What Follows After by Dan Walsh

In October 1962, Colt Harrison and his little brother, Timmy, hatched a plan. They would run away from their Florida home, head for their aunt's house in Savannah, Georgia, and refuse to come home until their parents got back together. But things go terribly, terribly wrong. Colt's mother and father must come to grips with years of neglect and mistrust in order to recover their beloved sons, their love for one another, and their broken marriage.

In this emotional story, Dan Walsh takes readers on a journey to rediscover the things that matter most in life--love, truth, and family.


This is the second novel that I've read in the past couple of weeks that was set in the 1960's.  It's not an overly popular time period; however, I've really enjoyed both of these books.  The last book I read, Summer of Joy by Ann H. Gabhart, was set in a rural Midwestern town. This book is set in Florida during the two weeks of the Cuba Missile Crisis and really pointed out the uncertainty that this region, especially, was feeling.

New fun fact about me.  I am a lover of history.   I happened to have an AWESOME history teacher by the name of Mr. McClure who taught history in the form of a story (or maybe being the bookworm that I am, I just made it into a story, I mean, story is in the word).  I would read all my history books at the beginning of every semester and just soak in the information.  I've read all about the Kennedy era, but I swear I don't remember much about the Cuba Missile  except for the embargo imposed by JFK (after he stocked up on cigars first).  This story helped me understand a lot of the helplessness and borderline terror people were feeling at this time.  The author, Dan Walsh, described long lines of Army trucks driving down the interstate in Florida and people just standing there watching, trying to figure out what was going on.  He did an excellent job describing the shock people felt as President Kennedy told the country of Russia putting nuclear missiles in Cuba that were aimed straight for the U.S.  Mr. Walsh really brought all of these pictures alive in my head.

Here's the thing, I just wrote a huge paragraph about the BACKGROUND story in this  book.  The real story is about a kidnapping going on during all of this.  Can you imagine being the parents of this kidnapping and realizing, the story that is impacting your family the most, doesn't even come close to making the front page of the newspaper because any day now, World War III could be starting.  This is how good the book was.  Mr. Walsh did an excellent job of weaving the two stories together and then, sprinkled in some marriage advice for good measure.

A masterful story teller, I will look forward to many more books from Dan Walsh.  This is actually one of the first books that I have read that I could see being made into a movie.  (Hey Hollywood, are you listening?)  I could see the guy from Facing the Giants and Courageous as one of the FBI agents assigned to the case.

But I digress.  This is a really excellent book, and I highly recommend it to you.  It has a little something (romance, intrigue, war, whodunit, etc.) for everyone.                                                                   

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through Bethany House Publisher's  book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/wa...; : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.