After We Fall: A Novel by Emma Kavanagh Spotlight, Excerpt and Giveaway!

JUNE 2015
ISBN: 9781492609193
$14.99 U.S.; Trade Paper
Fiction; Sourcebooks Landmark

A plane falls out of the sky.
A woman is murdered.
Four people all have something to hide…

For fans of Tana French and Alice LaPlante comes After We Fall, a debut psychological thriller by former police psychologist Emma Kavanagh that explores four lives shattered in the tense aftermath of a plane crash.

Shortly after takeoff, flight 2940 plummets to the snow-covered ground, breaking into two parts, the only survivors a handful of passengers and a flight attendant. 

Cecilia has packed up and left her family. Now she has survived a tragedy and sees no way out.

Tom has woken up to discover that his wife was on the plane and must break the news to their only son.

Jim is a retired police offer and worried father. His beloved daughter has disappeared, and he knows something is wrong.

Freya is struggling to cope with the loss of her father. But as she delves into his past, she may not like what she finds.

Four people, who have never met but are indelibly linked by these disasters, will be forced to reveal the closely guarded secrets that unlock the answers to their questions. But once the truth is exposed, it may cause even more destruction.

Told from various points of view, chapter by chapter, readers follow the investigation into the doomed plane alongside the investigation of a murder. Kavanagh deftly weaves together the stories of those who lost someone or something of themselves in one tragic incident, exploring how swiftly everything we know can come crashing down.

Chapter 6

Jim: Thursday, March 15, 7:20 p.m.

Your daughter’s how old? Twenty-five?” The man-child detective gave him a look, the kind you give a kid who has mixed up his words. “Yeah. That’s not something we’d be getting involved in.” A ping, and he pulled a phone from his pocket, scrolling down the screen with his thumb. His shirt was creased, tie pulled loose, knot too tight, hanging askew. He hadn’t polished his shoes. Didn’t look like he had ever polished his shoes.

Jim’s hands shook. He’d washed them, once, twice, seemed like a hundred times, but he could still see the blood there. The cat had been purring. Jim had stared at the blood. Had to think, had to calm down, had to think. Because if he could, then he could figure this out. There would be an answer, something simple, and then there would be a flooding relief, a deep sigh, maybe even a laugh, his heart still pounding. He’d hang his head, sick with relief. Go home and tell Esther, and they would laugh at his fear. Then it would settle down into some dim and distant corner of his memory, where it would stay forever—the day he thought he’d lost his only daughter.

“Is Nate around?”

The boy didn’t look up, still staring at his phone. “Mmm?”

“Detective Inspector Nate Maxwell. He around?” They’d joined together. Stood shoulder to shoulder as rocks and gas canisters rained down on them in the Bristol St. Pauls riots, when they’d been pulled in on mutual aid. Played more rounds of golf than Jim could count.

The kid looked up then, nostrils flaring. “I’m the senior officer on tonight.”

You’ve got to be kidding me. Jim rubbed his face, turning slightly.

He had stood in the empty house, and it was like he was frozen, somewhere in a no-man’s-land where he couldn’t just be a father, because if he was a father then he would lose it, just lose it, but he wasn’t a policeman anymore. Stood there feeling fat and old and useless.

He had pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

There would be an explanation. Libby would answer the phone with her singsong “hello,” and she would laugh when he told her where he was and what he had found. She would tell him a story, something that he hadn’t thought of.

And then everything would be all right.

It took a moment before he realized what it was that he was hearing, why suddenly the kitchen was full of sound. It took a moment before the sounds coalesced in his head into the ringing of his daughter’s cell phone.

And he knew then, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that nothing would ever be right again.

Libby’s cell phone lay on the floor, half hidden beneath the Formica kitchen table.

Funny how such a small thing can tell you everything you need to know. When it’s your daughter, who you know inside and out, who you have cradled and fed and loved and watched as she grows into the most remarkable young woman you have ever seen. When you and her brother have teased her a hundred times about that cell phone that she is never, ever without.

“Look, mate, she’s a big girl. If it’d been a couple of days, well, okay, but a couple of hours… Sorry, but my hands are tied.” Sipping his coffee, because he could. This was nothing to him.

“She didn’t show up to work this morning.”

He’d rung her sergeant. Nice kid, had worked under Jim in his last few years of service.

“Ceri. It’s Jim Hanover.”

“Hiya, Boss. How you doing?”

“Ceri.” No time for small talk. “Sorry to bother you. I’m actually looking for Libby.” Quick false laugh, because then perhaps his heart would stop beating so hard. “Silly girl left her phone at home.”

There was silence on the line, and Jim found himself praying for maybe the first time in twenty years. Because he knew what silences like that meant.

Then: “Ah, Boss, the…um… Look, thing is, I’ve been trying to get ahold of her myself. She never turned up for work this morning.”

He’d closed his eyes, and the world had swirled around him, opportunity for an easy answer dimming to an ember.

