The Fragrance of Angels

It happened in an instant: a car crash, thrown from the vehicle, pronounced clinically dead while lying on the road, rotors turned off the Life Flight helicopter—and then swept into eternity . . . only to return, after being pronounced dead three times, to a far different life.

Welcome to The Fragrance of Angels, Martha Brookhart Halda’s memoir about time on the other side—and how and why she reshaped and developed a new purpose in life after it became more fraught with challenge after visiting heaven.

The Fragrance of Angels distinguishes itself as a mother’s empowerment story, taking us from a parent’s greatest horror—dying while the kids are young—to a profound change in her approach to parenting and life. The former collegiate track, volleyball, and basketball player and mother discusses how she dealt with extensive rehabilitation, a difficult marriage, re-learning to walk and talk, returning to full-time motherhood, running the Dublin Marathon three years after her accident, striking out on her own, meeting new love, and finding new meaning in a world that never looked or felt the same to her again. Within her story is that of so many other women in the middle of their lives, yet infused with a sense of purpose and discovery borne by her time on the other side.

The Fragrance of Angels is filled with a deep sense of love and challenge, physical beauty and emotional upheaval, frustration and triumph. Ultimately, it contains quite an epiphany—the one Martha realized while in eternity.