LIFE AFTER LIFE
A Novel by Ellington "Lyrixx" Bass Sr.
What happens when the system steals your freedom-but not your faith?
Lance Houston had a plan. A loyal son, a quiet dreamer, a man who believed that doing right would lead to right things. But when a single mistake, a crooked deal, and a broken system collide, his life is ripped away and rewritten by the state. Charged with a crime he didn't commit and swallowed by a justice system that never cared to hear the truth, Lance spends years learning how to live without sunlight, without love, and without the sound of his own name spoken in kindness.
Outside those prison walls, Samantha Long's world keeps spinning-but never the same. Once the girl with the fearless laugh and a heart full of light, she's now a woman carrying ghosts of promises never kept. Torn between moving forward and holding onto what was stolen, she builds a life that looks whole from the outside but feels hollow in every corner. The two of them-bound by memories, separated by bars-try to find meaning in what's left of their youth and the pieces the world tried to throw away.
Life After Life is a story about the things that survive the wreckage: love, hope, dignity, and the unshakable will to start again. It's about the scars we wear when we've been betrayed by the system, the silence that follows injustice, and the quiet redemption that begins when the noise finally fades.
Told with unflinching honesty and poetic power, Ellington "RIXX" Bass Sr. paints a portrait of two souls who refuse to stay buried beneath circumstance. Through shifting timelines and deeply human voices, the novel explores mass incarceration, lost time, and the fragile art of rebuilding a life when the world thinks you no longer have one. It's a love story, but it's also a mirror-reflecting how easily lives can be broken, and how hard it is to stitch them back together.
When Lance finally steps back into the free world, he discovers that freedom isn't just about walking outside-it's about forgiving yourself for the years you couldn't live. Samantha has built walls of her own, made from pain and protection, and when their paths cross again, both are forced to decide whether love can exist beyond the damage, or if some stories are meant to stay unfinished.
Life After Life is for anyone who has ever lost everything and still found a reason to rise. It's for the forgotten, the falsely accused, the families waiting on phone calls that may never come. It's for the dreamers who still believe that even after the world collapses, there's something worth saving.
In this stunning debut, Bass blends realism, social commentary, and soul-deep emotion into a story that lingers long after the final page. Each chapter beats like a heartbeat-steady, painful, alive. It's more than a novel; it's a testimony to survival, to love's endurance, and to the truth that even in the darkest places, light can find its way through the cracks.
Raw. Redemptive. Relentlessly human.
Life After Life reminds us that freedom begins the moment you decide to stop being defined by your past-and start living for your future.
Bass, Ellington Rixx, Sr.: -
Ellington "Lyrixx" Bass Sr. better known as RIXX is a storyteller, creator, and visionary whose work blends raw authenticity with imaginative power. As the author of the gritty urban adult fiction novel By Any Means and the cosmic children's tale Ma'Niya's Mission to the Moon, RIXX writes across genres-but always from the heart.
Born into a family that shaped his foundation, RIXX honors his roots with every page. Ma'Niya's Mission to the Moon was inspired by his real-life niece, Ma'Niya, and created as a tribute to his family-especially his mother Brenda, his brother Michael, sister-in-law Michaela, and nephews Lamont and Michael Jr.
Whether he's building fictional cities or launching young readers into space, RIXX believes in one thing above all: our stories can save us, shape us, and set us free.
