Afterlife: Dark Fantasy Romance (Afterlife Saga Book 1)

Product Information

Life After Death helps readers confront their fears of dying, and to consider even some of the more fantastical theories of the afterlife. The best thing about this book is the dynamic between Antonia and her sisters. I so rarely get to read things where a woman in her sixties is the main character, and this book has four of them! Alvarez writes Izzy, Tilly, Mona and Antonia with such life and candor that I can’t imagine that they aren’t based on real people. When I read the description I was drawn in by the mention of “a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep”, but I absolutely stayed for the interfamilial conflict. Different religions all explain NDEs differently, too. And The Near-Death Experience will give you unique spiritual interpretations from each religion’s point of view. Antonia Vega is searching for an elusive identity. She loved the fit and the timbre of her old life. Antonia knew its familiarity with its everyday actions and reactions. Being a widow after the recent death of her physician husband, Sam, leaves her hollow inside. Her daily routine of being an English professor has come to an end through retirement. The ebb and flow no longer lingers in her bones. Antonia’s neighbor, Roger, employs immigrants to work on his farm, one of whom reaches out to Antonia for help with coordinating his girlfriend’s arrival from Mexico. Estela shows up, pregnant, and is turned away by her boyfriend, Mario, unhappy to see she is having a baby, which cannot be his.

The story centers around Eddie, a wounded war veteran. On his 83rd birthday, Eddie dies and reawakens in the afterlife, where he learns the true nature of “heaven.”A short lonely and tender novel....uncovering difficult parts of life—making meaningful connections with those around Antonia.... after her retirement, and the loss of the man she loved more than life itself. Another beautiful, heartfelt, exhilarating, insightful reading shakes you to the core, makes you question so many things you’ve done with your life. A small book with a big heart and deep insights. I found this story to be a journey of self reflection and keen observations which grappled with big questions...what do we owe ourselves and others? And what is the right thing to do? For example, a biologist explains how the brain might release endorphins and create vivid hallucinations at the end of life, while philosophy focuses more on the symbolic. The plot itself was just really flawed and not engaging at all, to the point where I didn't want to finish reading but forced myself so I could write a review based on the whole of the book. It was confusing at times, as in you could not see the plot going anywhere, it just sort of floated around. The discovery of who Draven was was left really late in the book, despite all the signs being there. The story about Keira/Catherine escaping from a stalker who kidnapped her felt like it was thrown in at the last minute and it wasn't properly embedded in the plot. The whole idea that Keira could see weird demons and stuff was just confusing and didn't add to the story.

Let's think about this for a second: If a friend thinks you are in danger, they keep you in the dark while trying to warn you. I don't know what kind of "friends" Hudson keeps, but that is not how a friend would behave. Antonia Vega is a retired college professor living in rural Vermont who has recently lost her husband Sam. Her husband was a beloved doctor who cared for all whether born locally or the undocumented who have come to work on the farms. It’s interesting that neighbors thought Sam’s affection for immigrants was because his wife is originally from the Dominican Republic. Not true, however, as this was just Sam’s nature. It’s a nice play on how we as people assume so much about others even though knowing little.The story follows Kaz as she is running from her past in England, she arrives in the states to the complete glee of her sister to start over. Kagan’s story is one of the most detailed and compelling after-death communication (ADC) stories ever recorded. The story goes beyond the near-death experience to tell Billy’s story of a vivid afterlife. Scientists have argued that near-death experiences are impossible, and Dr. Eben Alexander was among the skeptics. As a skilled neurosurgeon, Dr. Alexander understood that NDEs felt real; but he theorized that they were merely hallucinations induced by extreme stress.

The main character in this book is Antonia (Vega) Sawyer, one of four sisters who hailed from the Dominican Republic. She is now in the senior years of her life, having retired just the year before as a teacher. She is trying to grasp her relatively new reality of both being retired and becoming a widow almost virtually at the same time. You see, her husband Sam died while in transit to take Antonia to her celebratory retirement dinner last year. He was a physician, well known for being very kind, and passionate about helping people. I've been meaning to write a review of this book for awhile because I don't understand why more people haven't read it. Listen - if you want to obsess over grammar and spelling then go find a kid and volunteer to proofread their essays and research papers. Geez! I did not find anything distracting about the grammar or spelling. Who knows, maybe all those errors had been corrected by the time I read it. What I did find was a great paranormal romance story. The female main character was not annoying to me. Does she sometimes make a bad decision? Yes. But if she was perfect in every way then this story would be boring. But it's not. I suppose I found her to be relatable, which is one of the reasons I enjoyed this story. This isn't like reading "Twilight." When she feels she is rejected she doesn't sit around and mope. Instead she dusts herself off and moves on. That takes strength in my opinion. I don't want to give too much away about the actual story, that's what a book description is for. I didn't know this was a series until I finished reading and it made me so happy! I read this book a second time because I felt like I needed to pay better attention to details I may have missed the first time around. But the main reason I read it again was because it was simply a great story that I could dive into. Born in the Dominican Republic, Antoinette and her sisters emigrated when they were very young, but many years have passed, and Antoinette, recently retired and widowed, will soon observe her 66th birthday. This is going to be a really long review with spoilers. But it’s a really long book and I didn’t know how else to go about it. This moving book takes readers on an emotional yet lighthearted journey about grief, death, and accepting the inevitable.

Beyond the Book

Her sisters are doing what they always do when they depart a scene, parsing the meat off its bones, analyzing, judging, exclaiming over the different personalities, a kind of sisterhood digestive system. It. Was. So. Slow. I kept waiting and waiting for something to happen--just a little further, surely we're almost there . . . but NO. Never. There are moments when somebody is passed out in your garage and you have to do something,” says Alvarez. “You can’t just say ‘This isn’t my business.’ On the other hand, there is a sort of moral condescension that happens when you think you are going to manage the salvation of a person. It’s a balance, and not always an easy one.” Annie Kagan isn’t a medium, but she has communicated with the dead: her deceased brother, Billy. In The Afterlife of Billy Fingers , Annie shares the true story of how her brother started speaking with her, weeks after his untimely death.