A nationally celebrated but self-absorbed philosophy professor finds himself very much alive following a fatal plane crash in an afterlife world he was absolutely certain could not exist.  A pushy and insensitive alpha male in the habit of manipulating students, colleagues, and his wife, he relives events from the viewpoint of his victims and faces the consequences of his karma.  From the front ranks of academic philosophy he falls to the level of a back-row student in a “classroom” where love, service, and generosity form the better part of the curriculum. 

As he watches others move ahead into higher worlds, he presses on toward his own future with one of the women he rejected, who has been stuck in the Shadowlands since her suicide many years before.  How far will he extend himself to help her free herself from her personal hell?  Will he “grow his soul” enough to sidestep another birth on earth, or will he have to “repeat the grade”?  And what about her?  Descriptions of the afterworld based on spirit communications provide a consistently arresting setting.

The Imprisoned Splendor is much more than a paranormal romance.  Many readers will be captivated by the spirit-charged world they find here—with its unfamiliar laws and culture, its vivid landscapes and astral cities, and its lessons for common earth dwellers like us as we look toward our own future beyond death.  This is not a religious book, but it does have a strong spiritual message.  It talks with compassion to wounded, struggling human beings, and it suggests that the Universe, moral to the core, holds us accountable for our actions in a world that many of us, like Kiran, don’t even suspect exists.

“. . . a riveting, action-filled, visionary” novel set in the afterlife.  Wisdom Magazine

Whether you agree or disagree with the novel’s interpretations of the afterlife, the divine and the idea of rebirth, its major themes—never stop seeking new truths, make the effort to treat people as ends rather than means, and the idea that “only love works in the long run”—make this book an entertaining, challenging, and thought-provoking read. By Rebekah Kearn, Bakersfield.com. full review here. www.bakersfield.com/entertainment

Stafford Betty earned his Ph.D. in theology from Fordham University, where he specialized in Asian religious thought and Sanskrit. Today he is a professor of world religions at California State University, Bakersfield, and has become an acclaimed expert on the afterlife. In 2011 he published The Afterlife Unveiled, the first of his afterlife books, and The Imprisoned Splendor, a novel set in the afterlife. More recently he published Heaven and Hell Unveiled: Updates from the World of Spirit, and When Did You Ever Become Less by Dying? Afterlife: The Evidence. Three more books are pending and under contract, including Ghost Boy, a novel for middle-graders about a clairvoyant boy, and a futuristic novel The War for Islam. He regards a novel, The Severed Breast, published by White Crow, as his best work. It tells the story of the apostle Thomas’ travels through India to win Hindus and Buddhists to Christianity. Stafford’s many scholarly articles and essays can be found at academia.edu. He writes and speaks with clarity and regularly addresses conference and radio audiences.