Title: Healing Grace
Author: Lisa J Lickel
Genre: Paranormal
Book Blurb:
Grace Runyon has a secret.
Just like her aunt, and her grandmother before her, she could fix anyone with a touch, at a cost she never questioned -- until her husband developed cancer and died. Believing no one would forgive her for not being able to save him, Grace runs from the life she knew, hoping even God wouldn't find her in a little out-of-the-way town in Michigan. It takes a very sick man and his little boy to help her face her past, accept who she is and battle her way back to redemption. Just when she and Ted begin to hope for the future, he relapses. Grace faces the ultimate choice once again: Trust God to work through her precious gift, or let a terminally ill man die. What if the price is more than she can pay?
Excerpt:
Grace Runyon paused in the doorway of the little house. She listened to the real estate agent drive away with a little zip and a crunch of the gravel drive and felt a moment’s panic.
“Not buyer’s remorse at this stage of the game, my good woman.” She marched inside, carrying two overloaded paper bags of supplies from the convenience mart. “And stop talking to yourself.”
The real estate lady had checked the lights to make sure the local electric company in tiny East Bay, Michigan had “turned her on”—her words. Grace’s responding chuckle came out like a zebra snort, one that smelled lion and was trying to warn the herd.
“You’ll be all right,” the plump, business-like woman reassured her before she left. “It’s a ways out of town, but not too far, and the neighbors are good people.” She looked down at the drive and stirred some gravel with her brown patent pump. “In fact, this place used to belong to one of the brothers next door.”
She pressed a card into Grace’s limp hand. “Now, here’s my card. You just call any time.”
One of the brothers? Not information pertinent to the deed, she hoped.
Grace had merely glanced at the place before signing the papers yesterday. “The house hasn’t been opened in a number of months. The last occupant was ill,” the agent said. “I can give you the name of a good cleaning crew.”
“A little dirt doesn’t scare me. I can handle it,” she’d blithely replied.
Today, in the sparse rays of early spring through fly-specked windows, she wondered if she’d been a little hasty. The dusty, braided rug did not look like an inviting place to set down the sacks she toted in from her green Subaru.
Deep, calming breaths read the story of the place: sickness and neglect hovered almost tangibly. Cobwebs, glittering dust motes. Dangerously lopsided drapes.
A lonely pile of toys, a car and some plastic figures she didn’t recognize huddled beneath a cobwebby weight bench in the corner near the open stairway.
She opened one of the packages of cheap paper towels she’d purchased and used one to gingerly swipe away attached spider webs. With a grimace she quickly thrust the wad into a trash bag and cinched it with a zip tie. You wish it was that easy to erase your past, don’t you? Created a web of a mess. Ran—right from the funeral. Who’s left to clean up after you?
A good night’s sleep will do wonders.
By the time the sun faded, Grace had exhausted herself. Scrubbing the kitchen and a cubby of a room behind it she’d claim for her own took buckets of hot water and a pair of neon-yellow rubber gloves, but at least she’d have a clean spot to lay her mattress and sleeping bag. Too tired to eat, she’d stretched herself out and groaned. Thirty-five-year-olds should not be this out of shape.
The room seemed to whirl in a nauseating kaleidoscopic frenzy. No! She wasn’t ready to think about it. Not yet. When she focused again, she stood in bright daylight, looking down into the newly dug hole. Without looking up she knew they were there, standing around her and staring, accusing.
“Your fault! You let this happen! You let him die when you should have saved him!”
“I wanted to!” God knows she wanted to save Jonathan. “He was the one—he told me not to try again.” At first, she’d tried to help. Of course she did. He was all she had left. Everyone needed him. Everyone loved him. But it had hurt so much when she touched him. She hadn’t complained, but after that second time when they had to revive her in the ER, shocked out of her ability to feel anything, Jonathan made her go home. Alone. She’d been more afraid of that than the pain.
She drifted into the nightmare again. Jonathan’s father had his back to her. As she watched, they all, one by one, turned their backs until only Lena, her best friend, was left. “Please, Lena, not you too!”
Running away over the clipped grass of the cemetery seemed the smartest thing she could do. Run, run! Why couldn’t she get anywhere? Her high heels stuck in the lawn and she couldn’t pull free.
Grace reached automatically for the warmth that was no longer there anchoring the other side of the bed. She forced her eyes open against the sleep-tears that nearly welded them shut. The blackness of the room calmed her frantic breathing. She lay still a moment, stars from smacking her head against the wooden floor buzzing like angry lightning bugs. She pushed the tangled sleeping bag from her legs and got to her knees, willing her legs to hold her, her ankles to be strong. She stood. So much for sleep tonight, the first in her new home. If she had to be alone now, at least it was amongst strangers who didn’t know what she’d done.
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/healing-grace-lisa-j-lickel/1100248198?ean=9780990428190
What’s your favorite activity to shake off the winter doldrums?
Staying Cozy by the Fire
Here in in the country of Wisconsin’s Driftless area, we heat our new home primarily with wood fire. We have two woodburners, both with windows to watch the flames dance. When the wind is howling, not much is better than curling up in the rocking chair with hot tea in front of the fire, mesmerized by the flames, feeding it, feeling the heat generated and held in the soapstone box, seeping into the air around us and wafting up the open staircase. I have the best of two worlds to distract me from writing: the fire on one side, and turning my head to watch the antics of the birds on the other side of the window.
Why is your featured book a cure for the winter blues?
Healing Grace: It’s already dark outside, and the wind is howling, why not curl up with a mystery illness and an even more miraculous ability to heal? But at what cost? How far would you go to save the life of the one you love… There’s light over there.
Giveaway –
One lucky reader will win a $35 Amazon gift card
Open internationally.
Runs March 1 – 31, 2024
Drawing will be held on April 1, 2024.
Author Biography:
Lisa Lickel writes from the peaceful rolling hills of Wisconsin’s driftless area. A multi-published and award-winning novelist, she also writes short stories and radio theater, articles, is an avid book reviewer, blogger, and freelance editor. She loves books, collects dragons, and encouraging authors. She’s a member of the Wisconsin Writers Association, the Chicago Writers Association, and Assistant Director and book coach for Novel-In-Progress Bookcamp and Writing Retreat, Inc. She manages the Wisconsin Writers Association Press and edits Creative Wisconsin magazine. Lisa and her husband enjoy gardening, travel, spending time with their family. They have two grown sons, daughters-in-law, and lots of adorable grandchildren.
Social Media Links:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lisalickel