Elly would give anything to have her life resemble a Hallmark movie.
She longs for her happily-ever-after: a proposal by her boyfriend, a big raise at the perfect job, and a fat inheritance from her great-aunt.
Instead, she finds herself alone, broke, and sorting through a storage unit filled with worthless junk.
But life can change in an instant. When Elly opens a decade-old envelope addressed to her, she discovers it contains an astonishing monetary gift. Elly's prospects soar. Then she learns she can't cash the long-expired check. What's more, she's never heard of her benefactor: a woman who claims the money is honoring a long-ago favor by Elly's grandmother.
Hoping to alleviate her financial straits and find a connection to her long-deceased family, Elly embarks on a search for the mystery woman.
Trouble is, she doesn't know if chasing this particular rainbow will result in a pot of gold--or yet another crushing disappointment.
This was my entry for the Open Novella Contest. I made it through the first two rounds, but didn't finish to qualify for the final round.
It's also the prequel to "The Marvels of Prairie Creek." :D
38 Kapitel Abgeschlossene Geschichte Erwachseneninhalt
38 Kapitel
Abgeschlossene Geschichte
Erwachseneninhalt
GROUNDHOG DAY mixed with SIXTEEN CANDLES and a splash of DOCTOR WHO. A boy forever reincarnated as himself meets his soulmate for the 200th time, but can she solve the puzzle and break the curse to make herself his last?
*****
Martha Beckett's life is over, or so it feels after her father moves her from California to Illinois in the middle of her junior year of high school. But on her first day in her new school, she finds a peculiar boy waiting for her. James is cute, friendly, and obviously too good to be true. Her skepticism proves justified after he confides in her his secret: after he dies, he is reincarnated as himself to live his life again and again and again...
Retaining all knowledge and skill acquired in his previous lives and with a general understanding of future events, James is effectively superhuman. And while Martha enjoys the inherent perks of associating with such a boy, she comes to learn of the despair and exhaustion underneath it all. With no permanent consequence or hope of release, James struggles to stave off nihilism with Martha his one tether to humanity.
FOR THOSE WHO DON'T BELIEVE IN LOVE SONGS is, in fact, a love story, albeit a complicated one. Can Martha reconcile with the fact that James has loved hundreds of other Marthas before her and will most likely love hundreds thereafter? Is James' choice to engage and confide in Martha irresponsible and selfish? Would she be better off living her life unaware of the cosmic freak who has loved her for millennia?
[[Winner of Watty's 2020 in Literary Fiction]]
Content and/or Trigger Warning: brief sexuality, brief violence, mild language, brief focus on suicide.
cover by @JELyrica