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After Life
A riveting novel of suspense from the author V. C. Andrews has called "a master of psychological thrillers."
Once she was blind, now she can see.
A car accident claims Jessie's vision, leaving the young woman in the dark, struggling to piece her life back together. One year later, she has made progress, moves with her husband, Lee, to the peaceful village of Gardner Town. Once there, though, Jessie's blindness heightens her awareness of the strange and terrible things going on in the community. Only Jessie can hear the beckoning voices from the cemetery. Only Jessie thinks there's something terribly wrong with her husband's new boss.
And then a local woman makes a chilling, desperate When your husband dies, don't let them bring him back.
From the bestselling author of The Devil's Advocate, this masterful novel of suspense gives readers chills with each page, and the final chapters will be read without blinking.
Once she was blind, now she can see.
A car accident claims Jessie's vision, leaving the young woman in the dark, struggling to piece her life back together. One year later, she has made progress, moves with her husband, Lee, to the peaceful village of Gardner Town. Once there, though, Jessie's blindness heightens her awareness of the strange and terrible things going on in the community. Only Jessie can hear the beckoning voices from the cemetery. Only Jessie thinks there's something terribly wrong with her husband's new boss.
And then a local woman makes a chilling, desperate When your husband dies, don't let them bring him back.
From the bestselling author of The Devil's Advocate, this masterful novel of suspense gives readers chills with each page, and the final chapters will be read without blinking.
216 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1993
20 people are currently reading
197 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Neiderman
74 books392 followersAndrew Neiderman is the author of over 44 thrillers, including six of which have been translated onto film, including the big hit, 'The Devil's Advocate', a story in which he also wrote a libretto for the music-stage adaptation. One of his novels, Tender Loving Care, has been adapted into a CD-Rom interactive movie.
Andrew Neiderman became the ghostwriter for V.C. Andrews following her death in 1986. He was the screenwriter for Rain, a film based on a series of books under Andrews name. Between the novels written under her name and his own, he has published over 100 novels.
Andrew Neiderman became the ghostwriter for V.C. Andrews following her death in 1986. He was the screenwriter for Rain, a film based on a series of books under Andrews name. Between the novels written under her name and his own, he has published over 100 novels.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 29, 2021
This was fun! Very old school horror here.
Spooky setting, ghostly happenings and a little old fashioned good versus evil in a small town.
I loved our main character, was creeped out by many of our townspeople, and found myself really invested in how it all would turn out!
The gore was rather mild - only a couple of slightly gruesome scenes - more spookiness than anything.
Good, solid read!
Spooky setting, ghostly happenings and a little old fashioned good versus evil in a small town.
I loved our main character, was creeped out by many of our townspeople, and found myself really invested in how it all would turn out!
The gore was rather mild - only a couple of slightly gruesome scenes - more spookiness than anything.
Good, solid read!
December 15, 2011
Finally, after reading five other Neiderman novels, I award the sixth four stars instead of the usual three or two. After Life was the sort of book that I knew
Neiderman had in him. It is incredibly creepy, has an excellent story and likeable characters, and doesn't over-stay its welcome. Jessie, our blind protagonist, is
plunged into a new area full of conspiracies, or so she thinks. This is one of those Rosemary's Baby type books in which the main character is convinced that something
bad is happening and the reader is kept in the dark about it until that main character discovers what is happening. I always love when authors rely upon their
character's other senses rather than sight. If done correctly, the descriptions of odd sounds that no one else can hear and of smells that no one else notices will set
the scenes better than a bloody description will, at least in my opinion. Since the couple is living next to a cemetery, you can imagine what kind of creepy sounds Jessie might hear in the dark of night. I could not give the novel five stars because of its Neiderman-style of ending very abruptly,
but I am greatful that the book didn't employ a cop-out ending. It was well-thought out from beginning to end and I think that most horror fans would really enjoy it,
especially fans of authors like John Saul or Ira Levin.
