This is a compelling debut. The writing is excellent. The story is pacy. It is a story about grief but it is full of hope.
A great book

This was an incredible read! It was full angst, and the cover is so stunning. I believe this read will cement in every readers mind!

“This is the story of loss and what happens afterwards.”

When Emma gets home after work one evening thinking it’s just another typical day, she calls hello to her husband, Jay, as she normally does. Her life changed forever when he didn't respond back.

This story follows Emma on her grieving process after her husband took his own life. She stumbled upon five photographs taken by her husband and tries to find out what was going through his mind during the last moments of his life. She struggled to come to terms with her loss. She struggled to understand why he made such a drastic choice. Emma later found five photos that Jay had taken before he died. She headed to where the photos were taken to try to find out what they mean and why Jay captured them. Is Jay trying to reach out to Emma for the last time? Could Emma finally find the closure she needed?

I follow Emma as she grasps with her loss. I could feel her sense of desperation and helplessness as she tried to figure out why Jay took his own life. As she uncovers the meaning behind each picture, Emma also finds herself rekindling old relationships and making new friendships which really saved her from her grief.

I thought the author wrote the grieving process very well. It is raw and relatable. Healing is not linear. As Emma healed, just a memory of Jay can take her back to square one. My heart aches for her as she learns more about Jay than she ever did and in the process of it all, she also learnt more about herself and her strength to move on.

This was a beautifully written story and I enjoyed every bit of it despite it being so sad. Amongst the sadness, there are also the charms of being in a small village and how supportive the community can be.

Thank you Netgalley and Simon & Schuster UK for the arc.

An emotive tale of grief and its aftermath, in Charlotte Leonard's 'Afterwards', we meet Emma. She's happily married to photographer Jay, until one day she comes home to find her husband dead - by suicide.

Jay left no note and Emma didn't see it coming.

What follows is finding five photos on Jay's camera that show just how much she didn't know about the person she shared her life with, and Emma setting off to Cornwall to find answers to all the questions her husband's suicide has left her with.

At the beginning of this book, I was convinced that it would be a five-star fave, but the further I got into it, the less I enjoyed it.

The chapters, which are barely chapters - some only a page long - make it feel like the book drones on and on without really getting off the ground, and while the writing is beautiful, I found that the structure of the novel let it down immensely.

There's a big twist that happens around the 50% mark - one the reader can see coming from a mile away - and it all just made me roll my eyes more times than is healthy, probably 🙄

I struggled to get through the book and was very tempted to both DNF and skip big parts just to get to the end, and while there's a lot to admire about the book and how it tackles the reality of losing a spouse, I could not connect with the main character at all.

Emma is, quite frankly, an a**hole - both in her grief (which I could forgive) and just in general (which I could not), and not finding anything remotely likeable about her meant I struggled so much to care about what she was going through.

(There's a scene where she purposefully wipes her mascara eyes on her mother's expensive white towels and it all just felt so petulant. And, quite frankly, annoying!)

Ultimately, 'Afterwards' is as much a story about friendship and finding community as it is about loss and grief. I can understand why many people will absolutely love it, but it missed the mark for me in many ways.

Rounded up from 2.5 for beautiful writing.

My goodness Charlotte Leonard isn’t just an author she is a true wordsmith. This book was so beautifully written and I’m struggling to say more to explain more fully than that. Obviously I’m not a wordsmith so all I can say is read it and wallow in admiration. It was long in pages but so engrossing it compelled me to just keep reading.

My ideal book length is around 300-350 pages, so at over 460, this had the potential to be quite difficult to get through, but it was anything but. I was zooming along and finished it in about 5 hours. What helped was it was full of short chapters - some only 1-2 pages long - which I prefer.

Charlotte has found the perfect balance in describing grief. I lost a childhood friend to suicide a few years ago, and whilst we didn’t have the relationship discussed in this book, all the elements of grief are there, all the ugliness. I’ve always found it difficult to put grief into words, even when you’ve felt it so strongly, but Charlotte’s done a tremendous job. I hate to think what experience she has had in order to write like this. It is raw and honest and soulful, right from the first couple of pages.

Amongst the heartbreak, the description of Cornwall is just so beautiful. Not only the physical landscape, but what Cornwall can do for people, how it can help you heal.

Annoyingly for a book reviewer, I don’t have enough words to describe just how special this book is. It’s inviting and engaging and emotionally thrilling.

It’s not hugely plot driven, but I like that, when you grieve - or at least when I did - you’re not wholly aware of life going around you; it’s very insular. This is very character and emotional driven and I think that’s the real highlight.

It’s not my job to tell you what books to buy, only to tell you what I think of them. In this case, I think you should buy it and read it immediately.

"This is not what I imagined would come afterwards."

Emma came home that day to find flowers. The groceries were packaged away neatly, the kitchen was clean, the peppercorns she'd asked him to buy refilled on the counter. And her husband Jay, dead in the bedroom.

He'd remembered the peppercorns, but forgotten to stay alive.

Now in a blur of police questions, empty platitudes and funeral planning, she wants to kill him for killing himself. For leaving her there without explanation. She's lost, angry and confused. But then she finds the photographs on his camera - Jay was a beautiful photographer, and this was definitely his work but there's something weird about his final photographs. And Emma knows she'll never be able to move on until she shines a light on the hidden parts of Jay he'd kept in the dark for so long.

