Midlife Paranormal Romance with Mild Spice and Hot Enemies to Lovers
A NOLA ROMANCE:
YOUR ANCESTRAL POWERS HIT YOU LIKE PERIMENOPAUSE.
THE GHOST HUNT MIGHT KILL YOU.
AND THE COMPETITION IS YOUR HOTTEST RIVAL.
Sonny finally escaped the shadow of ‘the Beast.’ But after four years of rebuilding her life, she learned that true agency requires more than just crystals and yoga. To truly take back her power, she must embrace her ghosts. Even the ones she has yet to meet.
When a high-stakes paranormal competition in New Orleans offers a tempting cash prize, Sonny doesn’t just see an opportunity. She sees a means to an end: the fuel she needs to finish the reclamation of her life.
She’s heading to the Crescent City to prove she hasn’t lost her edge, to reclaim the confidence that was stolen from her. But her evolution takes a dangerous turn when she discovers that the ghosts of the abandoned Yellow Fever hospital have been waiting for her arrival.
Standing in her way is Jack—a disarmingly handsome Irishman with emerald eyes and a quiet strength that threatens the walls around Sonny’s heart. He’s not just her competition; he’s a rival destined to be her hottest enemy. To win, Sonny must do more than defeat her charming opponent. She must exorcise the chains of her past and embrace the ancestral power living in her DNA—a legacy stained on her skin.
If you’re a fan of:
Midlife Paranormal Romance Enemies to Lovers Practical Magic
Then The Phases of Lilith is right up your haunted alley!
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Still thinking about it? Here’s a little excerpt from The Phases of Lilith: A Dark Crescent Moon
Madness
The visceral response was unexpected. I recognized all of my body’s reactions to seeing the secret meeting in Jack’s room, but I wasn’t prepared for the mental and emotional carnival ride it took me on. My ears rang, “Red Flag!” and my vision blurred into a scene from my past that I had boxed up and buried. Or so I thought.
We were hosting an overnight ghost hunt at a historic, abandoned orphanage in Western Pennsylvania. It was a small, sold-out event with about 30 participants, so the Beast and I decided to lead the investigation ourselves. Some of the faces were familiar and had joined us at other locations before. One of the familiar faces wore black eyeliner and thick red lipstick; she had been to our last three ghost hunts. It made me laugh that the Beast was developing his own tiny fan club.
We began at 8:00 PM on the dot with a tour of the building and a brief rundown of the history, lore, and personal experiences he and I had on previous visits. After checking out equipment to those who didn’t have their own, we split the group in half and went our separate ways: he took his group to the top floor, and my group stayed on the bottom, with the intention of switching after the midpoint break.
We were the first group at the orphanage in weeks, or maybe months. Even though the evening temperature outside was dropping to a comfortable fifty-something, the air inside was still stale and warm from no circulation and weeks of afternoon sun. But nobody complained, and my group dispersed into different rooms to begin setting up gear and provoking the unseen.
The first two hours were eerily quiet for almost everyone in my group. I picked up a few indiscernible whispers and a soft “hello” on my digital voice recorder, and the youngest member of the group, a 17-year-old young man celebrating his birthday with his mother, said “something pulled” on the leg of his jeans. Just the standard innocuous hauntings. It wasn’t until the third hour that the activity began to pick up, and it wasn’t just becoming more active. We were witnessing it become uncharacteristically aggressive.
The Beast and I had experienced the usual cold spots and shadows on the first floor. Inside what was once the nuns’ office at the orphanage from the 1900s, we caught an orb hovering over the old metal desk on video for almost a full minute. And on all the floors, we had interactions with what we assumed were the resident kids: balls rolling on their own, the disembodied sounds of tiny feet skipping down the halls, laughter, and sometimes the sobs of children. Which was unsettling and always sent me into a temporary depression for a few days after the hunt.
But tonight was different. Six of us sat in a circle on the hard, uneven tile floor of what used to be the dining hall. The few chairs that were still in the room were so lopsided and busted, they couldn’t be trusted to hold a person. I loaned a nice woman my voice recorder and decided to do the rest of the investigation “naked.” The batteries in my neck lamp were on the fritz, so it took a bit longer for everyone to sort out their equipment in the dim light, but once everyone was settled, we went dark.
“Oh my God!” Came from one of the women across from me, while her friend gasped in horror.
Through the darkness, I asked, “What? What happened?”
“Did anyone else see that?”
Her fear and desperation could be heard and felt.
“I saw it, Sandy.”
Her best friend was just as unsettled and unable to provide any comfort.
“I think I saw something. That shadow behind her? Behind you. I-I got confused. I-I thought it was from maybe, the-the light,” the birthday boy stuttered and stammered between short, shallow breaths.
“Everything is fine, y’all. But can someone please tell me exactly what you saw?” Sandy began to recall in a whisper, and I had to stop her, “Don’t whisper. Remember, the voice recorders will pick it up and could be misinterpreted as an EVP.”
“Yes, sorry, sorry. It was a tall shadow, like a man, and it was behind you and started to lean down, like it was going to touch you, then the light went out.”
A new voice in the circle muttered, “I don’t like this room – something isn’t right in here.” She’s not wrong. Something does suddenly feel off, but the last thing I need is six people running out of this building. However, it would surely manifest into a few five-star reviews. I take a quick second to decipher whether the menacing feeling is coming from everyone’s worry and fear, or if there’s actually been a shift in the atmosphere.
“I think it’s fine, y’all. Let’s see if we can engage whatever is here with us.” I look around and see the faint glow of a K2 meter resting on green between the birthday boy and his mother. “Is there someone here with us?”
I wait a beat and continue, “If there’s someone here, can you make that green light turn red?”
Nothing.
“We’d like to know who you are. Did you work at the orphanage?”
Nothing.
“Do you know me?”
The K2 meter flashes spastically, its beep is a blood-curdling octave.
“Oh my God!”
The young man’s mother pushes herself back from the circle and reaches for her son, as if she’s suddenly lost her sight.
I try to relax the group and convince myself that we’re safe: “It’s fine, everyone. It can’t do anything to us.” I was immediately proven wrong. It started as a rattle on the floor, then, flying through the darkness, one of the chairs slid across the floor and slammed into my back, knocking the wind out of my lungs.
Everyone jumps up and scurries for the door when the light in the hallway starts to flicker before turning itself on. In less than a minute, I’ve lost my group to the sanctuary of the gravel parking lot, as the rest of my 15 investigators are trotting into the lobby to see what the commotion is about. I tell everyone to go outside for some fresh air and that I’ll be out in a moment, trying to buy myself a little time to get my breath back and track down the Beast for how to handle this disturbing situation.
From the front steps of the simple two-story red-brick structure, I watch all of them talking over each other with grand hand gestures, while trying to get a cell phone signal. One bar appears, and I begin shooting off texts. When none of my texts go through, I roll my eyes at myself. If I have to be outside to get service, then he won’t have service either. I take a deep breath and let the pain in my back surge and relax, before walking back into the paranormal line of fire, and double-step up the warped wooden staircase.