Hell Within Walking Distance
By Liza O’Connor
A Love Story
With Paranormal Events
This story takes place in 1980, when Hell’s Kitchen remained a dangerous place. As a young woman working in Manhattan, I was shocked how one block could make such a huge difference in your likelihood to survive. I traveled to NYC by train, so I had no option but to walk once I arrived at Penn Station. What I quickly learned was to stay far away from Hell’s Kitchen, for even in the early mornings it was NOT SAFE.
Blurb
Cara faints on a subway and dreams that she wakes in the arms of an adoring husband. This charming, caring man soon claims her heart.
When she reawakens to her miserable life, the memory of her dream life gives her the courage to escape her tormentor. Newly discovered friends help her disappear by placing her in the household of a wealthy philanthropist who is determined to pull his beloved wife out of her coma.
When Cara realizes the philanthropist is her dream husband, she concludes she is to blame for his wife’s coma. Cara is determined to do whatever it takes to return his wife’s soul to her body, even if it kills her.
Excerpt
Cara stood at a crossroad. To her right, bleak tenement buildings towered over her. Graffiti-covered plywood nailed across the doors and broken out windows all screamed abandonment and heightened her sense of danger.
A few rusted car carcasses, stripped bare to their frames, remained on the sides of the street, blackened from fire. They looked as if giant dragons had attacked and eaten all but their iron bones: dragons that nested in the buildings, hiding in those gapping black windowless holes; dragons waiting for their next meal to walk down the road.
“Well?” Damon asked in a terse, annoyed tone that silently screamed once again that she wasn’t meeting expectations. “You do know how to get back to civilization, I hope.”
Cara looked to her left. This street possessed signs of life, but dangerous life. Predators lurked in the shadows. Sleeping neon signs hung from the buildings, quiet now, but later they would scream in bright blinking lights their messages: Sexy Girls…All Nude…Magical Massages.
While the signs presently slept, in the dark shadows of the doors and alleys she could see men huddled in nefarious business transactions. Cars crawled up and down the street while tired, drained women greeted them with forced smiles.
“We’re going to miss the R,” Damon complained, and without waiting for her to decide, he headed up the left road, his long legs forcing her to run to keep up.
“We’d better make the train, or I’m going to be most put out.”
She appreciated the quick, angry pace he set. When tourists, loaded with packages and money, wandered into the dens of hungry predators, missing a damn train was the least of their worries. Several of the men in the shadows watched her like wolves sighting deer as she trotted behind Damon. When they reached the end of the street, he stopped.
“Well?”
She stared at their choices. Nothing looked familiar. Either everything had changed since she was last here or… Fear paralyzed her. What if they were completely off course, moving away from the train station rather than toward it?
About the Author
Liza O’Connor has been writing books for most of her life. Only for the first ten years she didn’t show them to anyone. Then she joined a group called the Rom-critters and her she learned how to make her stories better.
Liza has published over 50+ books
Liza writes fiction, but all her books have a bit of her life in them. As strange as it sounds, Hell Within Walking Distance has much of her life within the story.
Liza is trying to publish a book a month, so more of her books can be published and read. Most of these books were written in her most creative years. But she is still writing new books as well. It just takes longer to write a new book, rather than to improve an already written book from her backlog.
She also writes in many genres, including: Historical and Contemporary Romance, Sci-Fi, Paranormal, Modern Western, Fantasy, Ghost stories, Humor, and more.
For a full listing, check out the back pages of one of her current year’s books.
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