Pearly Gates (Free Sample)

Award-Winning Finalist
2025 Foreword INDIES • American Fiction Awards • Readers Favorite

There are rules in the afterlife. Pearly Gates just prefers suggestions.

After dying, getting dumped by her supposedly eternal soulmate, and landing the worst job in the beyond, former drag queen Pearly Gates is desperate to prove she's capable of growth—and love.

Her chance arrives when she strikes an illicit deal to guide three struggling souls: a young widow afraid to risk her heart again, a trans baker searching for her spark, and a dying accountant who falls for the ghost trapped in the café.

Pearly descends on Thunderbolt Books & Coffee, where spiced lattes, falling leaves, and a Halloween festival (pumpkin pie contest included) are doing nothing to keep the ghostly mischief in check. Armed with celestial magic, outrageous confidence, and zero respect for professional boundaries, she sets out to transform their lives—whether they want her to or not.

When the lovestruck ghost accidentally plunges the café into financial trouble, Pearly's fix is a 1920s speakeasy-themed variety show, resurrecting the building's Prohibition-era past to save its future.

Then she discovers the café's owner is the reincarnation of her ex—and one of her charges is falling for them.

With the café's future on the line, afterlife detectives closing in, and her own feelings threatening to derail the mission, Pearly must learn that guiding people isn't the same as controlling them—and that love sometimes means letting go of the ending she expected.

Funny, fabulous, and full of autumn charm, Pearly Gates is a contemporary cozy fantasy about second chances, found family, and becoming more fully yourself—with plenty of queer joy along the way.

Perfect for fans of Legends & Lattes and The Good Place, and anyone looking for their next cozy fall read.