Hereafter (Hereafter Trilogy Series #1)

by Tara Hudson

Overview

Can there truly be love after death?

Drifting in the dark waters of a mysterious river, the only thing Amelia knows for sure is that she's dead. With no recollection of her past life—or her actual death—she's trapped alone in a nightmarish existence. All of this changes when she tries to rescue a boy, Joshua, from drowning in her river. As a ghost, she can do nothing but will him to live. Yet in an unforgettable moment of connection, she helps him survive.

Amelia and Joshua grow ever closer as they begin to uncover the strange circumstances of her death and the secrets of the dark river that held her captive for so long. But even while they struggle to keep their bond hidden from the living world, a frightening spirit named Eli is doing everything in his power to destroy their newfound happiness and drag Amelia back into the ghost world . . . forever.

Thrilling and evocative, with moments of pure pleasure, Hereafter is a sensation you won't want to miss.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062084491
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/07/2011
Series:	Hereafter Trilogy Series , #1
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	848,954
File size:	749 KB
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Tara Hudson lives in Oklahoma with her husband, son, and a menagerie of ill-behaved pets.

After receiving her law degree, she began writing to entertain her girlfriends. They read her story about a ghost girl who awakes in a cemetery and wanted to know more. This short piece inspired the Hereafter trilogy, which culminates in Elegy.

What People are Saying About This

Becca Fitzpatrick

“A tender and poignant love story with a ghostly twist.”

Andrea Cremer

Twisting together chilling mystery and sweet romance, HEREAFTER leaves the possibilities of a world unseen lingering in your mind and your heart long after you’ve turned the final page.

Editorial Reviews

For years, Amelia has drifted in an ambiguous haze, punctuated by nightmares. She knows she is dead; no one in the living world can see her; she has encountered no other ghosts; and, from her nightmares, she knows she died by drowning. This static, anguished existence suddenly changes when a boy falls into the river, dying before her eyes. As he fades, he sees Amelia, really sees her, galvanizing him to struggle and be saved. Thus begins the romance between Amelia and Joshua (who can still see and speak with her) as they grapple with maintaining the tenuous and mysterious electricity between them. The obvious difficulties are complicated by Joshua's grandmother, who insists that it is his job to exorcise Amelia, and the appearance of another ghost, who has an entirely different fate in mind for her. Using the device of Amelia's memory loss, Hudson avoids the chunks of exposition that sometimes weigh down paranormal stories, and the narrative gradually unfolds as Amelia and Josh learn her history. It's a straightforward tale, refreshingly without too much "apparatus," and an encouraging debut for Hudson. Ages 12–up. (June)

Publishers Weekly

A tender and poignant love story with a ghostly twist.” — Becca Fitzpatrick, New York Times bestselling author of HUSH, HUSH

Twisting together chilling mystery and sweet romance, HEREAFTER leaves the possibilities of a world unseen lingering in your mind and your heart long after you’ve turned the final page. — Andrea Cremer, New York Times bestselling author of Nightshade

“A must for collections.” — Booklist

From the Publisher

A tender and poignant love story with a ghostly twist.

Becca Fitzpatrick

A must for collections.

Booklist

Twisting together chilling mystery and sweet romance, HEREAFTER leaves the possibilities of a world unseen lingering in your mind and your heart long after you’ve turned the final page.

Andrea Cremer

A must for collections.

Booklist

Gr 7 Up—Amelia is dead and she knows it. As her spirit haunts the area near High Bridge, she wonders who she was before. She has nightmares of drowning, and after each one she wakes up in a cemetery, but she's never been able to force herself to turn and look at the headstones. Then one night a boy is drowning in the river. She saves his life and makes a connection with him that allows him to see her while all other attempts at communicating with the living have failed. What follows is a chaste supernatural romance that doesn't really deliver. Hudson tries to set up the rules for her spirit characters, but they end up being cumbersome rather than furthering the story. Amelia can't touch items in the living world, but after saving Joshua, they are able to touch, and it causes all sorts of tingles for them. Although she can't touch things, she can, apparently, be contained by them as evidenced by extended scenes of her riding in Josh's car, the doors of which need to be opened for her since she can't touch them. An evil spirit named Eli is trying to keep Amelia as his assistant in the afterlife, and Josh turns out to be a "seer" whose grandmother has been working for years to exorcise the spirits from the area of the bridge. All of the elements of an intriguing supernatural thriller/romance are here; unfortunately, they should add up to more than they do. Only the most die-hard genre lovers will stick with this one.—Genevieve Gallagher, Charlottesville High School, VA

School Library Journal

Amelia knows she's dead and that she drowned, but little more.

Then she encounters a drowning boy, Josh, and though he survives, his brief experience of death allows him to see her. Soon they're an item—his presence and touch reawaken her senses. Josh takes her to school, and together they investigate her origins. In the less-benign afterlife when Josh is not around, Amelia meets mysterious Eli, once a handsome young man and now responsible for bringing the recently dead to his masters, terrifying beings that rule the afterlife's nastier corners. While Eli plots to make Amelia his apprentice, Amelia and Josh pursue the genre's traditional passionate-but-chaste relationship. Among the obstacles they face is Ruth, Josh's grandmother, a "Seer" who can perceive Amelia but confuses her with Eli, whom she's sworn to exorcize. The breathless ending has "sequel to come" written all over it. Smoothly written—the spookily vivid afterlife is a strong point—this debut represents a modest addition to a fantasy genre featuring heroines with limited aspirations.

Being dead, Amelia has a better excuse than most for lacking a career goal beyond finding bliss with the one living guy who can see her. (Paranormal romance. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews