NBtM Virtual Book Tour and Giveaway: Oh Good Now This by Susan Merson

Welcome to my stop on the NBtM virtual book tour for Oh Good Now This by Susan Merson. This book tour was organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. On my stop, I have an excerpt from the book as well as a spooky guest post from the author. There's also the tour wide giveaway for a chance to win a $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card. Be sure to check out the other stops on the tour for more content. Enjoy!

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Title: Oh Good Now This

Author: Susan Merson

Publisher: BooksGoSocial

Publication Date: February 1st 2021

Print Length: 274 pages

Genre: Women's Literary Fiction

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Starting over is hard enough but when ghosts decide to hitch a ride into the future—things can get complicated.

Widowed Vivi leaves California for a new start back east landing in a college town near her old friend Vikram, now the local ‘spiritual’ leader and disappointing lover. But the two have old business which leads them to uncovering the ghosts they conjured long before and the ones that are haunting them now. Vivi reclaims her life, -- with the help of a couple different dimensions-- saying hi to the ghosts who choose to hang around, and growing a new garden and a new life.

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Half Price Books * IndieBound * Kobo

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EXCERPT:

The night before she left LA, Vivi went out to the garden. She walked from the butterfly bush she planted when she got the garden show on cable tv, to the poinsettia tree that grew despite itself after Vivi left the Christmas plant discarded near the mulch pile. She moved from corner to corner, touching the leaves, murmuring that she had no choice, that she couldn’t take the entire garden with her wherever she was going and that she was grateful for the beauty that the garden had shared with her. The Dutch hornpipe was in bloom. That huge bulbous balloon of a flower was all puffed up and ready to burst into an elephant ear of color, reflecting all sound, all smell within its radius. It was an outrageous creation. It dripped like flesh when it opened, had no smell of its own, but instead an ineffable ugly wisdom that affirmed the truth that “as you sow, so shall you reap”. It was an extraordinary product of the garden and Vivi respected it, admiring how it took over the fence and nearby trellis with its ganglia.

That was the thing about California. Things grew. And Vivi had thought they would grow, too. She and Jake. They would grow together, like slices of grafted root trees, they would grow strong in one tall ascension. She had been sure that they could make it. But she had to admit, they never did.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Susan Merson began her career as an actress on and off Broadway, in television and film. Co-founding the LA Writers Bloc in 1985 with award winning writer Jane Anderson, she has mentored writers through the Bloc and through her private and university classes in Playwriting, Life Stories, Writing as a Spiritual Practice, Tarot for Writers and the popular VOICING Series. Her short fiction has been featured in The Jew in America, Nice Jewish Girls (Penguin), The Worcester Review, the Chicken Soup series and several other online platforms. As a playwright, her award-winning plays have been performed internationally, including her 8 solo plays featured and used as example in YOUR NAME HERE: An Actor Writers Guide to Solo Performance. (Amazon). Long form fiction available on Amazon is her award-winning blog, WHEN THEY GO AND YOU DO NOT and her first novel DREAMING IN DAYLIGHT. OH GOOD NOW THIS, her newest novel launches 12/1/20. She is a tarot reader and counselor, a maker of quilts, clothing and whimsy. Susan is a humble mother and a proud resident of New York City.

Susan Merson has also done a series of five videos regarding the use of Tarot for writers. For more information, visit her website.

Website * Amazon * Facebook * Goodreads

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GUEST POST:

- Have you ever had a ghostly encounter?

“THINGS ARE SELDOM WHAT THEY SEEM
SKIM MILK MASQUERADES AS CREAM…….”
LYRIC FROM GILBERT AND SULLIVAN

Um, yes. Ghosts.

Protoplasm? Slime corridors? Shadows against bright walls? Not really.

But, sensing presence, getting dream visits, stubborn symbols, letters, numbers showing up over and over again? Now, that is a yes.

In fact, the ghostly encounter I describe in OH GOOD NOW THIS, where the ghost of Vivi’s unborn baby, may have come from my own daughters tough and abiding arrival on the planet, six weeks early, ready or not, here she comes!

She was adopted at birth and I was right there when she emerged from her birth mama at 11:03 PM. Tiny at 3 lbs, 4 oz she was already indomitable and though we reluctantly left her to the sweet care of the night nurses and baby incubator, we knew a special one had just come down to the planet. Apparently, we were not alone in that knowledge.

When my husband and I got home and closed our eyes around 2 AM, we slept lightly, listening for any word from the hospital. We were easily awakened by the ringing phone. An old woman’s voice was on the other end of the line. This was startling on its own but when the old woman explained that she was looking for her mother and asked for my daughter by the new name we had just bestowed upon her a few hours earlier, we were clearly shaken.

She explained that she was oh so very old and was about to die but knew that her own mother was coming down to meet her and she begged us to let her talk to her. My husband, hands trembling, handed me the phone and I cooed and calmed the old woman, and sent love and blessings to her, but I could not, of course, help her talk to the brand new person who had just entered the planet. She sighed deeply, wept quietly and hung up the phone.

I looked at my husband to confirm what we had just experienced. And my mother, who was visiting for the welcoming of our new child, was also up and standing by our bed, listening in. We all hugged, blessed the beautifully connected soul, who had just come in to our care and shook our heads as we headed back to bed.

When my child came home and I held her in my arms, almost constantly those first few months, she had yet to arrive really. She was so early to the planet, she had still to make peace with her stunning entrance. She slept in my arms, became a part of my body, until almost exactly the six weeks until her scheduled due date. Before that she was neither here nor there. Floating in my arms, securing herself to the planet and conversing with what spirits from what dimensions, I cannot say.

It’s been thirty years since her birth and she has emerged as a beautiful and strong, young woman struggling into womanhood as only the best ones do.

Both my mother and my husband have died, and so cannot confirm the events on the night of her birth so many years ago. They are both resting in peace, I hope. But I do feel their presences. Especially now, as I write this, affirming the ways in which we slip from dimension to dimension through the ever thinning veil.

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GIVEAWAY:

Susan Merson will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter. To increase your chance of winning, leave a comment at a different stop on the tour each day. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway