Life After
- tarascates
- Feb 28, 2017
- 2 min read
Snow whirls around an elevated train platform in Chicago. A distracted woman boards the train, takes her seat, and moments later a fiery explosion rips through the frigid air, tearing the car apart in a horrific attack on the city’s transit system. One life is spared. Twenty-two are lost. A year later, Autumn Manning can’t remember the day of the bombing and she is tormented by grief—by guilt. Twelve months of the question constantly echoing. Why? Why? Why? Searching for answers, she haunts the lives of the victims, unable to rest. Paul Elliott lost his wife in the train bombing and wants to let the dead rest in peace, undisturbed and unable to cause more pain for his loved ones. He wants normalcy for his twelve-year-old daughter and young son, to see them move beyond the heartbreak. But when the Elliotts and Autumn are unexpectedly forced together, he fears she’ll bring more wreckage in her wake. In Life After, Katie Ganshert’s most complex and unforgettable novel yet, the stirring prose and authentic characters pose questions of truth, goodness, and ultimate purpose in this emotionally resonant tale.
Katie Ganshert is an amazing novelist so having the opportunity to read one of her books early is a real treat. In Life After, she does NOT disappoint as her masterful talent shines through in a vibrantly detailed and heart wrenching novel. She really knows how to hit you in the emotional gut hard.
She yanks the emotional drive up to a ten as you feel the desperation and trauma from her characters and the scenes. Her writing is so real you start to question how you would act, what you would feel if you were the sole survivor of a bombing. So often the focus is on who committed the crime and those that died we overlook those who are still here physically but may have died or become permanently injured in some kind of psychological or spiritual way when going through such a traumatizing experience.
I feel like this is one of those books I’d return to because every time you read it you’ll learn something new or how you view this story and its characters will change depending on your viewpoint at the time.
You read this and you’ll become an instant fan of Ganshert!