First published 2026
Rusty Wilson steps into gunfire at a Colorado diner, saving strangers but taking a fatal bullet on the eve of his sixtieth birthday. The mechanic awakens not in death but in a strange realm between worlds. Here he must review six decades marked by grief, family rifts, and missed opportunities. Visitors from his past arrive to guide him through what might have been. He sees the alternate path where he pursued the woman he loved from a distance. He uncovers a family secret that explains the estrangements that defined his years. The limbo presents Rusty with an impossible choice. He can accept the flawed life he actually lived, filled with disappointment and broken relationships. Or he can claim the what-if existence that still beckons. As Rusty weighs these parallel lives, he grapples with the question that defines us all: what truly makes existence meaningful?
Genres: drama, literary-fiction, speculative-fiction, contemporary, adult-fiction, magical-realism
Vibes: contemplative, emotionally-resonant, introspective, melancholic, thought-provoking
Tropes: life-review, parallel-lives, redemption-arc, what-if-scenario
Setting: Colorado, Colorado diner
317 pages · Paperback · Lake Union Publishing
Content warnings: death