After Her

"When I was young, I'd say, that's what I did to make life interesting. My sister and I were always looking for a little drama, and if the world didn't provide some, we'd invent it. We could make up stories so read we believed them ourselves.

And then something really did happen, of course. And all we wished for then was that it never did."

Rachel and Patty Toricelli grow up in Marin County much like any other young child in 1970. When faced with the seemingly endless possibilities of adventure that awaits them on the mountain, just outside their backdoor and a summer to fill it with adventure as only limited by their own imaginations. Now faced with being children of divorce watching their mom fall further into an apparent depression and their father busy working as a police detective, they only have each other to keep themselves entertained. From sneaking into backyards to watch TV through their neighbors picture windows when they find themselves without cable any longer, they resort to making up the storyline and dialogue when their favorite TV shows are aired.

It seems a lifetime of Charlie's Angels and The Brady Bunch have inspired the two girls imagination and they often find making up stories is often times better than the truth. As young teens, adults are willing to disclose certain things to them seeing them as simply too young for that sort of thing. When a new neighbor and his reclusive wife move in, Patty and Rachel begin documenting their daily comings and goings to figure out just who they are and why they rarely see his wife. Since their father works so much, they come to expect him to be busy and long for whatever attention he can offer them when he has time, from taking them to dinner at Marin Joe's or for a Giant's baseball game. He is ever the vigilant father watching out for his young daughters.

When a helicopter suddenly hovers over the mountain top playground they have come to call home, they soon learn that the adventure they have been seeking hasn't been very far away. A body of a 21-year-old girl has been found murdered and raped and their father now has strict instructions to stay off the mountain. Yet Patty and Rachel feel that perhaps the police haven't truly searched everywhere for clues and soon set off with a plan to aid in the search. Rachel has a unique ability that lets her at times see into the future and believes that this is just the time to utilize that ability to help her father out.

In the latest novel from Joyce Maynard, After Her is the story of the coming of age between Rachel Toricellin and her younger shy sister Patty for the beginning of the novel.This sets the backdrop for the novel as more young women are showing up murdered on the mountain the girls have grown up on and characterizes the Trailside Killer case the terrorized Marin County in the 1970's. Joyce does a remarkable job at getting you inside the heads of Patty and Rachel early on in their young lives to set the stage for how events like serial murders in someone's backyard might affect them while they are watching this going on, all the while, having their own father as the lead investigator. For those of you that love a great murder mystery based on a true case, then this one will definitely want to be on your must read list. A note of caution that there are some sexual content in relating to the girls coming of age story in which they are exposed to a variety of sexual situations that might be common for this type of novel.

I received After Her by Joyce Maynard compliments of William Morrow, a division of Harper Collins Publishers for my honest review and received no monetary compensation for a favorable one. I'd rate this novel a 4 out of 5 stars and found the content of the novel extremely engaging to draw the reader into the lives of the characters of Patty and Rachel. For me, it makes for a great novel if I feel personally connected to them in some way and being able to remember back to all my summers filled with imagination, mine are not that far off from Patty and Rachel's.

For more information about After Her, Joyce Maynard and where you can preorder a copy of this novel due out August of 2013, please click on the links below:

After Her by Joyce Maynard

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