<p>It happened in an instant: a car crash, thrown from the vehicle, pronounced clinically dead while lying on the road, rotors turned off the Life Flight helicopter&mdash;and then swept into eternity .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. only to return, after being pronounced dead three times, to a far different life.</p>

<p>Welcome to&nbsp;<em>The Fragrance of Angels</em>, Martha Brookhart Halda&rsquo;s memoir about time on the other side&mdash;and how and why she reshaped and developed a new purpose in life after it became more fraught with challenge after visiting heaven.</p>

<p><em>The Fragrance of Angels</em>&nbsp;distinguishes itself as a mother&rsquo;s empowerment story, taking us from a parent&rsquo;s greatest horror&mdash;dying while the kids are young&mdash;to a profound change in her approach to parenting and life. The former collegiate track, volleyball, and basketball player and mother discusses how she dealt with extensive rehabilitation, a difficult marriage, re-learning to walk and talk, returning to full-time motherhood, running the Dublin Marathon three years after her accident, striking out on her own, meeting new love, and finding new meaning in a world that never looked or felt the same to her again. Within her story is that of so many other women in the middle of their lives, yet infused with a sense of purpose and discovery borne by her time on the other side.</p>

<p><em>The Fragrance of Angels</em>&nbsp;is filled with a deep sense of love and challenge, physical beauty and emotional upheaval, frustration and triumph. Ultimately, it contains quite an epiphany&mdash;the one Martha realized while in eternity.</p>