The Book
Book 7 of The Color Of Heaven series
Genre: contemporary romance
About The Color Of The Season:
From USA Today bestselling author Julianne MacLean comes the next installment in her popular Color of Heaven series - a gripping, emotional tale about real life magic that touches us all during the holiday season….Source: Info in the About The Color Of The Season was from the press kit from the publicity team.
Boston cop, Josh Wallace, is having the worst day of his life. First, he’s dumped by the woman he was about to propose to, then everything goes downhill from there when he is shot in the line of duty. While recovering in the hospital, he can’t seem to forget the woman he wanted to marry, nor can he make sense of the vivid images that flashed before his eyes when he was wounded on the job. Soon, everything he once believed about his life begins to shift when he meets Leah James, an enigmatic resident doctor who somehow holds the key to both his past and his future….
** This is book 7 in the Color of Heaven series. Book 1 is currently free as an ebook, and the other books are available for review. But this book can be read as a stand alone.
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Excerpt:
The Color Of The Season
Copyright 2014 By Julianne MacLean
Prologue
Josh Wallace
This past holiday season, I received the greatest gift imaginable—the gift of love. Or maybe it was the gift of life, or wisdom, or a combination of all those things. I’m still not completely sure. All I know is that I am transformed.
Sometimes I look back on what happened and wonder if it was some kind of stress induced hallucination. Most of the doctors and nurses tried to convince me of that, but not all of them. Some were open minded about my experience and admitted freely that they didn’t have all the answers; that what happened to me was outside their realm of experience.
What I am referring to is my unexpected encounter with the afterlife.
Who would have guessed that such remarkable things would happen to a man like me? A man who carried a gun for a living, never went to church, and considered any type of spiritualism to be silly new age stuff. That was for people who were weak and afraid of the real world, people who needed something else to believe in. Something to help them cope. Or so I thought.
I’ll be the first to admit I was simple minded in that area, and I viewed the world, and my place in it, very superficially.
“What you see is what you get,” I used to say.
Who knew there was so much more beneath, and above, the surface of absolutely everything?
Chapter One
A heavy rain was falling when I got out of bed that morning, which seemed fitting, considering I was about to get dumped. I could feel it in my gut, churning inside me like a rancid meal, which was why I’d hardly slept a wink the night before.
I rose from bed and stood at the paned window of my Boston flat, watching violent gusts of wind sweep raindrops across the asphalt in the street. Mist rose up from the ground, while the maple trees along the sidewalk fluttered and swayed.
My body tensed and my head throbbed as I imagined Carla out there somewhere, ignoring my calls.
Because she was with him.
What were they doing right now? I wondered irritably. At this very moment?
I bowed my head and leaned forward over the white window sill, bracing my weight on my knuckles and clenched fists, breathing deep and slow.
Jesus. I needed a cup of coffee.
Turning away from the window, I moved into the kitchen to brew a pot, then poured myself a bowl of cereal, which I ate on the sofa while watching the sports channel on television.
I checked my phone again for a text from Carla, but still… nothing.
A part of me wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, because I knew I wasn’t the most rational guy in the world when it came to cheating girlfriends. I’d been burned badly once before, so I had a slight problem with jealousy.
But what if she’d been in a car accident on her way home yesterday and was in a coma at the hospital and couldn’t get in touch? If that was the case, I was going to feel pretty guilty.
But it wasn’t the case, and I knew it. I would have heard something by now.
No, she hadn’t texted or called because she didn’t know how to tell me it was over. She felt bad about standing me up for dinner the other night and wasn’t ready to face me and explain herself.
I felt a muscle twitch at my jaw.
Setting my empty cereal bowl down, I rested my elbows on my knees and stared at the blue velvet ring box on the coffee table.
Thirty-five hundred bucks. That’s how much that gigantic rock had cost, and I’d had no choice but to set up a financing plan with monthly payments because Heaven knew I didn’t have that kind of cash just lying around. I probably should have chosen something smaller, but I’d wanted to make sure she would say yes.
Looking back on it now, I suppose I thought—with my limited view of the world at the time—that the bigger and flashier the ring… all the better to tempt her with.
I reached forward to open the box.
Damn, it was one gorgeous, spectacular ring. If she could just see it and give me a chance to pop the question…. Surely there was still hope. She barely knew the other guy.
In that moment, my phone vibrated with an incoming text, and I quickly picked it up.
Copyright 2014 By Julianne MacLean
Prologue
Josh Wallace
This past holiday season, I received the greatest gift imaginable—the gift of love. Or maybe it was the gift of life, or wisdom, or a combination of all those things. I’m still not completely sure. All I know is that I am transformed.
Sometimes I look back on what happened and wonder if it was some kind of stress induced hallucination. Most of the doctors and nurses tried to convince me of that, but not all of them. Some were open minded about my experience and admitted freely that they didn’t have all the answers; that what happened to me was outside their realm of experience.
What I am referring to is my unexpected encounter with the afterlife.
Who would have guessed that such remarkable things would happen to a man like me? A man who carried a gun for a living, never went to church, and considered any type of spiritualism to be silly new age stuff. That was for people who were weak and afraid of the real world, people who needed something else to believe in. Something to help them cope. Or so I thought.
I’ll be the first to admit I was simple minded in that area, and I viewed the world, and my place in it, very superficially.
“What you see is what you get,” I used to say.
Who knew there was so much more beneath, and above, the surface of absolutely everything?
Chapter One
A heavy rain was falling when I got out of bed that morning, which seemed fitting, considering I was about to get dumped. I could feel it in my gut, churning inside me like a rancid meal, which was why I’d hardly slept a wink the night before.
I rose from bed and stood at the paned window of my Boston flat, watching violent gusts of wind sweep raindrops across the asphalt in the street. Mist rose up from the ground, while the maple trees along the sidewalk fluttered and swayed.
My body tensed and my head throbbed as I imagined Carla out there somewhere, ignoring my calls.
Because she was with him.
What were they doing right now? I wondered irritably. At this very moment?
I bowed my head and leaned forward over the white window sill, bracing my weight on my knuckles and clenched fists, breathing deep and slow.
Jesus. I needed a cup of coffee.
Turning away from the window, I moved into the kitchen to brew a pot, then poured myself a bowl of cereal, which I ate on the sofa while watching the sports channel on television.
I checked my phone again for a text from Carla, but still… nothing.
A part of me wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, because I knew I wasn’t the most rational guy in the world when it came to cheating girlfriends. I’d been burned badly once before, so I had a slight problem with jealousy.
But what if she’d been in a car accident on her way home yesterday and was in a coma at the hospital and couldn’t get in touch? If that was the case, I was going to feel pretty guilty.
But it wasn’t the case, and I knew it. I would have heard something by now.
No, she hadn’t texted or called because she didn’t know how to tell me it was over. She felt bad about standing me up for dinner the other night and wasn’t ready to face me and explain herself.
I felt a muscle twitch at my jaw.
Setting my empty cereal bowl down, I rested my elbows on my knees and stared at the blue velvet ring box on the coffee table.
Thirty-five hundred bucks. That’s how much that gigantic rock had cost, and I’d had no choice but to set up a financing plan with monthly payments because Heaven knew I didn’t have that kind of cash just lying around. I probably should have chosen something smaller, but I’d wanted to make sure she would say yes.
Looking back on it now, I suppose I thought—with my limited view of the world at the time—that the bigger and flashier the ring… all the better to tempt her with.
I reached forward to open the box.
Damn, it was one gorgeous, spectacular ring. If she could just see it and give me a chance to pop the question…. Surely there was still hope. She barely knew the other guy.
In that moment, my phone vibrated with an incoming text, and I quickly picked it up.
Meet The Author
Julianne MacLean is a USA Today bestselling author of over twenty historical romance novels, including The Highlander Trilogy with St. Martin's Press and her popular Pembroke Palace Series with Avon/Harper Collins. She also writes contemporary mainstream fiction, and her 2011 release THE COLOR OF HEAVEN was a digital bestseller. She is a three-time RITA finalist, and has won numerous awards, including the Booksellers' Best Award, the Book Buyers Best Award, and a Reviewers' Choice Award from Romantic Times for Best Regency Historical of 2005. She has a degree in English Literature from the University of King’s College in Halifax, and a degree in Business Administration from Acadia University. She lives in Nova Scotia with her husband and daughter, and she is a dedicated member of Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada.
Other Books In The Color Of Heaven Series:
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