Keira is new to this small, cold town and is running from a past that seems to feast on her darkest memories. Can our Chosen One find her way back from the deception and chaos that surrounds her or is this the life of a trapped girl, broken and lost forever? Because not everything is as it seems and working the VIP section under his watchful eye is only the beginning.

And here starts the trip into magic and its many worlds, including a great meeting with Death herself in the afterlife. But making it through the gates of Hell and back in one piece isn't something they can expect or take lightly. Afterlife is the first book in the series of 12 books, with the story of Keira and Draven becoming ever more complicated in a world that sets them miles apart.They just stare at her intently and creep her out, even though they are overjoyed that she is finally here. The author wanted to portray that her character is above the usual social and gender grouping, and the conflicts that come with them, as an individual that is so blissfully selfless and unaware of her physical appearance.

It was confusing at times, as in you could not see the plot going anywhere, it just sort of floated around. For her, 'technique' is rooted in traditions of strict forms and metres, an interest that sets her apart as modern – and American – in challenging ways, for being on the face of it old-fashioned, yet ambitiously experimental among the forms she uses. The scene changes were so rapid and unconnected you had to do a double take sometimes, just to know where you are. The series might take you on a rollercoaster of emotions or provide a steady companion on lazy Sunday afternoons.But Afterlife's King isn't yet done with her, and Keira once again finds herself stood opposite the man who broke her heart. Now the reckless twenty-first century girl and the fearless Roman gladiator must face the final battle. Having decided whether or not it will be a binary heaven/hell situation, there are hundreds of other rules to devise.

I don’t expect the author to get them all but I appreciated the effort because it made the character more believable. Her books have frequently been highly recommended in the press and on radio and she's been shortlisted for numerous awards. Or at least that's what his father, a loving but devout Baptist minister, has raised him to believe. Had it been written 11 years later, one could view The Great Divorce as a religious reply to that great secular lament to excessive earthly pride, Albert Camus’ The Fall. So dated it almost feels deliberate, Hales’s rollicking Inferno pastiche concerns a promiscuous British Rail middle-manager who drowns on a cruise and is assigned to the Second Circle.

A “mind-state” – in essence, a soul – can be digitally copied and transmitted from a dying body into whichever virtual-reality-driven afterlife is deemed suitable. Something very annoying that I noticed right from the start was that this author has a tendency to end an alarming number of sentences with an exclamation point!