off-the-scale special effect.
“Truly,” I said as I approached, the floor-length skirts of my sparkly lemon-yellow taffeta ball gown rustling with my movements, “that look is movie-level authentic. Did you rent those robes? Or maybe you made them. Either way, please tell me you’re entering the costume contest. I think there’s a cash prize. Runner-up gets a spa gift card. I guess you don’t have flesh, but you could still get your phalanges done.” I wiggled my rainbow-painted nails at him. “You’d certainly get my vote.”
He didn’t answer. I didn’t care.
He didn’t own the balcony, and I needed to get away, too.
As the quiet wore on, a pleasantly chilly breeze stirred my wheat-blond hair, which I wore long under my crown. My dress didn’t have sleeves, but it had been warm in the manor, and thanks to the wine, I probably had a good ten minutes before I started to shiver.
“Nice and quiet out here,” I observed. “Are you waiting for someone?”
Could be he was loitering (sulking?) outdoors because his date had left him alone as well. Mine, an actuary I’d been chatting up on a dating app for weeks, had bailed on me the moment he’d caught the attention of a brunette dressed as a sexy librarian—a costume I wasn’t sure if I should be offended by since I actually happened to be a librarian.
I stopped next to the enormous looming, dooming Reaper Man, and straightening my spiky crown—spray-painted with love and dunked in gold glitter—I grinned up at him. “It’s obvious who you are. But can you guess what I am?”
He didn’t say anything. He still refused to move, too. But he wasn’t running away from me, so why not continue the one-sided conversation? So far, this interaction was still going better than any of my exchanges with Dale, who had already blocked me on the dating app.
I knew because, while I’d been sitting alone at our table, I’d had plenty of time to check my phone.
Maybe I shouldn’t have quoted Hamlet when he said he didn’t believe in ghosts.
Or maybe I should have worn something saucier.
“I’m sunshine!” I spread my arms. Then I snapped my multicolored spandex belt with my free hand. “And rainbows.”
Next, I lifted the hem of my dress, accented with cotton to simulate clouds, and flashed the rainbow, rhinestone-covered pumps that were officially killing me. “I made and repurposed everything myself. Thanks to my job, I’m pretty crafty. Not to mention thrifty. It was Abigail, one of my regular patrons—I’m a children’s librarian—who suggested this concept. She’s five.” I raised a finger. “And a half. Except, everyone keeps asking me if I’m Belle from Beauty and the Beast.” I shrugged. “But that’s cool, too, so… I just say yes.”
I took a big swig of the wine, which, to be fair, I’d already had enough of.
When I went back in, I’d call an Uber and scarf down some cheese puffs and bruschetta to counteract the effects of the adult grape juice. Then I’d go home and do my usual bedtime routine of washing my face, brushing my teeth, and reading about other people falling in love until I fell asleep.
“What do you do?” I asked him, but he kept the stoic shtick going.
Either he was annoyed, or he just wanted to stay in character. Possibly both were true.
But I could play along. I literally had a master’s in make-believe.
“Dead-silent type, huh?” I asked him with a wink as I gazed out over the grounds, which we hovered two stories above. On either side of the balcony, a set of curving stone steps swept down to meet with a dormant garden, the roses pruned back to near nubs. Quilts of leaves blanketed the rest of the barren beds and the cobblestone walkway, too. “Lonely lonesome loner. I get that.”
Plucking a stray golden maple leaf from the stone balcony’s cracked banister, I gave it a twirl before sending it floating over the ledge.
Though he still didn’t speak, he did move, lifting his head just a bit.
My curiosity exploded, and I craned my neck to gaze into that hood, which framed only blackness.
“Goodness,” I said, eyes bugging as I took yet another swig from my wine. “You’ve really gone all out.” I gestured to his lost-to-the-shadows face. “H-how are you doing that?” No sooner had I voiced the question than I held up a halting hand. “You know what? I don’t want to know. Honestly, I’m starting to think your way is more fun. Because, no lie, I’m kind of scared right now.”
And I was—a little.
