Synopsis

Those who don't believe in magic will never find it - Roald Dahl

My book is the story of a middle age woman whose father approaches death and who is surrounded by people who deny it. A woman who instead of giving in to the doom and gloom, grabbed her magic wand and turned it into the most inspiring and uplifting experience, bringing love, joy and forgiveness into the journey. At the moment my father died, I was shown that he was born into a new dimension - the spirit world - and I realised death is a birth into a more loving and better world. There was much to celebrate for him and for me when my time would come.

My book is vital to help people turn around our perception and approach to death. It is all the more extraordinary that all my life, my biggest fear was the fear of death. And I felt useless around people who faced a terminal illness or whose loved ones did. The only reason why I wrote my story is to help the reader's perspective on death so that we can all feel more peaceful about the subject. This experience is the culmination of a twenty year spiritual journey that took me from corporate lawyer to spiritual lawyer. My father's terminal illness was an opportunity to walk the talk of my own teachings as a reiki master, healer, clairvoyant, medium and sage.

Outline

The book is structured in two main parts. The first part is the lead up to my father's death. It starts on the plane as I go visit him for the first time in months. My father and I had not only been separated by the British Channel when I moved abroad thirteen years before his death but by a distance created by my mother twenty three years before.

In the three months that he had to live, I worked relentlessly to bring us closer and to resolve the unfinished business we had, in spite of him being almost mute as his brain tumour affected speech. Our silent communication enabled me to take him to places he really wanted to go before he died such as the Luxembourg Park in Paris where he lived, Church and to the flower shop to buy my mother flowers. The first part also set the scene for my childhood experience with an abusive mother and shows the complexity of what family dynamics can be like.

It is a book packed with action and set in Paris, an inspiring city. It culminates with a scene at the Sacre Coeur with my mother and sister as my father laid in his bed hospital a few streets away from us, hours away from his death.

The turning point in the book is the moment of his death as I was thousands of miles away in my village in the South West of England. The morning he died, I saw him ascend into heaven and bask in the glory of pure love. It was divine. There was no sadness for me. Only joy. Luckily, I didn't attend his funeral so I didn't have to be sucked into the doom of everyone gathered around his casket. There were complex reasons why I couldn't attend which are explained in the book. I spent the day of his funeral painting in my studio to honour my father who was an eye specialist and surgeon by day but a painter at heart. We communed. I finished a painting that I had intended for him but that will stay with me forever as a memory of the precious moments we shared.

The second part of the book is about my burning desire to be in touch with him. At first, my contacts were through medium friends first, but soon, I became bolder and tried to contact him directly. It wasn't easy as I have a crippling fear of seeing dead people, so I kept being conflicted about opening myself to spirit. It was however, a fascinating journey as I talked to a cat in Dubai, chatted with several of my friends' dads who had passed and ultimately heard from my Dad.

Me and my partner had planned to get married the year my father died, so we postponed and entirely change our plans. I couldn't face having a big wedding with my mother but without my father so we had a small wedding in Cornwall with just us and our children. The book ends on the day of our wedding.

Audience

My ideal reader is female and aged between 30 and 60. She likes to think there is a life after death and is interested about angels, inspirational stories, crystals and angel cards. She is disillusioned by religion but believes in God. She probably reads a magazine like Spirit and Destiny. She wants to believe in magic and maybe has had a few experiences herself but wants to learn more. Maybe she has a loved one who is facing a life threatening illness and would like to know how to deal with it. She loves Paris and France.

My book is very similar to the Afterlife of Billy Fingers which was a great success with Hay House. As it speaks of the subject of the death of a parent, I believe that it will be hugely popular as most women in their fifties or later are faced with ageing parents and have to think about their parents' mortality. To be able to read a book that gives them a better way to deal with things would be hugely beneficial. I also believe that because it is a story instead of a how to manual, people would be more likely to read it. It is structured and written like a novel, with a beginning, a middle and an end and lots of plot twists and obstacles. I believe it is a real page turner that will broaden the mind of the reader and leave them transformed. My biggest hope is that it will help them boast their fear of death once and for all. Wouldn't we all want that?

