After All Book Review

A Hanover Falls Novel

SUMMARY:  Eighteen months after the tragic Grove Street Fire took the life of her husband, David, and four other heroic firefighters, Susan Marlowe thinks she's finally beginning to heal.

     But then she discovers that David carried a secret to his grave.  A secret that changes everything she thought their marriage had been.  For the sake of their sons, can Susan forgive the unforgivable?

     Andrea Morley lost her closest friend in the fire.  But she has no right to mourn him.  Instead, she must forever grieve in silence - because her dearest friend was someone else's husband.

     Peter Brennan carries the weight of the world on his shoulders.  As Hanover Falls' fire chief, he was responsible for the brave firefighters who lost their lives that awful November night.

     Can he ever shake the feeling that he should have somehow prevented the tragedy?

     As he tries to rebuild the team at Clemens County's Station 2, it seems he might find comfort in the arms of the woman he least expected.

REVIEW:  Susan runs the Grove Street Homeless Shelter (where the fire that claimed her husband's life along with four of his co-workers took place) in Hanover Falls and is constantly fighting opposition from townspeople and a reporter from the local newspaper to close it.  She is also struggling with her feelings for Pete, David's old boss, and problems she's having with her twenty-year-old son Davy.  On top of all that, it looks like she may have a stalker.  

     After All is the third and final book in the Hanover Falls series.  Like the second one, Forever After, it stands on its own very well.  I like the way the story played out, how problems you thought were solved in the first two novels appeared again with a different outcome.  The struggles each of the characters have all seem to revolve around the loss eighteen months earlier and David's affair with Andrea.  The problems with Andrea at the end of the book were a little predictable but I was caught by surprise by how the person originally thought to have started the fire was innocent and who the actual person was.

     This was a good book.   I am still interested in going back and finding the first book to see how the series got started.  I am also interested in reading anything else this author is writing.

This book was provided by Glass Road Public Relations for review without compensation.

 

Deborah Raney is the award-winning author of several novels, including A Nest of Sparrows and the RITA-award winning Beneath a Southern Sky and its sequel, After the Rains.  Deborah's first novel, A Vow to Cherish, was the inspiration for the World Wide Pictures' highly acclaimed film of the same title, which in December 2004 aired on prime time network TV for the second time. Deb's novella, Playing by Heart, was a National Readers Choice Award winner and a 2004 Christy Award finalist.  A previous novel for Howard/Simon & Schuster, Yesterday's Embers, appeared on the ECPA Christian fiction bestseller left.  Known for her sensitive portrayal of family struggles and relationships, Deb has also written nonfiction books and articles and often speaks at women's retreats and writers' conferences around the country.  She and her husband, illustrator/author Ken Raney, have four children and make their home in Kansas.  For more information about her or her books, visit her website at www.deborahraney.com.