Hereafter by Marian Snowe

Hereafter by Marian Snowe

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book here is one of the reasons I try random books by random authors – occasionally you come across something that really works for a specific reader – i.e., me. Now this book here came my way slightly less randomly than I’m implying, by two factors. 1) I’d just read a short story by this author, and 2) I’d originally started putting works on and off my possible TBR shelves because they were one of the authors listed for a publisher I’d only read one author by (I forget if I’d originally first added a work by Snowe before or after I’d read something by Natalie Vivien, though know I did after having read Bridget Essex). Let’s move on from my somewhat standard ‘stop talking about yourself, doofus’ paragraph ….

This isn’t the first work I’ve read by this author, just the first one longer than a hundred-fifty pages. Actually, something that was longer than 50, to be technical. I rather liked that previously short story I’d read, but it was just a snippet, a slice of life type, with the hint of possible great romance between the two women who spent time together. Here we have a full-length, albeit short, novel.

The book opens with Detective Samantha Easton dying. Hearing her partner telling her to stay, blinking at the fading light. You know, standard dying type scene. The next time Sam opens her eyes she’s . . . in the hospital, because she had only been shot in the line of duty, not killed. She’s cranky, fidgety, and will have a longish recovery period before heading back to the police. Her partner, as in police partner, helps. Her sister and father don’t help – but then, Sam hasn’t even told them she’d been shot so …..

While exiting the hospital, Sam happens to help a rather gorgeous woman figure out how to exit said hospital. Unfortunately, the woman needed to exit a different way than Sam was going, so she couldn’t spend more time in her presence. This little snippet is of importance, because that woman keeps drifting through Sam’s thoughts – Sam’s quite dedicated to her job, not sure if the phrase was used, but basically married to her job. She’s tried relationships but she’s just horrible at them. So having a woman drift in and out of her thoughts for a week or more is unusual for her.

Time passes. Sam notices certain things during this time, but doesn’t put 2+2 together immediately. Like why the cemetery looks quite crowded (and her partner thinks she was making a joke, acting as if he didn’t see the crowd). Etc. etc. Long way around to noting: Sam sees dead people. Unlike the little boy in that long ago film (bah, that makes me feel old, to think that movie is in fact so old now, that there are people almost able to vote who weren’t alive when the movie was released – talking about Sixth Sense here), the ability to see dead people isn’t exactly new to the family. In fact, that’s one of the jobs her own mother had, beyond the day job of being a physician – she helped ghosts cross over. Of the four people in the family, Sam, sister Carina, dad, mom, two were of the more ‘ghosts’ side, two were of the more ‘ghosts, what ghosts?’ side. Or, more specifically, mom and Carina saw and interacted with the spiritual realm, while pops and Sam didn’t. At least until now that Sam sees ghosts.

Which brings us back to that gorgeous woman spotted in the hospital. Sam sees her several more times (well, at least once more) before realizing what’s going on – she’s seeing a ghost. Who she has the ability to talk with. One thing leads to another, and the two have an actual conversation – and Sam agrees to help Mae figure out what the heck is going on (Mae’s kind of a ghost with amnesia – remembers certain things, doesn’t remember 95% of the rest).

I quite enjoyed this book. Quite riveting. Quite fun. Quite satisfying short novel. I enjoyed all parts of it – beginning, middle, and end.

Rating: 5

December 29 2017



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