A ghost at home

Author Lisa Schroeder has a chock-full-of-ARC giveaway happening and has come up with an impressive number of ways to enter. One is to post a shout out. Another is to take an unusual photo of one of her books. You get another chance to win if you give her permission to use your photo.

I decided to pair I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME with this little painted cottage, because her tale is about a girl who doesn't want to leave her home after she discovers the ghost of her boyfriend is hanging around. I was amazed how much I was moved by this book, because it isn't written in traditional format and I love to be lost in long, rich tales. This is free verse so the story is quite lean, but Lisa has managed to pack it full of emotion and tension.

Me, being me, I wasn't satisfied with one photo. Lisa had mentioned putting a pet in a picture. I am pet-free at the moment, so I chose this little lamb, who once accompanied me to scary surgery. I thought Ava, who lost her Jackson and is sure it's her fault he died, needed the lamb, just like me. Ava says:

All I needed

was Jackson.

I wish all he needed

was me.

Here is an excerpt after she finally goes out with a friend:

I wave

and smile

like everything's fine,

while inside I'm freaking out

because I don't know

if he's waiting for me

on the other side

of that door.

Lisa Schroeder's contest is here. In the archives of her blog is a wonderful anecdote about a teenager who never finished reading a book until she discovered I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME in a library. It's a story to warm any writer's heart and send her back to the keyboard.