Neiderman had in him. It is incredibly creepy, has an excellent story and likeable characters, and doesn't over-stay its welcome. Jessie, our blind protagonist, is
plunged into a new area full of conspiracies, or so she thinks. This is one of those Rosemary's Baby type books in which the main character is convinced that something
bad is happening and the reader is kept in the dark about it until that main character discovers what is happening. I always love when authors rely upon their
character's other senses rather than sight. If done correctly, the descriptions of odd sounds that no one else can hear and of smells that no one else notices will set
the scenes better than a bloody description will, at least in my opinion. Since the couple is living next to a cemetery, you can imagine what kind of creepy sounds Jessie might hear in the dark of night. I could not give the novel five stars because of its Neiderman-style of ending very abruptly,
but I am greatful that the book didn't employ a cop-out ending. It was well-thought out from beginning to end and I think that most horror fans would really enjoy it,
especially fans of authors like John Saul or Ira Levin.
September 15, 2015
This is a story about a husband and wife that move to a small town so the husband can coach basketball there. The wife Jessie is blind and it was caused by her husband Lee during a car accident. Lee doesn't tell his wife that they are moving right next door to a cemetery and at night she is constantly hearing digging and voices outside. Jessie gets to know the community and realizes that things are not what they seem. I rate this four out of five stars, its a thriller that will keep you glued by every word, but it is predictable. You can buy it on Amazon for 2.99! Read it and tell us what you think!
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June 4, 2019
I liked it. Quick and engaging.
March 15, 2023
As she listened a horrifying vision began to take form. It was like having a waking nightmare. In it the digging was being carried out by a skeleton who was trying to return to its coffin. Shreds of rotted clothing hung from
its shoulders and arms. As it worked, shavings of bone began to peel away from its hands. It fell like dandruff all about it and made it work with more fury. Finally it struck the lid of the coffin and fell to its knees to brush away the remaining soil. It worked its bony fingers under the lid and pulled up with all its might, but the coffin wouldn’t open.The skeleton threw back its skull and opened its jaw. A death rattle emerged. Seconds later the spine snapped, followed by all of its appendages. It fell in a pile of bones on the top of the coffin, and the dirt that had been removed began to fall in over it again.
Jessie and Lee Overstreet were your average married couple, strongly attracted to one another and feeling invincible from the world's cruel pains. Until the car accident that blinded her eyesight in the mortal world and opened a doorway into spirituality. After moving from the inanity of the big city into a small, closed off town in New York, she's haunted by the voices and cries she hears from the cemetery next door night after night. As her husband takes on the job on a school gym teacher as well as the basketball coach, things seem to be falling back into place before the whispers start up. Kurt Anderson, the beloved coach who died of a sudden heart attack a month prior, wasn't the picture perfect content man Principal Henry Young portrayed. Troubled by the nearly animalistic methods his team used on opponents disgusted him, but nothing rubbed him worse then when the Principal would remove any punishments he applied to the boys. The cause of his heart attach came when he opened his duffle bag to discover the five heads of his five starring players, all glassy eyes and looking up at him. In Gardner Town, it seemed everyone has so much praise for Dr. Beezly and the alleged miracles he performed. From using hand CPR to revive the deceased, to apparently keeping a woman badly electrocuted in her bathtub still breathing. A God of sorts he was praised by all who knew him as being a master of medicine, or was he simply a master of deceit?
You know how to call me, don’t you, Lee? You just let your imagination run wild. I’ll be sure to hear it.
Troubled by intense guilt following the car accident that took his wife's sight away, Lee seemed to be on a path to make her hate him. Sleeping with fellow faculty member Monica London seemed to put a guilt back inside of him as well as a weaken his resolves to any claim his wife made. As she pleased with him to turn in his registration and then to flee, he believed it was simply hallucinations brought on from losing her vision. When Dr. Beezly came to perform an examination of her eyes, she knew in her visions he was the Devil reincarna. Seeing his true form as a monstrous insect complete with a tale and goat hooves, she fought off his promises of restored sight of she would only relent and let him in through sex. Naked and terrified, she used all her internal will to make him dismount from her body. When she struggled to a telephone, her husband felt concied of the doctors innocence and good intentions to believe the rape allegations his wife was claiming. As his mind sunk further down, she was constantly under supervisor of Friends Tracy and Bob Baker who knew the folks of that town on an oddly personal level. When Marjorie Young warned her not to let them bring her husband back after he passed, she was horrified to discover her accident she had the next night. While taking a bath she dropped the hairdryer in the tub and was magically brought to life through CPR. This wasn't he case, instead Dr. Beezly allowed a follower of Satan back from the depths of Hell to replace the innocent soul that occupied within Marjorie. Now as Lee was in a horrible car crash leaving him comatose, Jessie has to prove the monsters that walked amongst them in the form of Father Rush who protected her husband's bedside with holy water. As the two rushed to the cemetery, they were met with the groundskeeper Carter who was already prepping an old grave for the exchange of souls. Fatally wounded with an axe through his heart, Rush passed away in the unmarked grave while Jessie fought to survive the temptations of the Devil. After saturation both Carter and Dr. Beezly in holy water, she managed to stumble home where the phone call of her husband's sudden improvement was reported. Now, with close friends Tracy and Bob as well as her husband on board, they begin the discussion to move from the house from Hell and settle somewhere far from the voices and sounds of graves being dug.
