Unfinished Business

About the Book

Spanning the time period from the 1930’s to the 1990’s, Unfinished Business is the unusual story of three people’s interwoven lives connected across the barrier of time by a force stronger than death. Set in the fictional town of Riverton, north of Berlin, New Hampshire, the novel relates the life of Daniel, a single, published poet and part-time librarian and his adopted soul or spirit of Alexandre, who died at the age of five many years before of severe intestinal enteritis after playing in his backyard near a canal suspected of being contaminated by a nearby mill. Alexandre’s restless soul acts as a “guardian angel” to Daniel and Alex and also lives his lost life vicariously through theirs. Both Daniel and Alex have inexplicable, shared memories and dreams of the life and tragic death of Alexandre. On a novice hiking trip up Mount Washington, Alex loses his footing on a particularly dangerous part of the trail and nearly falls to his death but is saved by the miraculous intervention of Alexandre who telepathically imparts to Daniel the strength and technique needed to pull Alex to safety. As the years pass, Alexandre continues to appear, assisting Daniel and Alex in dealing with life’s crises, even at the end when Daniel is dying of early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

About the Author

Donald Motier was born in Pennsylvania in 1943 and graduated from college with a B.A. in philosophy in 1970 and pursued a career in the library field. He was an active participant in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960’s. He retired in 1993 and writes full time. He is the author of seven other books and is currently at work on a new novel tentatively entitled Return To Jónville.