Book Title: Light Falls Away
Author: Teegan Loy
Publisher: Rotten Girl Press
Cover Artist: Me (Rotten Girl)
Release Date: May 2, 2022
Genre: M/M Paranormal Romance
Tropes: Friends to lovers, Coming of Age
Themes: Finding your place in the world
Length: 84 534 words/ 304 pages
It is a standalone story and does not end on a cliffhanger.
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When the Fallen is the One to Rise
Blurb
Growing up in Evermore, Echo always knew he didn’t belong with the angels. He’d come here as an infant and grown up as the only child in a city that never aged. Now as an adult, his wings are turning black, so he is being sent down to the human world to experience life to try and stop his decline.
Before Echo can prepare to leave, things go horribly wrong. In a frantic effort to save his life, his memory is replaced with another’s and he is left on his own to navigate in a world where, once again, he feels he doesn’t belong.
Slowly Echo makes friends and falls in love in this new place, but he still has a nagging feeling that he doesn’t quite fit. Memories of people he doesn’t know invade his thoughts until he feels he’s going crazy. Things deteriorate until Echo is sure he’ll never find his happily ever after.
After walking down five flights of stairs, Echo was pleasantly surprised to find out that the apartment was located a few floors above a coffee shop. No wonder he’d smelled fresh coffee. The shop was busy but he spotted an empty table in the back and hastily dumped his stuff before he ordered.
His order rolled off his tongue and his stomach rumbled. The young woman who waited on him chatted with him and smiled when she handed him his coffee.
“I’ll bring your sandwich out when it’s ready,” she said.
“Thank you,” he answered and rushed back to his table. While he waited for his food, he opened the folder and started to read.
A few sentences in and Echo began to remember. He’d been on a shitty flight last night that took him from the warmth of Phoenix, Arizona, to the chilly cold of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The flight had been a horrible ordeal with turbulence and motion sickness that refused to let go even after he’d taken several pills. A child screamed the entire flight, and when they landed, everyone wanted off, which didn’t happen because the door was frozen shut.
It had taken another thirty minutes before they got the door open. To make matters worse, the airline had lost his luggage. They’d promised to find it and deliver it to him, but he hadn’t been hopeful. He’d had to wait for a ride because apparently everyone had landed at the same time and took all the available transportation. Walking had been out of the question.
When he’d finally secured a ride, his driver let him off two blocks too soon. Echo hadn’t realized it until the guy had pulled away, leaving him in a dark, unfamiliar neighborhood, fighting the bitter cold that bit his face and made him feel like his skin was bleeding.
It had taken him twenty minutes to find the correct door to get up to the apartment. Another ten minutes was spent trying to open the dumb door because Echo couldn’t find his keys and his fingers were frozen. When he’d finally managed to open the door, the world was still spinning from the horrible plane ride, and he’d stumbled into the apartment and passed out in the first bed he’d found.
More memories flooded his mind and he remembered why he was here. Echo’s last remaining relative in his fucked-up family had passed away, and oddly enough, his uncle had left Echo his business called Urban Joe’s.
Oh.
His uncle left him a coffee shop. He spun the coffee mug, and sure enough, the logo read Urban Joe’s Coffeehouse. In the folder was a copy of Joe’s will and some other legal documents that Echo would need to look over later. He also found a card with a lawyer’s name and phone number printed on it.
Echo shifted in his seat and glanced around the coffee shop. The walls were filled with polaroid pictures of people, clothes-pinned to ropes that crisscrossed the walls. The ceiling featured shiny ductwork and pipes that had strands of single lightbulbs hanging at various lengths.
Along with the photos on the walls, there were framed tickets from concerts and menus from coffee shops located in different parts of the world. Several maps were framed with pins sticking in them. Echo wondered if his uncle had visited all the spots and rocked out to the bands.
He felt weird and disconnected from everything. Echo didn’t even know his uncle. Once when his dad had way too much to drink, he’d talked about Uncle Joe. They’d had a major fight when Joe had left for college and had never talked again. Not even when Echo’s grandparents had passed away in an awful car accident. Echo didn’t ask what the fight was about, and truthfully, he didn’t care.
The only contact Echo had ever had with Joe was when he’d graduated from high school. Echo’s dad had disappeared on a month-long bender and Joe had shown up to support him. Joe told him he was there because someone in the goddamn world needed to be there for Echo.
When Echo’s dad had overdosed, he’d received a card from his uncle. All it said was sorry, but I won’t be at the funeral. I couldn’t stand the guy. If you need anything, you’re welcome to contact me anytime.
If Echo was totally honest, he hadn’t liked his dad either. He was pretty sure the feeling had been mutual.
When she’s not writing, Teegan Loy can be found listening to Kpop, working on her artwork, and creating junk journals.
She’s a huge hockey and tennis fan, loves having coffee with friends, and enjoys attending concerts.
Always on the go, she is able to gather countless ideas for new stories through her travels. Life is best lived through experiences.
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