I made a mistake last year when I released Of Things Not Seen: A Ghost’s Memoir, Book 3. It’s the subtitle and the “Book 3” part that is misleading.
Kind of. It is Book 3 in the series and features Jesus, the secondary character from Shuffled Off and To Be a Fool. It also overlaps with the events of To Be a Fool and follows Jesus from the time he leaves at the end of part one, until the time he returns at the end of the book.
So it is Book 3, but it also stands alone. If you haven’t read any of my first-person ghost books, you can pick it up and read it, just fine. If you’ve only read Shuffled Off, it will definitely work for you. It stands alone and is part of the series.
Looking back, I can see how this happened. 2016 was too difficult a year to get a book out and as I got the wheels going again on releases, I really had to get this book out. Because it was very hard to write and that had led to procrastination for the whole lifetime of the book and I had to get it out to get my releases back on track. I delayed starting the book because it intimidated me (which, btw, is not a bad thing at all, just uncomfortable). I delayed finishing it because of the amount of research needed. And then things got tough and I didn’t have time.
That said, story-wise, I think this is one of my best books. It weaves Jesus’s tumultuous past as a child on the streets of Mexico City, with his present as a ghost attending to the dying nun that saved his life. It’s a book about faith, as Jesus suffers a major crisis of faith while at the same time falling in love.
(And yes, I totally get that a guy named “Jesus” that just happens to be a Catholic ghost having a crisis of faith is… well, I guess that depends on your point of view, but I will say it was fun to write)
If you’ve read both Shuffled Off and To Be a Fool and want another JJ book, well, I feel you. I have a few more swimming in my head, but I ask you to try this one. At the end, you’ll know Jesus very well and there is a lot to learn from his journey and he’s the kind of character you’ll root for, just like JJ.
So, you might be asking why I’m babbling about this now. It’s mostly because I wanted to be clear about this and because I’m giving away some signed paperbacks of Of Things Not Seen. If you are interested, go enter now, spread the word, check out Jesus’s adventure while he has a crisis of faith and falls in love.
The first few chapters of the book are here on the website, so you can start reading right now!
