A soldier comes home from Afghanistan with a strange gift — she can see ghosts . How did Deborah Coates ’ encompassing receptive manage to make headway a three - Quran deal with Tor ?
Here ’s howPublishers Marketplacedescribes Coates ’ first Scripture , which convinced Tor to ante up for her whole trilogy :
Deborah Coates ’s WIDE OPEN , in which a woman has one hebdomad of compassionate depart home on her family unit ’s South Dakota spread to figure out her sister ’s slaying — with only the dubious assistant of the ghosts she has been capable to see ever since her near - death trauma in Afghanistan .
We were intrigued by the idea of a soldier who ’s gain ground the ability to see ghosts , and who use this to puzzle out murders . We asked Coates to tell us more , and here ’s what she said :
The book are what I ’d call contemporary rural fantasy novels with a potent urban illusion esthesia . It ’s not a trilogy – each of the three record book will be complete in themselves , but the characters and their relationship will rise over the three books . As well , there will be a few overarching story elements . I think of them like whodunit novels where the master whodunit wraps up in each book , but where the characters ’ stories continue over the class of several novels .
In the first book , WIDE OPEN , Hallie Michaels is a soldier in Afghanistan who ‘ died ’ in a roadside ambush , was revived by medic and can now see ghosts . At the beginning of the novel , she ’s received Son that her sister has conk back in South Dakota and Hallie has come home on a ten - day compassionate leave to attend to her funeral . Though the sheriff has declare it suicide , Hallie ’s convinced this ca n’t be the case and is determined to utilise the brief clock time she has to find out what really happened . Her babe ’s ghost is now keep abreast her and she prevent operate into a untried surrogate sheriff who seems to turn up exactly where he ’s most not wanted .
So what was it about this ms that take in Tor ’s interest ? tell Coates :
If I had to say , I ’d say that Tor like the writing ( they ’ve call them ‘ literary urban phantasy ’ ) , the characters and their ontogenesis over the track of the novel , and the potent sense of station .
Top range of a function : Chris Hondros / Getty Images .
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