“That’s what the unknown does to us, right?” I prodded. “That’s why you, the Grim Reaper, are so scary. You represent death. The greatest unknown there is. Really, though—and correct me if I’m wrong—I think you’re a little misunderstood.”
More silence from my menacing cohort, and suddenly I found myself trying to picture what dwelled beyond that solid wall of blackness that lurked within that hood.
Was he cute? He could be.
And was I flirting with him? I could be…
Normally, I flailed in that arena.
Something about his silence made being myself easier, though. Because it didn’t matter that he wasn’t laughing at my jokes, or that he hadn’t said anything about my costume. If he was the Grim Reaper, why would he? He wouldn’t. Because he was just being himself, too.
“Again,” I went on, “correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the Grim Reaper is death. I think you just… collect the souls of the dead and kinda… scoot-aloo them along to whatever’s next. You’re like a modern Charon. You know who that is, right?” I scoffed and shook my head, embarrassed. “Of course, what am I saying? You know your roots. That guy’s probably your great-great-great-great-great-great-uncle or something. But what I mean is, you’re like the ferryman. You just transport souls. It’s not like you use the scythe to kill people. You just shave souls off dead husks. Thankless job but somebody’s got to do it, right?”
Another nervous laugh escaped me because, now that I thought about it, he could be a serial killer. Though he didn’t give off the slasher vibe—not that I necessarily had a barometer for detecting murderous intent. But if he was here to hunt for his next victim, why would he be out on the balcony alone?
Then again, I hadn’t seen him inside. Maybe I wouldn’t have noticed him, but with his height, that scythe, and his literally misting robes, he did stand out.
“Anyway,” I said, “that’s what I think. I think that the archetype you represent is… well, unfairly judged. Take the Middle Ages for example.” I waved my wine at the moon and the sky, with its slow-moving, tattered-lace clouds. “Death was so rife—indiscriminate, too. Kings and vagabonds alike bit the dust, but that doesn’t mean you were the one who brought the plague upon them. The rats did that. You were, and are, just… well, I guess you’re just the messenger, aren’t you? Though, at the same time, you’re a little more than that. Or a lot more, I guess. Am I making sense?”
Squinting, my head light and swimming from the wine, I spun to put my back against the banister.
Clasping my almost-empty cup between both hands, I peered down into the sip that remained and waited again for the answer I knew wouldn’t come.
“There’s probably an art to it,” I said. “What you do, I mean. Which is true of anything that requires skill, wouldn’t you agree? Anyway, in your case, I can’t imagine the responsibility. The workload. The pressure. There’s likely little room for error, too. Not at all like my job, which is messy and chaotic—but in a good way. The best way. By the way, did you know they recently changed the alphabet song so that LMNOP no longer runs together all willy-nilly? There’s now a pause right before O, if you can believe it. It’s been an adjustment, I’ll say that.”
Silence, silence, silence.
I sucked in a breath, and clutching the cup even tighter, I peeked up at him and blurted my next question. “Are you here alone?” My nerves twisted tighter, spitting sparks. “Technically, I’m not but, I mean, I also kind of am. He, my date, wouldn’t miss me, I mean. Isn’t missing me. I know you don’t know me, but if… if you wanted to get out of here and, I dunno, catch a midnight movie or hit up Wendy’s for a pretzel burger, I’d totally be, um, game?”
He turned toward me, and my face, already heated from the alcohol I wasn’t used to, caught fire.
“You’re married,” I guessed. “Aren’t you? Everyone’s married these days. I mean, I’m not. Mom says that, at twenty-nine, I should be—but dating hasn’t been going too well. But… we’re not going to talk about Mom, the careening approach of my thirties, or the emotionally unavailable werewolf I came here with. Or getting married because, on the off chance that you’re not already, where would we find an officiate at this time of night anyway?”
I laughed but then stopped myself and shut my eyes. I gritted my teeth and, frowning, commanded myself to unweird this monologue—stat.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to come out here and pester you like this. Sidenote, now that I think about it, is there such a thing as an emotionally available werewolf? Probably not. So, again, LMNOP, joke’s on me.”
Another nervous laugh bubbled out of me, but it died off in the continued and unending silence.
“Listen,” I said next, “I’m going to get out of your hair, er, I mean your skull now and head back in. I really do like your costume, and I hope you have a nice night.”
Why did it never fail? Always in these situations—situations with guys—I did something to make a fool of myself. I said too much. I did too much. I was too much.
I drained my wine and, tears already pricking at my eyes, I moved to push off from the banister, mortified.
Before I could get my footing, the stone railing supporting my spine cracked and jolted backward, crumbling. I dropped my plastic cup, which bounced away with quiet taps.
Eyes wide, I toppled with a shriek, following after the chunks that broke free, blond curls rushing ahead of me, screening my view of the hooded man who, instinctively, I reached for.
He moved fast—too fast, somehow unfurling into smoke and vapor before rematerializing in front of me to seize the wrist of one outstretched arm with a freezing and literally skeletal hand.
“Omigod!” I gasped as he yanked me to him, the fallen chunks of balcony cracking loud as gunshots on the flagstones below.
My feet under me again, I teetered on my two-dollar Goodwill heels, my free hand going to his chest.
Instead of plastering themselves against a solid pectoral, my fingers dipped into the black fabric, curling around… ribs?
I snapped my hand back as if burned, and swiveling me away from the broken balcony, he released me.
Skittering in reverse with a cry of shock, I lost my balance a second time, my heels snagging in the hem of my dress, and I went spilling onto the stone floor.
I landed on my hip, catching myself with my hands, palms seared by the stone, my crown knocking askew, one knee screaming from the jolt.
But then, I wasn’t lying broken and bleeding on the flagstones below, was I?
“H-how?” I managed as I swung my head back toward my rescuer.
Except he was gone. Vanished from the balcony altogether.
But that… was impossible.
Behind me, the sliding door shushed open. “Oh my God,” fussed a woman, her heels clomping fast as she hurried over to me. “Are you all right?”
“Is she okay?” asked a male voice.
“What happened?” questioned a second feminine voice.
“This door is supposed to be locked,” answered the first voice.
People crouched around me, but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t tear my gaze away from the now-missing portion of the balcony. Because I’d nearly gone with it. Been smashed, too, on the stone below.
Right at that moment, I could have been dead.
Right at that moment, I would have been.
If not for the man with the skeleton hand.
Except men—people, living people—didn’t have skeleton hands.
Or touchable ribs.
But the real Grim Reaper… supposedly did.
Recenzii
"A Date with Death delivers the grumpy/sunshine dynamic of my dreams! Fantastical and fun—this one will have you giggling and kicking your feet." —Lana Ferguson, USA Today Bestselling Author
“Creagh’s effervescent writing weaves fun library hijinks (like a possessed bookmobile with spooky spice), chosen family, and a sneakily profound message about what it means to live. Readers will willingly get their hearts reaped by this devastatingly cute romance.” —Booklist
*"Creagh puts a supernatural twist on the grumpy/sunshine dynamic in this addictive paranormal romance. The setup feels classic, but Creagh shines in the unique details that make her larger-than-life characters (especially Grim’s scene-stealing work family) leap off the page. Add in heaps of humor and whimsy, and this redemptive romance beguiles." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Creagh’s effervescent writing weaves fun library hijinks (like a possessed bookmobile with spooky spice), chosen family, and a sneakily profound message about what it means to live. Readers will willingly get their hearts reaped by this devastatingly cute romance.” —Booklist
*"Creagh puts a supernatural twist on the grumpy/sunshine dynamic in this addictive paranormal romance. The setup feels classic, but Creagh shines in the unique details that make her larger-than-life characters (especially Grim’s scene-stealing work family) leap off the page. Add in heaps of humor and whimsy, and this redemptive romance beguiles." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
Descriere
For fans of Jenna Levine and Ali Hazelwood’s Bride, comes a cozy horror romcom in which the Grim Reaper develops feelings for the children's librarian whose soul he is supposed to collect, only to find out that with feelings comes something worse than death—life.