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themaddiest 's review for:
Hereafter
by Tara Hudson
Amelia is dead. She knows it, but it’s pretty much the only thing she knows. As she spends her time drifting among the living, unable to connect with anyone or anything, she bides her time, occasionally reliving her drowning in the river. When she tries to save a boy named Joshua from drowning in that very same river, all she can do is will him to live. Remarkably, the two forge a connection and fall in love, against all odds. An evil spirit named Eli has plans for Amelia, though, and if he has his way, he’ll take her into the spirit world forever.
Tara Hudson’s debut novel Hereafter, the first in a planned trilogy (I am getting tired of writing that phrase), has a fairly interesting premise. A ghost girl in love with a living human boy is a story that has great possibilities. To Hudson’s credit, the novel is written competently enough. I didn’t stumble over the prose or balk at her word choice. That is, however, the most praise I’m willing to give her paranormal romance, because Hereafter is really, really boring.
The pacing is glacial at best. With the exception of the action-packed meeting of Amelia and Joshua and the book’s climax about 300 pages later, there is very little rising action. Hudson spends an inordinate amount of time allowing her characters to do nothing: there is a lot of sitting around and looking pretty done by both of the main characters.
Of course, this slow pacing wouldn’t be so terrible if there was a great deal of character development or study, but there isn’t. Amelia and Joshua’s story suffers from the love-at-first sight syndrome that often plagues paranormal romances these days, and while it might work for some readers, it didn’t work for me. There needs to be some sort of build-up to the feelings these characters have for one another. There also has to be a reason why these characters are worth rooting for, and in the case of Amelia and Joshua, there wasn’t one, because neither one has much in the way of personality.
In the case of Amelia, this is understandable, at least at first. Because she has no memory of her former life, it is acceptable for her to be lacking in the personality department. However, as she discovers more about who she was, there’s no change in her personality. She’s bland, and so is Joshua. The secondary characters, with the exception of the morally-ambiguous Eli, blend together and are largely unremarkable.
Even though this is being hailed as a ghost story, it’s really not much of one. Those looking for a good ghostly romance might want to check out Elswyth Thane’s Tryst (it’s out of print but worth tracking down), or even Adele Griffin’s Tighter, which is less about the romance and more about the suspense.
I wish I could recommend this one, but I can’t. Hardcore fans of paranormal romances might enjoy it.
Hereafter by Tara Hudson. HarperCollins, 2011. Electronic galley accepted for review via NetGalley.
Tara Hudson’s debut novel Hereafter, the first in a planned trilogy (I am getting tired of writing that phrase), has a fairly interesting premise. A ghost girl in love with a living human boy is a story that has great possibilities. To Hudson’s credit, the novel is written competently enough. I didn’t stumble over the prose or balk at her word choice. That is, however, the most praise I’m willing to give her paranormal romance, because Hereafter is really, really boring.
The pacing is glacial at best. With the exception of the action-packed meeting of Amelia and Joshua and the book’s climax about 300 pages later, there is very little rising action. Hudson spends an inordinate amount of time allowing her characters to do nothing: there is a lot of sitting around and looking pretty done by both of the main characters.
Of course, this slow pacing wouldn’t be so terrible if there was a great deal of character development or study, but there isn’t. Amelia and Joshua’s story suffers from the love-at-first sight syndrome that often plagues paranormal romances these days, and while it might work for some readers, it didn’t work for me. There needs to be some sort of build-up to the feelings these characters have for one another. There also has to be a reason why these characters are worth rooting for, and in the case of Amelia and Joshua, there wasn’t one, because neither one has much in the way of personality.
In the case of Amelia, this is understandable, at least at first. Because she has no memory of her former life, it is acceptable for her to be lacking in the personality department. However, as she discovers more about who she was, there’s no change in her personality. She’s bland, and so is Joshua. The secondary characters, with the exception of the morally-ambiguous Eli, blend together and are largely unremarkable.
Even though this is being hailed as a ghost story, it’s really not much of one. Those looking for a good ghostly romance might want to check out Elswyth Thane’s Tryst (it’s out of print but worth tracking down), or even Adele Griffin’s Tighter, which is less about the romance and more about the suspense.
I wish I could recommend this one, but I can’t. Hardcore fans of paranormal romances might enjoy it.
Hereafter by Tara Hudson. HarperCollins, 2011. Electronic galley accepted for review via NetGalley.