Promotion

I have an author Facebook page in its early days, a blog that I dedicated specifically to the book where I write every day, a facebook group for the launch party of this crowdfunding campaign but also, after the launch is done, to continue the journey with my readers and clients in exploring all things magical. The title of the book had a double entendre and the underlying meaning is that there is another version of heaven that we can all access without the middle person, be it a priest, a vicar, an imam or a rabbi. A space where we can all go past our culture and find magic and a deep connection to the divine.

I am planning to launch a podcast to promote the launch of the book with a journalist and writer friend of mine in 2017.

I am building my mailing list by creating free challenges, webinars and ebooks. I am also taking my teachings online and building a client base that will naturally love my books. I have hired a high profile business coach to reach 2,000 subscribers in six months. I am planning a blog and podcast tour that will roll out in 2017. My marketing strategy is based exclusively online and I already have an international following. I have a solid facebook presence and plan to market my book mostly through that platform but with the help of the funds raised, also hire a marketing team to be on Instagram too.

How the funds will be used:
Book critique: $1,000
Copy Editing: $1,200
Book production and shipping: $1,500
Podcast training: $700
Marketing: $2,000
Legal fees: $1,000
Author's salary: $1,500 for three months' work is a pittance but it will keep me afloat and avoid me having to work and write at the same time.

I am planning to launch my book on the 6th March 2017 which is the third anniversary of my father's death. As my book is in its solid second draft, I think that is not an unrealistic date.

Competition

The long Goodbye: a memoir by Meghan O'Rourke: Meghan was thirty two when her mother died of cancer and she sinks in the depths of grief and anger. She is not only angry at cancer but also at society that no longer supports griefs. Instead of focusing on the problem we experience with a society ill equipped to support the dying and on the pain of grief as Meghan's book does, my book focuses on the solution by mapping a road of how each one of us can see death in a different way and create our own experience. Because i was not afraid of death, it helped me have a much more positive experience of the process of death and of course, I knew that death is not real and that the invisible world is more alive than we are.

The Afterlife of Billy Fingers by Annie Kugan: When she receives a phone call from the police about her brother, Annie thinks he has been involved in yet another petty crime. Her much older brother is a drug addict that has broken her heart even since she was a child. Instead, she finds he died and is hit by a wave of guilt, regret and despair. After the initial few weeks where she looses the will to live, her brother contacts her from heaven and starts speaking to her, helping her overcome her grief. Although my book offers a lot of similar insight into what heaven is really like, I was able to approach the death of my father with an open mind. I wasn't hit by despair. I knew he was transitioning to a new dimension, what I didn't know was how I was going to react to that and I was pleasantly surprised as I managed to approach each day positively.

Dying to be me by Anita Morjaani: Anita was riddled with cancer and in the advanced stages of dying when she was taken to hospital by her husband. The outcome was clear for everyone: a certain death. And died, she did. But her brief stay in heaven completely healed her and she was able to bring that healed self back into her body and miraculously heal her body beyond what medicine knew was possible. Anita is a walking miracle. Even though her book is about near death experience and miracles and my book is about my father's death, I think these two books have a lot in common in that they talk about the power of love to heal deeply, regardless of whether the person then decides to stay on earth or go back to heaven.

Proof of heaven by Dr Eben Alexander: Dr Alexander brings a fresh perspective on near death experiences because he is a doctor. His story is both inspiring and informative. He is able to talk about the science as well as the magic thanks to his personal account of having been supposedly brain dead and coming back to health. My father was also a doctor and his brain was slowly dying through the tumour. Towards the end of his life, he could no longer walk and talk. My book is different in that it is from the perspective of the daughter of someone who loses his brain function, but the findings are the same and they give hope and insights into heaven. Insights that do not match the long rehearsed myths that religions have built over the years to make us depend on the various religious organisation to access God.

Spirit messenger by Gordon Smith: Gordon Smith has delivered thousands of messages to people as a medium and comforted many. I have chosen his book as an example of many books written by mediums that give evidence of survival. What I think my book adds to the topic of mediumship is that talking to our loved ones in heaven can be done by everyone. That it is not the privilege of the mediums. I want people to learn to do it for themselves and that is what I do in the second part of the book. Signs are everywhere if we know how to read them. And if people learnt how to read them, they could take their own lives