Jim had hoped that Nate, the DI, would be there. He had blown into the station, Irene on the front desk whom he’d known forever—who’d bought his kids Christmas presents, whose flat tire he’d changed—buzzing him through, seeing the look on his face and asking no questions. If Nate had been there, it would have been okay. Because Nate knew him, knew that there was no way Jim would be there if he didn’t have to be. That Jim Hanover didn’t piss about. Instead, there was this child, with his unpolished shoes, the phone that never left his fingers. Looking up as Jim entered the CID office, a barely disguised sigh of impatience. The stare as Jim had stood there, spilling the story about his daughter’s empty house and the jacket and the phone and the blood, all the while playing on his phone, the occasional “uh-huh,” even though it was obvious he wasn’t listening.

The kid scratched his ear with a pencil. “Well, what about family? Friends? Anyone spoken to her?”

Jim should have called his son, Ethan. Maybe he’d have heard from her. Although privately Jim doubted it, given what had happened. Couldn’t see Libby confiding her deepest secrets to her elder brother. Not the way things were between them.

“No, I… Look, I just know that something’s wrong.” Could hear it, how vapid it sounded, could see how he must look to this boy with the world laid out at his feet, no wedding ring, no pictures of kids on his desk. A daft old bastard who can’t let go of the police force.

“Tell you what, I’ll make a note. Anything comes up, I’ll give you a shout. But to be honest, friend, best bet is to head off home. She’ll show up.”

“Look, kid, something’s happened. She’s a police officer, for God’s sake. She hasn’t shown up to work. That doesn’t mean anything?”

“Sounds like an issue for human resources to me.”

“Oh, for fuck’s… I did this job long enough. You really think I’d be here if I didn’t know there was an issue?”

His face had flattened out. He was losing him.

“Look, please…” The word tasted uncomfortable in his mouth. “Please. She is reliable. She is dedicated. She has never missed a day. She is never without her phone. And the blood…”

Then there was a look on the detective’s face, the dawning realization that he should have been listening, that playing on his phone as Jim talked—the empty house and Jim’s missing daughter and the smear of blood tumbling from Jim’s lips—was perhaps a bad idea. He leaned back, pushed himself upright, nodding, like he had been listening all along. Like he hadn’t missed it.

“Tell me more about the blood.”

The Author

Emma Kavanagh was born and raised in South Wales. After graduating with a PhD in psychology from Cardiff University, she spent many years working as a police and military psychologist, training firearms officers, command staff, and military personnel throughout the UK and Europe. She started her business as a psychology consultant, specializing in human performance in extreme situations. She lives in South Wales with her husband and two young sons. Emma Kavanagh is a former police and military psychologist, and author of After We Fall: A Novel (Sourcebooks). Twitter: @EmmaLK

My Thoughts

"A shrieking of wind, screeching of metal as the plane ripped apart, the wicked cold tearing at her throat. Cecelia Williams gripped the seat, fingers burning with pain. She tried to close her mouth, but the sound pried it open, stealing her breath. A giant's hand pinned her to the bulkhead. Tumbling, tumbling...she couldn't determine the floor from the ceiling." This is the first paragraph in the first chapter of After We Fall. The title refers to a plane crash and it's aftermath for all the characters involved in the crash or those affected by the crash.

The Characters:

Cecillia.. one of the main characters, a stewardess and survivor on the plane crash, is struggling in her marriage, her role as a mother and her past. She tends to shut down and has not come to terms with an event that happened to her while in college. 

Tom .. Tom, Cecillia's husband,  is a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) detective of 15 years. Adores his young son and is the primary caregiver to him. He is not sure why his wife has left him and their son, so he struggles with this. He becomes involved in the murder of a young woman which changes all he knows in his life.

Jim.. Along with his wife Esther and their son Ethan, they wait for news about Libby. Who killed her and why?

Freya.. is the daughter of the pilot, Oliver who has died in the plane crash. Questions arise over whether or not he caused the crash in some way.

These four people are inextricably involved in each other's lives as a result of the plane crash and each struggle to come to terms with the aftermath of the crash, Each chapter is told in the point of view of each of the four people. Through them we learn a bit more about the other people in their lives also, Oliver, the pilot of the plane and Richard his son for instance. As the novel goes on, the author weaves the stories of each of the four people and other people in their lives and the reader is swept along in the anger and loss that this terrible event has caused, leaving their lives in shambles. 

We eventually find out how and why all the events occurred and the aftermath. Can these people overcome the events that have changed their lives forever? Maybe, maybe not, I don't want to give away the conclusion but I found this novel to be sad, very sad..a terrible event like a plane crash and the murder of a young woman is not a happy occasion and this book is not a happy book. No happy ever afters, just a feeling that all concerned will be allright. 

This book moved along at a steady pace, with great character development, and  real feelings and emotions. I did enjoy the book, even if it was a sad one, not all events that happen to people are happy events and as the title implies, after we fall, can we put our lives back together and move on? A book that you will enjoy and contemplate long after you have finished the last page. Emma Kavanagh is also the author of Hidden, another psychological thriller. 

I received a copy of the book for review through Sourcebooks and Netgalley and was not monetarily compensated for my review.