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The Year After
After her overbearing mother’s sudden death, young English professor Maddie finds her world turned upside down when she leaves New York City for her family’s home in the Colorado mountains. She plans to stay only a few weeks, but, then again, she never expects to find her father posting his profile on singles websites or her sister planning a wedding worthy of a bridal magazine.
When a childhood friend shows up to her boozy thirtieth birthday party and looks at her in a way he never did in high school, Maddie jumps at the chance for a love of her own. But when her new boyfriend turns into a rogue worthy of a Victorian novel, Maddie finds consolation in her friendship with the maverick sculptor Jackson. She determines not to fall for him, even though her eccentric aunts remind her that she’s the only one not getting married.
As Maddie adopts the unlikely role of maid-of-honor to both her sister and soon-to-be stepmother, she discovers that she still lives under her mother’s shadow. Only by confronting the past and her mother’s memory can she embrace love and the family she’s always wanted.
When a childhood friend shows up to her boozy thirtieth birthday party and looks at her in a way he never did in high school, Maddie jumps at the chance for a love of her own. But when her new boyfriend turns into a rogue worthy of a Victorian novel, Maddie finds consolation in her friendship with the maverick sculptor Jackson. She determines not to fall for him, even though her eccentric aunts remind her that she’s the only one not getting married.
As Maddie adopts the unlikely role of maid-of-honor to both her sister and soon-to-be stepmother, she discovers that she still lives under her mother’s shadow. Only by confronting the past and her mother’s memory can she embrace love and the family she’s always wanted.
378 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2014
About the author
Adrianne Noel
1 book5 followersAdrianne Noel lives in beautiful Colorado with her husband, daughter, and several spoiled cats. She received her bachelor’s degree in English from Barnard College, her master’s degree in Scottish and Comparative Literature from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and her Ph.D. in English Literature from New York University. She has spent over ten years in e-education and currently teaches English literature and composition for an online university. When not teaching or writing, Adrianne enjoys hiking, wine tasting, and gardening.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 2, 2014
This review originally appears here:http://www.guyvestal.com/home/2014/10... As well as at Amazon.
I was initially attracted to this book over the cover, (of course) but the prospect of reading about a close Daddy/Daughter relationship was the prime motivation, and I was not disappointed.
Oddly enough, the entire family was believable, the bi-polar mother, the crazy sisters, the doting father, even Maddies love interests. The world and character building was steady from beginning to end, something rare in most authors. The book felt as if the author took her time, and let the story flow naturally from her, nothing rushed or slapped together.
Something rare here is the appeal to men. There are some strong male characters that a wide array of men can identify with, and follow along with. The sports minded, the player, the doting Daddy, the artist, the business type. It is certainly not something that is everyday in adult romance.
It was also nice to be exposed to the descriptions of the landscape of Colorado, the animals, the weather, the travel, the architecture.
I paid $13.09 at Amazon, and this is actually one of the rare times that I can say the material far outweighs the price. The cover and paper are very sturdy. The binding held up to extensive reading abuse. It fact, it held up so well, I went out of way to bend it around, and flatten it, just out of spite, and it still stood strong. The ink is dark, the type is clear and readable. It was worth every penny in material cost.
------------------------------------------
Author Interview with Adrianne Noel
1. QUESTION: What are the main parallels between you and the book.
The novel is based on my experience of losing my mother to cancer fifteen years ago. My mother was much like Maddie’s mother, Lena, and, sad to say, her daughters were not able to blossom until after her death. Like Ted, my dad started dating only a few months after my mother’s funeral, which challenged many of my preconceived notions about love, marriage, and loyalty. I am also a college English teacher who has specialized in Victorian literature, although I’m considerably less dreamy and more practical than Maddie.
The book started out as a memoir, but I found myself adding fictional scenes and characters—and my writing group discovered that they enjoyed reading the fictional parts better than the biographical ones. I ended up throwing out large chunks of biographical material and fictionalizing the story. Everyone asks if Jackson is modelled after my husband. Jackson is an entirely fictional character, although my husband is also a college professor and does frequently wear tweed jackets, Levis, cowboy boots, and a fedora.
2. QUESTION: Why write it?
I wanted to capture the feeling of loss that coincides with the humor of a dysfunctional family trying to get on its feet again. I also thought readers could relate to a grown woman’s conflicted feelings of relief and grief in the loss of a difficult parent, as well as the complex emotions that surface in watching a surviving parent date again. Of course, there is the love story, too, and I knew that many readers would identify with Maddie’s tendency to fall for the wrong guy, and even her dilemma in feeling like she needs to choose between love and career.
3. QUESTION: What do you want readers to come away with from your book?
The bonds of family cannot be broken by time, space, or death, and sometimes forgiveness, redemption, and love come along when we least expect them.
Most of all, my goal is to entertain. I hope to create a world in which readers can lose themselves for a few hours--a world that evokes both tears and laughter.
4. QUESTION: Is there any other books in the works?
My work-in-progress follows two women of different centuries, linked by a mysterious piano, who defy the expectations of their families and communities to pursue a passion for music. The setting of the novel alternates between South Dakota and Bergen, Norway, and it captures the experience of Norwegian immigrants to the Dakota Territory and their descendants.
After that, my plan is a series set in Old Snowmass, Colorado, where local ranchers share the idyllic mountain valley with the monks of St. Benedict’s Monastery. When three women find refuge and transformation in the valley, the vision of a local developer collides with the values of the monastery and with the determination of a reclusive rancher who wishes to preserve the land.
5. QUESTION: Have Maddie's mother tell us why someone should read this book.
We all experience regret and fear that we haven’t been the best mother, father, daughter, sister, or grandmother. Maddie’s story considers the possibility that love, forgiveness, and redemption can still happen, even after we are gone. As Jackson tells Maddie early in the novel, “ . . . the divide between this world and the next is not as fixed as we would like to think.” Maddie’s journey has brought the telling of a story that I could never tell myself –and produced the kind of life I never could have imagined.
I was initially attracted to this book over the cover, (of course) but the prospect of reading about a close Daddy/Daughter relationship was the prime motivation, and I was not disappointed.
Oddly enough, the entire family was believable, the bi-polar mother, the crazy sisters, the doting father, even Maddies love interests. The world and character building was steady from beginning to end, something rare in most authors. The book felt as if the author took her time, and let the story flow naturally from her, nothing rushed or slapped together.
Something rare here is the appeal to men. There are some strong male characters that a wide array of men can identify with, and follow along with. The sports minded, the player, the doting Daddy, the artist, the business type. It is certainly not something that is everyday in adult romance.
It was also nice to be exposed to the descriptions of the landscape of Colorado, the animals, the weather, the travel, the architecture.
I paid $13.09 at Amazon, and this is actually one of the rare times that I can say the material far outweighs the price. The cover and paper are very sturdy. The binding held up to extensive reading abuse. It fact, it held up so well, I went out of way to bend it around, and flatten it, just out of spite, and it still stood strong. The ink is dark, the type is clear and readable. It was worth every penny in material cost.
------------------------------------------
Author Interview with Adrianne Noel
1. QUESTION: What are the main parallels between you and the book.
The novel is based on my experience of losing my mother to cancer fifteen years ago. My mother was much like Maddie’s mother, Lena, and, sad to say, her daughters were not able to blossom until after her death. Like Ted, my dad started dating only a few months after my mother’s funeral, which challenged many of my preconceived notions about love, marriage, and loyalty. I am also a college English teacher who has specialized in Victorian literature, although I’m considerably less dreamy and more practical than Maddie.
The book started out as a memoir, but I found myself adding fictional scenes and characters—and my writing group discovered that they enjoyed reading the fictional parts better than the biographical ones. I ended up throwing out large chunks of biographical material and fictionalizing the story. Everyone asks if Jackson is modelled after my husband. Jackson is an entirely fictional character, although my husband is also a college professor and does frequently wear tweed jackets, Levis, cowboy boots, and a fedora.
2. QUESTION: Why write it?
I wanted to capture the feeling of loss that coincides with the humor of a dysfunctional family trying to get on its feet again. I also thought readers could relate to a grown woman’s conflicted feelings of relief and grief in the loss of a difficult parent, as well as the complex emotions that surface in watching a surviving parent date again. Of course, there is the love story, too, and I knew that many readers would identify with Maddie’s tendency to fall for the wrong guy, and even her dilemma in feeling like she needs to choose between love and career.
3. QUESTION: What do you want readers to come away with from your book?
The bonds of family cannot be broken by time, space, or death, and sometimes forgiveness, redemption, and love come along when we least expect them.
Most of all, my goal is to entertain. I hope to create a world in which readers can lose themselves for a few hours--a world that evokes both tears and laughter.
4. QUESTION: Is there any other books in the works?
My work-in-progress follows two women of different centuries, linked by a mysterious piano, who defy the expectations of their families and communities to pursue a passion for music. The setting of the novel alternates between South Dakota and Bergen, Norway, and it captures the experience of Norwegian immigrants to the Dakota Territory and their descendants.
After that, my plan is a series set in Old Snowmass, Colorado, where local ranchers share the idyllic mountain valley with the monks of St. Benedict’s Monastery. When three women find refuge and transformation in the valley, the vision of a local developer collides with the values of the monastery and with the determination of a reclusive rancher who wishes to preserve the land.
5. QUESTION: Have Maddie's mother tell us why someone should read this book.
We all experience regret and fear that we haven’t been the best mother, father, daughter, sister, or grandmother. Maddie’s story considers the possibility that love, forgiveness, and redemption can still happen, even after we are gone. As Jackson tells Maddie early in the novel, “ . . . the divide between this world and the next is not as fixed as we would like to think.” Maddie’s journey has brought the telling of a story that I could never tell myself –and produced the kind of life I never could have imagined.
September 3, 2014
I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Year After. Adrianne Noel’s adult contemporary novel is solid, mindful, measured and carefully crafted writing. If you enjoy a good romance with well-defined, believable characters; if you love the setting of Rocky Mountain Colorado (or think you might!); if you don’t mind possibly recognizing quirky familial traits in creatures of fiction; if perhaps you’re willing to invest time in a new and extraordinarily credible author, I think you’ll appreciate what’s offered here.
I read the Kindle version; paperback is available as well.
Richard Kim Millsap
27 August 2014
I read the Kindle version; paperback is available as well.
Richard Kim Millsap
27 August 2014
July 7, 2016
If you enjoy contemporary romances with colorful characters, you'll love The Year After. Adrianne Noel's debut novel set in the Rocky Mountains has everything I look for in a romance/women's fiction: beautiful writing, a strong sense of place, a complex heroine with an interesting past, and quirky secondary characters who add comic relief. Oh yeah--and a passionate yet realistic love story! Highly recommended!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews