The Reckoning of Riordan Murphy (Memoriam Book One) by Joseph M. Pierce

Riordan Murphy returns to Brimley expecting nothing. What he finds is a town that hasn't forgotten the name he used to carry, and hasn't forgiven him either.

He was Lucas Emery once. Lord of Brimley. It wasn't a proud history.

Before he can reckon with any of it, a Stranger comes to him with a peculiar claim: Riordan is dying, and he has something for him. A watch. Riordan doesn't take the warning seriously. He doesn't make it to morning.

He wakes (if waking is the right word) in Memoriam - a place between memory and whatever comes after. The Stranger is waiting for him there.

What follows is a walk back through his own life. The boy who grew up with nothing. The bastard son reluctantly claimed by his lord father and dragged into a world of wealth and whispered scandal. The soldier who went to the trenches and came back changed. The loves, the failures, the things he never squared with himself.

But Brimley's sins ran deep, and so did his. And the choices Riordan makes inside Memoriam, the company he keeps, the truths he refuses, may decide whether he ever leaves it.