AFTERLIFE

Chaz Dominguez is a professional Babysitter in New Orleans, helping to integrate the recently deceased into their new and improved lives. Though Fresh Start has always been the only game in town, resurrection isn't all it's cracked up to be. Nine lives are all a person can get - and a powerful group of desperate, high-level Nine-Timers will stop at nothing to possess the keys to true immortality.

Now the only hope for Chaz and his family - and the human race - lies in the secrets locked away in the mind of Angelique, the beautiful, mysterious Newbie he must protect . . .

Merrie Destefano left a 9-to-5 desk job as a magazine editor to become a full-time novelist and freelance editor. With twenty years' experience in publishing, her background includes editor of Victorian Homes magazine and founding editor of Cottages & Bungalows magazine.

"The fast pacing and skillfully eked out clues keep things moving, for a good read - and a strong first novel." - Locus
"Merrie Destefano storms the world of urban fantasy with AFTERLIFE, breathing new life into the vast genre of the undead. Gritty, poignant, in the tradition of Bladerunner with the nostalgia of New Orleans." - Tosca Lee
"AFTERLIFE is like smoke in the darkness - intriguing and illusive. Merrie Destefano led me on a gritty page-turning journey of life, death and resurrection. I was riveted from the first page to the last and personally can't wait for her next one." - Tracey O'Hara
"AFTERLIFE is a seamless combination of hard-boiled mystery, science-fiction exploration of a future based on cloned existence after death, and a fantasy struggle for the survival of good in an evil world. Merrie Destefano has made a fine start on a promising career." - James Gunn, Science fiction Grand Master