2025 Storytrade Book Award Winner for Best Paranormal/Supernatural Fiction
"A complex tale of life and death that deftly weaves family drama with supernatural elements."- Kirkus Reviews
"...skillfully merges vast cosmic horror with acute personal tragedy..." - Jamie Michele, Reader's Favorite

We’re born, we live, we die, and usually in that order.

Or so Ruth Weber thinks.

When a mistake made long ago brings Mortimer Nach to her deathbed with an offer, she learns that some
will exact a dreadful price.

“I know you’re not afraid to die, but are you afraid to live?” he asks.

A painting he’s hung in her room brings visions of her past, setting off an irrevocable series of events
which brings them both to the edge of eternal darkness.

For her, it is the chance to go back and live the life she felt destined for, the one always just beyond reach.
To have it, though, she must turn aside from what awaits and risk the loss of all she’s ever known.

For him, it is banishment to the Netherworld for breaking the laws of life and death, and the danger of sacrificing what he cares most about, for even Death has come to know the wonder and beauty of this world.

As the powers of Heaven and Hell converge on them, each begins to understand their journey’s end portends
the joy and terrible costs of choices made, and of the sacrifices we’re willing to suffer for others in this thing called life.

The Painted Sand is a tale of love and pain, and of lines that become blurred.
Of the moments that make up our days from beginning to end.
But sometimes, endings aren't endings at all.
Sometimes, they're beginnings.