In the Shadows of Death

What would you do if you had an appointment with death? This philosophical novella follows an unnamed protagonist who makes an appointment with Death-personified as a hipster living in an apartment in West Vancouver-and the weeks that follow as she awaits their next meeting, which she knows will be their last. A woman in her mid-sixties, this unnamed "I" has spent her life running from the trauma of her childhood in India. Her father abandoned her mother, who was forced into a second marriage with a man who made her life miserable. As she awaits her turn to get answers from Death, the protagonist flies to Italy, recreating her last vacation with her deceased partner, Joe. Through stream-of-consciousness prose, the author guides the reader through the protagonist's last days, as she grapples with existential questions that are at once personal and universal. Following in the footsteps of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, this inspirational new work deftly combines existential absurdism, philosophy, and spirituality, encouraging readers to reframe their thinking about life and death.