Merlin's Heir

In this first book of the series, we meet Jack McAllister, a medical student from Los Angeles, California who has his whole life planned out with his high school sweetheart and fiance. When things seem to be going well, he becomes the victim of a deadly shooting and dies defending his fiance. But death is not all that it seems when Jack wakes up in his own grave. It's then he meets Sparrow, a Watcher who delivers him to a world beyond death. A world where people continue to live after their death.
When Jack discovers a stolen orb, he sets off to discover why it only responds to his own touch. An orb with a connection spanning back hundreds of years, and a family history no one thought existed. The closer he gets to the answers, the farther he is to the truth. He's plunged in the middle of a debacle between the Angels, and a mysterious man in blue. Ranked top 10 in the Hampton Roads Next Best Fiction Author Contest 2013