The Afterthoughts

Description

In the middle of nowhere, amidst the endless blackness of a forever night, there is a train. Ordinarily it speeds along in the empty darkness. As much as a train can speed along, when it has no track to speed upon and no landscape to speed through. Motion, like time, reason and destination, is an affectation here.

An unnamed narrator wakes suddenly to find himself in the compartment of a train he cannot remember boarding. His fellow passengers are both strange and familiar. Together, they must work out the truth of their situation. Are they memories of long, forgotten souls, or something else? And what links them through the mists of time.

They are the afterthoughts, trapped in their past, searching for a future.

Stephen Reynolds began writing with a successful series of travel books. His debut novel, The Layers, was published in 2021. His second, Darling Sorrow, was published by The Book Guild in 2023, exploring themes of love, mental health, and truth. The Afterthoughts is his third novel and reflects on the nature of existence, memory and nurture vs nature. Stephen lives in Bristol.