Review--Hereafter by Tara Hudson

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.

This one has been on my Kindle forever, but since I got Arise at RT, I thought this was a good time to read it!! Tara Hudson did a fabulous job! There aren't too many ghost books out there, the first I ever read was The Mediator series by Meg Cabot aka Jenny Carroll (the first 4 books) and I've read a few since then and now Hereafter is added to the list as the most incredible ghost books ever! (still have Anna Dressed in Blood to read too!)

So onto the review. Hereafter takes us into the life of Amelia, a ghost. She knows she's a ghost and everything, but that's about all she knows. She can't remember almost anything else about herself, her life before and her death. She knows she drowned I believe, but that's all. Then one night she sees someone else drowning, someone who fell of "her" bridge and into "her" river. She is helpless to save him since she can't touch him or anything. She does what she can and tries to shout, but he can't hear her...until he does. 

Joshua almost died and was suddenly able to see and hear Amelia. And thus he is saved. Amelia believes their encounter to over, yet it's not. Some days later he finds her and wants to talk to her and Amelia is stunned since no one alive has ever noticed her before and thus a bond is formed.

It really was quite interesting to see how another author creates a relationship between a human and a ghost, which is by far the hardest relationship to maintain. But something happens when Amelia and Joshua are together. They can touch. And feel their touches. Joshua has a family secret that can explain all these things and does come up fairly quickly.

But being involved with a human isn't Amelia's only problem. Her other problem is another ghost, Eli. Don't worry there's no love triangle here. Eli is purely the psychotic ghostly villain who wants Amelia in the possessive way. He's quite creepy. He too has many secrets that revolve around Amelia and he seems to know more about her than she would like. His mentioning of his bosses also worries her. Apparently the ghost community is much bigger than she thought--which was nonexistent.

Hereafter is a fascinating ghost story! With a little bit of love on the side too! There's action and lots of some intense moments, such as the old woman who wants to exorcise Amelia since she is a ghost! This was a fairly quick read for me as well and had I not been employed this easily could've been a one day read, one and half tops! So glad to have Arise ready and waiting! 

Ghost books are, in my opinion, hard to do. Especially when the main character is going to be one and maintain a relationship with someone who is alive. It's a tricky concept and has a lot of boundaries to overcome, but with the right author it is entirely possible and Hudson totally blows the idea out of the water! It was fabulous!!

Overall rating 5/5 stars