"I wonder if I cry enough my heart will finally disappear, just dissipate, evaporate and leave my lifeless, less in pain."

Afterwards is a heart-wrenching tale exploring the many faces of loss - the violence and anger and fractures it can leave in it's wake. Not only journeying inwards at the reality of survivors guilt, it also has a unique morbid humour throughout because sometimes all you can do is laugh at the ridiculousness of life and death.

It was written like a fever dream, floating between memory and reality - the writing was fragmented and broken but still managed to maintain a poetic flow from start to finish, full of stunning small details that set a scene so intense and visceral.

Now, there were parts of this story that were uncomfortable - at times it felt like the author was portraying negative stereotypes of homosexuality, but it also needs to be considered that these words are coming from a character consumed by grief and not thinking clearly about others.

Emma's journey sees her leaving her city, exploring her husbands childhood haunts and friends, and learning more about him than she'd ever known - all while trying to figure out what comes afterwards. The entire journey was handled with sensitivity and honesty that created a truly striking tale.

This is the story of loss – and what happens afterwards… Great read. The author wrote a story that was interesting and moved at a pace that kept me engaged. The characters were easy to invest in. Atmospheric, haunting and superbly plotted and paced.

Afterwards by Charlotte Leonard is the story of Emma, a woman who gets home from work as she normally does but finds her husband Jay has ended his own life. Jay is a photographer who has left behind photographs detailing the mysteries of his death.

Leonard writes such vivid descriptions of the scenery and Emma's feelings which provide a larger scope to the emotion of the story.

The plot itself was a brilliant concept however it did lack a lot of depth that really could have elevated this to a higher rating. The build-up was slow and the pay-off did not feel earned.

This is a story that was just simply okay but could have done with a lot more elaboration to see out the true vision.

A very engaging, yet heart-breaking novel.

The electronic version of this book was over 450 pages which made me think I was in for a long slog however the chapters are very short, some only 1 or 2 pages long. This was an interesting layout for the novel, it can often make the story quite disjointed or fragmented however I think this worked well here.

It was almost like fragments of Emma's memories and thoughts which were clearly affected by her husband's suicide. Her anger, grief, denial and many other motions were laid bare on the page and the love and friendship from those she met really had an impact upon me.

A bittersweet novel, indeed, but one I would thoroughly recommend.

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster UK for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5/5

The author writes brilliant and beautiful descriptions. Among those I liked were her descriptions of the Cornish sea, butterflies, and Emma's feelings of depression and guilt. Her vivid descriptions allowed me to picture the story with greater clarity.

Emma's grief manifest in so many ways. It is not pretty, and there is no one way to grieve. We often end up hurting the people we love most in grief because we get lost in these feelings and don't have the capacity to see beyond our loss.

However, I did feel like the plot was lacking some depth. Most of the other characters like Claire, Jane, Pete, and Anne played pivotal roles in Emma's development, but that's it. It seems like they were written in only for Emma's benefit and nothing more. While I get that Emma is going through inexplicable grief, she can come across as shallow and insensitive.

I felt the build-up took too long and there was not enough time spent at the climax. The two events at the end should've been written to more depth as they were interesting. The Jay, Anne and Martin thing felt very touch-and-go, even though it was central to our understanding of Jay. The Ben thing made me uncomfortable, and seemed to be playing some gay trope. They were explored too briefly for my liking, and as a result it's hard for me to accept that these events affected Emma significantly.

Ultimately, this is a story that works, so it's still a 3.5 for me!

Wow, amazing I can't praise this book enough A heartwrenching read about suicide and the impact on the loved ones left behind. Emma loves Jay and their life as it is. She is happy in her world, oblivious to the fact that her lovely husband is about to end his life. The book is not all intense, emotional reading, the author brings in light hearted wit that will often have you laughing and crying within minutes. Parts of the book is set in lovely Cornwall with descriptive sea swimming that will make you want to join in for therapeutic purposes. The characters were so well developed, especially Emma that I felt I knew them all. I loved this one.

Read and reviewed in exchange for a free copy from NetGalley. Although the story started off disjointed (perhaps intentionally, given the subject matter) I became gripped, devouring it in a day. Leonard handles an emotive subject sensitively and skillfully, with an excellently-written cast of characters and an excellent 3D protagonist in Emma. Tension and emotion were created well, and the Cornish setting was beautifully described.

I found this to be a really good read. It is about a terrible event and its aftermath and it made me feel so much. It was completely heartwrenching and brought me to tears several times but it was also uplifting and made me laugh. A really enjoyable yet rollercoaster of a read.

A good read although sad in parts but with some lighter times in this book. A new author for me but I found it to be well written with good characters that held my interest and I think I would read more from Charlotte in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for giving me the opportunity to read this book which I can definitely recommend.

3.5 stars.

There are some genuine heart breaker moments in this book,but equally some heart warming one's.
It's amusing at times.
It has the best sibling relationship,and a parental one that could send you a bit nuts. Newly formed friendships that are a real lifeline.
Simply put,it feels like real life.
An overwhelming struggle with grief and the search for answers as to why,that can't ever be answered properly.
A very good read.