Charlotte Hughes, best known for her Loveswept novels and the books she now writes with Janet Evanovich, is also the author of several romantic suspense thrillers now being re-released by Avon. When I first heard about this Southern gothic, I was intrigued. Rich atmosphere, eccentric characters, creepy mystery – it sounded like the perfect book. Sadly, Hughes falls very far short of perfection here.

As a teenager, Emily Wilkop sees Frank Gillespie carry out a brutal murder. The experience terrifies her and she keeps it a secret because of her fear of retribution from the killer. Frank eventually goes off to prison for another crime, and Emily finally begins to feel safe again.

This changes abruptly fifteen years later when Emily, now a schoolteacher in her small town, learns that Frank Gillespie has been freed from prison. She fears that he will remember her as a witness to the unsolved murder and that he will come after her. In addition, Emily is now caring for her dead sister’s child and she is afraid for the girl’s safety.

Soon after Gillespie’s release, Emily contacts the local sheriff who, even though he seems to think Emily is overreacting, refers her to Parole Officer Clinton Ward, who takes Emily more seriously and investigates her claims. While it initially appears that Frank Gillespie is not stalking Emily, Ward does not doubt that someone is after her. He tries to protect her and also to figure out who would want to harm her. Along the way, things start to heat up between Ward and Emily, but the focus of the story is still primarily on trying to decide who is out to get Emily.

This could have been a very interesting and even chilling read if there weren’t just too many problems. There is no one big, glaring mistake, just a lot of little eyerolling bits that start to multiply after a while. Instead of And After That, the Dark, a more apt title would have been “Death by Chinese Water Torture”.

Most of the problems fall into three rough categories: Bad Southern stereotypes, melodrama, and uneven pacing. For example, the rural South Carolina setting and plot of this novel could have been perfect for a Southern gothic. However, the uneven use of Southern dialect, the stereotyped portrayals of religion and religious characters, the excessive reactions of various characters (a rather eyeroll-inducing scene with a particular social worker comes to mind), and the frenzy of loose-end-tying at the end made this a jarring read. Add to that the awkward pace of the hero and heroine’s relationship and it is all too less than memorable.

On top of all that, the story is told in the first-person by the heroine. First-person narration can be a wonderful way to get inside a character’s head, but when that narrator is one annoying human being, a reader may not want too much insight into her psyche. At times, I did feel some sympathy for Emily, who really did love her niece and want what was best for her. At times I was also intrigued by the twisted mystery unfolding around Emily. However, her tendency to ignore obvious danger and her often irrational fixation on Frank Gillespie made it difficult for me to entirely like her.

While the story does have some suspenseful moments, they simply do not outweigh its many irritations. At its (admittedly few) best moments, I wanted to care about finding the solution to this mystery. Unfortunately, most of the time I just wanted to finish the book and get it over with.