Aftermath by Ann McMan is the follow up story to
Jericho. You may remember
Jericho as the romance novel
I raved about back in January 2012.
Jericho is a fantastic book, though it won't appeal to everyone, and
Aftermath is more of the same: wine, background histories all over the place for everything from bleachers to cars to people, lots of words, easy companionship and a great deal of banter.
Jericho was the great literary classic for the ages, this is the lighter, shorter, tale of gossip, rural legends and wine, in which we get to stay in touch with the people and township of the original story.
While
Jericho was a romance, this is more of a ramble through local gossip, family, and the events in the area. It's a safe, entertaining read, where you get to just relax with old friends. I don't actually know what genre I'd call it; I guess I'm just going to describe it as "general fiction". It follows up with the main people we met in
Jericho, showing us their lives a couple of years later, and giving us a chance to enjoy the status quo that they spent all of
Jericho getting to. Basically, it's not nearly as good as
Jericho, but if you enjoyed that book, then you'll find
Aftermath a very worthwhile followup.
The main stories are the gradual rebuilding after the hurricane, the progression of Syd's divorce and the inevitable return of Henry's father. Henry is the little boy that Syd and Maddie, our lesbian main character couple from
Jericho, sort of adopted, while his father was in Afghanistan.
