Life, death and love have no boundaries for a cast of timeless characters in Angels Unshelved. It is a tale that takes the reader on a journey back and forth between heaven and earth as Emma Lanrete (anagram for eternal) tells her comatose mother she will give her life one more year to see if it is worth living and to determine if she is enough . . . "She had a deadline. Ironic use of the word. In 365 days or 525,600 minutes, she would disappear or be no more. Giving herself that much more time seemed to make it justified. If in one year she could not see any difference she made in the world, she would leave it." Emma has only three people that might care if she is gone--well maybe just two . . . her genetically challenged brother and her best/only friend Cash, the third is in love with someone she cannot even see, so she's a bit distracted. No one at school knows she exists, and her father is never home. Loneliness is thick in her life. Birds fill in as friends. Emma is not aware that an "above-team" of five ancestors is assigned to help her change her mind.