“Jessie, Lee will soon be mine. You don’t want him to leave you behind. Join him; join us. See again. Live a full life. Open to me,” he pleaded. “Open to me."
its shoulders and arms. As it worked, shavings of bone began to peel away from its hands. It fell like dandruff all about it and made it work with more fury. Finally it struck the lid of the coffin and fell to its knees to brush away the remaining soil. It worked its bony fingers under the lid and pulled up with all its might, but the coffin wouldn’t open.The skeleton threw back its skull and opened its jaw. A death rattle emerged. Seconds later the spine snapped, followed by all of its appendages. It fell in a pile of bones on the top of the coffin, and the dirt that had been removed began to fall in over it again.
Jessie and Lee Overstreet were your average married couple, strongly attracted to one another and feeling invincible from the world's cruel pains. Until the car accident that blinded her eyesight in the mortal world and opened a doorway into spirituality. After moving from the inanity of the big city into a small, closed off town in New York, she's haunted by the voices and cries she hears from the cemetery next door night after night. As her husband takes on the job on a school gym teacher as well as the basketball coach, things seem to be falling back into place before the whispers start up. Kurt Anderson, the beloved coach who died of a sudden heart attack a month prior, wasn't the picture perfect content man Principal Henry Young portrayed. Troubled by the nearly animalistic methods his team used on opponents disgusted him, but nothing rubbed him worse then when the Principal would remove any punishments he applied to the boys. The cause of his heart attach came when he opened his duffle bag to discover the five heads of his five starring players, all glassy eyes and looking up at him. In Gardner Town, it seemed everyone has so much praise for Dr. Beezly and the alleged miracles he performed. From using hand CPR to revive the deceased, to apparently keeping a woman badly electrocuted in her bathtub still breathing. A God of sorts he was praised by all who knew him as being a master of medicine, or was he simply a master of deceit?
You know how to call me, don’t you, Lee? You just let your imagination run wild. I’ll be sure to hear it.
Troubled by intense guilt following the car accident that took his wife's sight away, Lee seemed to be on a path to make her hate him. Sleeping with fellow faculty member Monica London seemed to put a guilt back inside of him as well as a weaken his resolves to any claim his wife made. As she pleased with him to turn in his registration and then to flee, he believed it was simply hallucinations brought on from losing her vision. When Dr. Beezly came to perform an examination of her eyes, she knew in her visions he was the Devil reincarna. Seeing his true form as a monstrous insect complete with a tale and goat hooves, she fought off his promises of restored sight of she would only relent and let him in through sex. Naked and terrified, she used all her internal will to make him dismount from her body. When she struggled to a telephone, her husband felt concied of the doctors innocence and good intentions to believe the rape allegations his wife was claiming. As his mind sunk further down, she was constantly under supervisor of Friends Tracy and Bob Baker who knew the folks of that town on an oddly personal level. When Marjorie Young warned her not to let them bring her husband back after he passed, she was horrified to discover her accident she had the next night. While taking a bath she dropped the hairdryer in the tub and was magically brought to life through CPR. This wasn't he case, instead Dr. Beezly allowed a follower of Satan back from the depths of Hell to replace the innocent soul that occupied within Marjorie. Now as Lee was in a horrible car crash leaving him comatose, Jessie has to prove the monsters that walked amongst them in the form of Father Rush who protected her husband's bedside with holy water. As the two rushed to the cemetery, they were met with the groundskeeper Carter who was already prepping an old grave for the exchange of souls. Fatally wounded with an axe through his heart, Rush passed away in the unmarked grave while Jessie fought to survive the temptations of the Devil. After saturation both Carter and Dr. Beezly in holy water, she managed to stumble home where the phone call of her husband's sudden improvement was reported. Now, with close friends Tracy and Bob as well as her husband on board, they begin the discussion to move from the house from Hell and settle somewhere far from the voices and sounds of graves being dug.
“Jessie, Lee will soon be mine. You don’t want him to leave you behind. Join him; join us. See again. Live a full life. Open to me,” he pleaded. “Open to me."
December 29, 2018
The overall story was too shallow to really get into. Sure, the townspeople were possessed by evil spirits, but why? And if the priest had suspected all along that something like this was going on, why did it take a town newcomer to make him use something as basic as holy water to stop the possessions? Slow moving story, and a bit boring. I prefer my horror novels to really scare me, and this one fell short.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 26, 2022
This book made me miss the old days, when I was about 10-12 and I started reading horror from the late '80's to early '90's. A creepy paranormal horror from it's time. Rather impressed as well since it's my first book by Andrew Neiderman that isn't his ghost writer work for V.C Andrews. If you like stories with haunted cemeteries, evil spirits, small towns in the grips of hell, this is your story.
December 26, 2022
spooky, creepy, disturbing ... all it was advertised to be.
January 3, 2023
Storyline was ok. It was hard to relate to since it was written decades ago
September 9, 2024
Genuinely distressing at some parts!
October 31, 2025
Cool interesting story. Flat ending
July 9, 2020
Decent novel but i felt it was sorta predictable and thought the ending was kinda lackluster but i did like how the main character was blind so it had some interesting parts cause of that so overall the book was meh.
November 16, 2010
This was a decent book. The first I've read from Andrew Neiderman. This book is about a married couple who move to a small town. The wife is blind due to a drinking and driving accident while her husband Lee was driving. She has developed her other senses rather well since the accident and has a very easy time getting around, cooking, cleaning, etc.
What Lee did't tell her was that their new apartment was right next door to a cemetery. At night she hears digging and whispering and she figures it out even before he fesses up. While her husband works at the high school as the new coach, Jessie hears things through the day that spook her. When they become friends with some of the faculty and hear them rave about a certain Dr. Beezley, things start getting a bit weird.
One of the women Jessie meets warns her of the Dr., stating, don't let him bring your husband back after he's dead. The next time she sees Marjorie, Marjorie has had an accident involving a hair dryer falling into the bathtub. Dr. Beezley "brings her back" after her heart stopped and she is no longer the same.
Jessie is afraid for her and her husband and begs him to quit his job so they can leave. I won't ruin the rest of the book, but it's a good read. I was a little disappointed at the anti-climactic end, but it was still a good story.
What Lee did't tell her was that their new apartment was right next door to a cemetery. At night she hears digging and whispering and she figures it out even before he fesses up. While her husband works at the high school as the new coach, Jessie hears things through the day that spook her. When they become friends with some of the faculty and hear them rave about a certain Dr. Beezley, things start getting a bit weird.
One of the women Jessie meets warns her of the Dr., stating, don't let him bring your husband back after he's dead. The next time she sees Marjorie, Marjorie has had an accident involving a hair dryer falling into the bathtub. Dr. Beezley "brings her back" after her heart stopped and she is no longer the same.
Jessie is afraid for her and her husband and begs him to quit his job so they can leave. I won't ruin the rest of the book, but it's a good read. I was a little disappointed at the anti-climactic end, but it was still a good story.
Read
December 25, 2022"Funny...” she said, her voice drifting off.
“What is?” Jessie asked when the silence lingered.
“How we lose our dreams and ambitions. They're like balloons, firm and full when we're young and optimistic. As time goes by, they lose air, soften; and then one day we wake up and discover some strong wind has taken them off. You're left with a limp string in your fingers and the vague memory of what it was supposed to be."
“What is?” Jessie asked when the silence lingered.
“How we lose our dreams and ambitions. They're like balloons, firm and full when we're young and optimistic. As time goes by, they lose air, soften; and then one day we wake up and discover some strong wind has taken them off. You're left with a limp string in your fingers and the vague memory of what it was supposed to be."
February 3, 2013
I enjoyed reading this book but the ending was quite stupid and obvious.
September 16, 2010
I read this a long time ago so I don't remember a ton about it- should probably read it again.
Read
August 20, 2017It was actually the book by Marcus Sakey but not in good reads.
Not a great book - too surreal to believe.
Not a great book - too surreal to believe.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews