Better Dead

November 15, 2017
In this first installment of the B&B Spirits series, the ghost of a playboy husband haunts a recent Louisiana widow who strikes a deal to use the haunting to increase business--but at what cost?Holly Davis' good-for-nothing husband of 10 years passes away before she can leave him. When Burl returns to Holly's ancestral home, Holly Grove, she's more than a little irritated. What right does he have to hang around post-mortem when the whole town of Delta Ridge knows he wasn't there for her in life? But Holly Grove's been struggling ever since Holly started converting it to a B&B three years ago, and she wonders if a ghostly presence might supply the added oomph the place needs to put it on the map. As in life, of course, Burl has his own agenda. He needs Holly's help to pass on to his heavenly home by resolving what he couldn't before his untimely death. Though Burl's vague on details, Holly, who's in no place to negotiate, agrees to help so long as Burl can help make Holly Grove's haunting a success. Though it seems the two might finally have worked out an arrangement that benefits them both, a wrench is promptly thrown in the works. The wrench has a name: Jake McCann, a handsome writer filling in at the Gazette. Jake, whose relationship with Holly goes back to the days before Burl, offers her a deal: free ads in the Gazette in return for free housing at Holly Grove. Holly isn't as suspicious as she should be considering that Jake wants to stay at Holly Grove to bust a drug ring that was operating out of the house before Burl's demise. Will Burl's pre-death antics get Holly in trouble with Jake, the guy she can't let go, or will she find a way to send Burl to his heavenly reward while getting her reward on Earth?Banter and battling guide the plot, which is never as important as the leads' cutting interactions and the promise of romance.

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