Reviewed by Tammy

TITLE: Whirlwind        

SERIES: Southern Spirits, #8

AUTHOR: Bailey Bradford

PUBLISHER: Pride Publishing

LENGTH: 118 Pages

RELEASE DATE: September 28, 2015

BLURB:

Dying sucks, but the afterlife is one hot place to be.

Stefan wasn’t physically perfect in life, and his search for someone to love him resulted in his murder. Now he’s been dead for years, and he’s lonelier than he ever was when he was alive. His physical problems might have vanished when his body ceased to live, but his spirit has to deal with the memories of the past.

Jordan and Gideon are friends who share eager guys when they can find them, but being in a war zone hasn’t allowed for that to happen often. One roadside stop puts an end to their lives. Jordan and Gideon are at a loss to understand what happens to them, why they stay behind when others go up into the light. Searching for answers, they head to Jordan’s hometown—McKinton, Texas—but a hell of a lot of things have changed in the decade and a half since Jordan left.

Namely, the arrival of one wicked, joyful spirit named Stefan.

REVIEW:

When he was born Stefan Bausch had the cord wrapped around his neck and as a result he was what is called developmentally slow. Stefan was always happy and he was in love with his best friend but he knew that Darren didn’t feel the same for him. All Stefan wanted was someone to love him and he looked in the absolute worst place for it, a jock who only used him for sex and then he murdered Stefan so no-one would find out they’d had sex.

Now, Stefan is a spirit and he “lives” in McKinton with his brother Lee and Darren (from Aftermath) his partner and Stefan’s best friend when he as alive. Lee and Darren have made their spare room into Stefan’s bedroom. Stefan’s physical and mental issues vanished with his death but he is lonelier than he has ever been. Unfortunately, or fortunately there aren’t any spirits that interest Stefan that live in or around McKinton. When Stefan first met Conner, Conner nicknamed him Whirlwind, because he could stay still for more than two seconds. Even Conner and Ro (from Ascension) also spirits are madly in love with each other even though they are his best friends it’s just not the same. Stefan has fallen into a funk and he doesn’t know how to pull himself out of it.

Jordan Dempsey and Gideon Crosby have been best friends since they met when they were both in boot camp. Neither realised the other was gay until Gideon walk in on Jordan and another Marine! From then on whenever there as a chance they would share a man although they never actually did anything with each other. Jordan and Gideon were killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. When they realise that they’re dead but they didn’t shoot into the sky like the rest of their platoon did, they decide to go back to McKinton, the little town Jordan grew up in but couldn’t wait to leave.

The first “person” they meet is Conner, nobody is sure why but every time a person dies and their spirit stays on the earthly plane near McKinton Conner gets a tugging feeling inside and he is pulled to where the new spirits are. After Conner greeted them, he told them a little about what being a spirit was about the left them to their own devices. They were at the cemetery to see Jordan’s mother as she was at Jordan’s funeral when they see another spirit touching her. Jordan sees red and crash tackles the other spirit, then he’s surprised because the other spirit curls in on himself and starts to cry!

And this is how Jordan, Gideon and Stefan first meet.

It takes a lot of fighting, talking and loving for the three of them to come to terms with the fact that not only are they dead but, they all have a lot of issues, some big, some small to work through before they can be happy together forever in their afterlife! I must say I’m very sorry to have finished the Southern Spirit series. Bailey has a way of sucking you into her story’s and that why I love to read her books!!

RATING:        

BUY LINKS:

Pride Publishing

Amazon

ARe