Guest Post, Excerpt and Giveaways The Final Omen (Second Sight #4) by Heather Topham Wood

Published: November 9th, 2013

Description:

Psychic Kate Edwards had seen her death in a premonition. She was given the opportunity to stop her murder from happening and finally reconnect with her love Detective Jared Corbett. However, fate had different ideas…

Kate finds herself trapped between life and death. Her only companion is Rose Corbett, Jared’s long dead mother. Rose offers answers to many of Kate’s long-awaited questions and alludes to what the future could hold. However, before Kate can finally be happy, she must complete a seemingly impossible task: save Jared from his own tragic fate.

The Final Omen concludes the thrilling Second Sight series.

New Adult Paranormal Romance-Ages 17+ due to language and sexual situations.

GUEST POST

How to Avoid Epic Book Fails 

The Final Omen: Second Sight Book Four was the one for me—the book that would have me banging my head against the walls and questioning why I ever decided to print my stories for the world to see. Every possible book related catastrophe has plagued me since I began writing the novel and I hope to share some of my insight to prevent the same fate from befalling other writers. 

I’ve got a MacBook now, it’s all good… 

After my Windows computer went wonky on me and contracted some sort of zombie virus, I decided to save up my pennies and upgrade to a MacBook. The Apple brand gave me a fall sense of security, as if nothing ever bad could happen to my livelihood if I used a MacBook. So very freaking wrong! One hard drive crash later, I was left scrambling to try and find a data recovery firm who could get my precious novel off of the MacBook. When it didn’t work, I was forced to work off of a partial copy I had emailed myself a month earlier. This disaster led me to discover the wonders of Dropbox: an online document storage system that every writer should have installed on their computer. 

My editor is the shizzel, I can’t wait to hear her thoughts on my final book… 

A month past my expected publication date, I had finally managed to recreate The Final Omen as best to my ability as I could. I was all set to send my manuscript to my editor when all of a sudden her email address isn’t working. I go to her Elance page and it’s gone. No!!!! Since we only communicated via email, I had no way to track her down. This meant I had to start over with a completely new editor who hadn’t read or worked on the three previous books in the series. My point is that don’t assume anything. In hindsight, I should’ve worked out the editing details way in advance. 

I can do it all on my own! I don’t need any help!

I bit off way more than I could chew with The Final Omen. I lost a month’s worth of work and tried to cut corners to get the book out on time. It was a bad call on my part and I finally had to take a step back and ask for help. Since my original cover art was lost on my computer, I tried to redo the cover using a small file I saved online. It was frustrating and time-consuming and I finally scraped it altogether and hired a cover artist. The end result? A cover that I love! I’m not a graphic artist or a formatter and I learned that although doing these things myself could save a few bucks, it’s not worth the headache. 

When you’re a writer, it’s a constant learning experience. As crazed as I may have been because of these issues, I’m sort of glad they happened. It’ll make the process of publishing my next novel much easier. 

EXCERPT:

Just breathe, Kate…

Hysteria bubbled up inside of Kate Edwards as she realized her ridiculous line of thinking. She couldn’t breathe. Because she was dead, and the dead didn’t need to breathe.

Grasping the edge of the kitchen countertop for support, she used her free hand to touch the side of her face. She needed assurances of the corporeality of her body. Her flesh felt real. Taking a quick inventory of the rest of her body, she saw the same arms and legs, the same ten pounds she’d been trying to lose.

Her head snapped up and Rose Corbett was still standing there, staring at Kate with a mix of emotions she couldn’t discern. Anguish floored her again as she took in Rose’s raven colored hair, the same hair of her son, Jared. The son Kate craved with her entire being. The one she’d told she loved before she died. She’d abandoned him like his parents had done. How many losses did he need to accumulate until he broke apart completely?

They were in the Edwards’ home or some alternate version of it. Minutes ago, or possibly longer since she was unsure if time worked the same, she’d been murdered by an insane masked intruder in her own home. The irony was she had a premonition of her murder before it happened. Details had changed, but the final act remained the same—she ended up in a puddle of blood on the floor, butchered, her ex-boyfriend Jared too late to revive her. 

When she came to in the dining room, nary a cut in sight, she assumed it was another premonition. Her assumption being the psychic visions were once again trying to protect her. A flash of black hair in the kitchen made her tremble with relief. Jared was there! She’d confess everything to him, tell him about her premonitions, and how she feared someone wanted her dead. He’d protected her in the past and he’d do it again. Instead, Rose had stepped towards Kate, saying her name.

“Why?” Kate demanded. “What was the point of it all? Why did I have the premonitions if I was going to die no matter what I did?”

A security system and self-defense training hadn’t stopped her attack. Investigating her future murder with fellow psychic Declan Brayden hadn’t unmasked her killer. Months of knowing she could die, but foolishly believing her circumstances weren’t hopeless.

“Kate, I…” Rose began.

 “You can’t…I can’t hear you say it. Because when you say the words, it’ll be real and I’ll be forced to accept that it’s all over.” She took a long minute to study Rose, taking in her thick dark eyelashes and her glossy midnight black hair, cascading in waves to her waistline. She was exquisite, unearthly beautiful in a yellow sundress. She didn’t look much older than Kate’s twenty-two. It was as if Rose was stuck in time, destined to remain the same age she was at the time of her death. “Is this my purgatory? Being stuck inside my house and forced to stare at a spitting image of him?”

The first book in the series First Visions will be on sale in November for 99 cents

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About the author:

Heather Topham Wood’s obsession with novels began in childhood while growing up in a shore town in New Jersey. Writing since her teens, she recently returned to penning novels after a successful career as a freelance writer. In 2012, she published the first two novels in her Second Sight series: First Visions and New Revelations.

Heather graduated from the College of New Jersey in 2005 and holds a bachelor's degree in English. Her freelance work has appeared in publications such as USA Today, Livestrong.com, Outlook by the Bay and Step in Style magazine. She resides in Trenton, New Jersey with her husband and two sons. Besides writing, Heather is a pop culture fanatic and has an obsession with supernatural novels and TV shows.

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