“An intense novel of loss, betrayal, and rising to face the ashes, Christy Award-winner Katie Ganshert’s powerful contemporary fiction reminds readers that there’s always a chance at new life and love…It could have been me. 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”–
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Sexual Content - 1/5
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Violence - 0/5
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Summary
From: Life After
Book Title: Life After
Book Author: Katie Ganshert
What do you like about this book:
"Trying to figure out God is like trying to catch a fish in the Pacific Ocean with an inch of dental floss."
Everything in Autumn Manning's life revolves around before . . . . . and after. Before she lost hours of her memory, before she broke off her engagement, before she boarded the train, before she became the only survivor. Afterwards, after waking up from a coma, she has existed, rather than lived, obsessing over the lives of those already in the hereafter, barely able to do anything but wonder "why"?
Paul Elliott's wife died in the fiery explosion that Autumn survived, but for a few fleeting moments he was given the impression that Vivian had survived, only to discover that the woman in the hospital was not his wife, but a stranger. Now, a year later, on the anniversary of the tragic event, his nearly teen daughter has found a way to grieve over her mother's death . . .by writing the only one who might listen; Autumn Manning.
Brought together by a series of what some might consider bizarre coincidences, Autumn and Paul initiate a bare acquaintance, while the answers to the questions they dare not voice, are found within the fact that "we worship a big God " . . . and he isn't cruel", for "Jesus wept".
Your ratings of the level of sex, violence, language and drug/alcohol use on a scale of 1-5.
Sex:1
Violence:0
Language:0
Drug/Alcohol use:0