Release Day Review: My Past, Your Future (Deerbourne Inn) by Gabbi Grey

Reviewed by Valerie

TITLE: My Past, Your Future

SERIES: Deerbourne Inn

AUTHOR: Gabbi Grey

PUBLISHER: The Wild Rose Press

LENGTH: 101 pages

RELEASE DATE: February 24, 2020

BLURB: 

Callum MacLaren, a professor from Scotland, visits Willow Springs, Vermont during the Winter Solstice to study and explore the rich history of St. Joseph’s Cemetery. His encounter with a sexy soldier in a tattered Civil War uniform is a captivating puzzle, and the more he learns, the deeper his attraction.

A hundred and fifty years ago, Elijah Freeman was killed during the Second Battle of Fort Wagner and woke up in Willow Springs, the only home he’d known. Alone, he roams the town, unable to leave or interact with a single soul until an intriguing Scot addresses him. Even stranger, the man can see him, hear him, and touch him–a sizzling caress that leaves Elijah aching for more.

But will Elijah return to his ghostly form when the magic of the solstice fades, or is Callum’s love enough to keep him in the land of the living? 

REVIEW:

My Past, Your Future is a gem. It’s a clever, magical story about two men – one alive, one not so much – who try to bridge the 157 year difference in the time period they each exist, one in the present and the other stuck in the past as the ghost of a Civil War soldier. 

As an African American boy, Elijah escaped slavery in Virginia when his father smuggled him along the Underground Railroad. His father fell ill and died, so he was raised in Willow Springs, Vermont, by an adoptive family.  When he was twenty-three years old, he went to fight for the Union Army in the Civil War. He died at the hands of a Confederate soldier, yet he’s not quite dead. Elijah feels he’s in purgatory – not alive but not in Heaven, either – so he spends every day, more than 57,000 of them, just existing alone in the cemetery in his home town. He’s a ghost – no one can see or hear him: 

     “I’ve been a powerless witness to history – an unwitting and complicit                    bystander.” 

Callum is an academic and historian from Scotland spending a year teaching and researching in Vermont. While he is roaming Elijah’s cemetery in Willow Springs, he sees the ghost, a feat no one else has been able to do in the century and a half Elijah has been stuck between the worlds of the living and the dead. Neither man nor ghost knows how to react. Then they realize Callum can touch Elijah and you can imagine after 157 years, Elijah wants to be touched! (He gets lots of touch.) As they spend more time together, additional changes take place. Is it enough, will it last, or are they doomed to live apart, one alive, one continuing to watch time pass by eternally? 

     “An eternity of walking the earth, not being able to interact and not being           able to leave…” 

I won’t spoil the story, but I will say these lovely men have been kissed by kismet – a predetermined, unavoidable destiny – which describes their circumstances to perfection. 

This low-angst tale is told in third person with a plot that kept me wondering. The novella is well-edited with no loose ends or plot holes, and at around 100 pages, it’s a quick, easy read. My Past, Your Future did not conclude as I imagined it would; it was much better. Elijah and Callum are rewarded with a perfect ending. I hope all authors take note – this is how a happily ever after should be done. I highly recommend this sweet story. 

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

The Wild Rose Press

Amazon