The Afterlife of Walter Augustus
By: Hannah Lynn / Narrated By: Rafe Beckley
Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
Saw: Rafe Beckley and snatched it up… like, imMEDiately!
In case you haven’t noticed it: Hi, I’m Gillian… and I’m an Audiobook Addict…
>Crowd in Unison< HI GILLIAN
Okay, so now that you’re with me, please know also that what I do sooo love about audiobooks is that a good one, with a stellar story and a lively narrator is like having a grand performance being put on in your very own head. So whilst scrolling through New Releases, as shameless Audiobook Addicts are fond of doing, I saw that Rafe Beckley had a new one out, and one with a fun premise, AND the audiobook was 1.99 if you checked out the ebook with Kindle Unlimited for, well, Free? Good cow, man! Can you say: Purchase Complete fast enough?!
Walter Augustus is in the Interim, a place souls go between life on Earth and Moving On Higher. You see, you can’t Move On until the verrrrry last memory of you is no longer alive in someone on Earth. As it so happens? Walter is thiiiiis close to Moving On because the very last person who still remembers a book of poetry, ooooone single book that was printed in the 1700s, is on her deathbed. At last! He can join his beloved wife, the family he so loved!
-BUT-
Letty is a good-natured but somewhat spineless and fearful woman of a certain age. She’s been stuck in a discount shoe store, selling cheap shoes (She knows EVERYthing that’s to be known about shoes, feet, sizing, you name it), all whilst kinda sorta baking and decorating cakes on the side. She’s tormented by her elder sister Victoria always wanting her money, but little does Victoria (Or Letty’s husband, Donald!) know? Letty’s been squirreling savings away, making an investment here and there, and she has quite the substantial nest egg now. She’s feeling very guilty about not telling Donald about the huuuuuge sum in several bank accounts, and she CERtainly does NOT want to be doling out even MORE cash to Victoria.
Alas, spineless and fearful, as I said, soothing frayed nerves with chocolate and baking WONderful cakes. After baking one WONderful cake, a friend who’s so very grateful for it, hands her an ooooold little book of poetry. Oh NO! Walter’s poetry; he’ll be stuck in the Interim forEVER now that yet another person will be remembering him. Plus, and this is sooo NOT good, the volume was erroneously dedicated to Walter’s tormentor of a boss who has now been dragged back from Higher Up, stuck in the Interim as well.
And thus begins all sorts of shenanigans as Walter and crotchety boss, Pemberton, enlist the aid of a soul who’s been in the Interim for eons and who encourages Walter to do all sorts of invasive things to poor Letty’s mind. As things went along, and Walter got all Too Big For His Britches with occupying Letty’s mind, I reeeally started to have misgivings about the likability factor for Walter. I mean, I really started loathing what he was doing to Letty. Ahhhh, but that’s where Pemberton’s character arc started growing in meaningful ways, and by the time Letty’s mum shows up to give Walter a well-deserved tongue-lashing, I was solidly in the story once again. Besides, there are some scary truths about how on the Internet, NOTHing dies and all lives forever. And there are some truuuuly beautiful lines, beautiful truths about Love and Living that are written in as well.
Rafe Beckley? Oh holy gosh, how wonderful he is. He is a stellar narrator, handling each character, each accent with ease and grace. As things get frightening, he kicks up the pace a notch or two as well as adding the Ooomph that author Hannah Lynn writes so well into the story. Keep in mind, also, that Walter is a poor farrier from the 18th century countryside, so his rhythms and accents, whilst most likely not of the true period (Who would understand THAT?!), do indeed sound somewhat of an older age. And as Letty unravels, and then as she finds her voice, Beckley is on that too. LOVE that man, would snap up ANYthing by him again!
This was an actual 9 hours and 20 minutes for me as the narration was sooo spot-on that I couldn’t jack my listening speed even up to x1.1. Can you imagine? Not eeeven as things got all tense and dire and exciting and I was DYING to know What Happens Next.
9 hrs and 20 mins of pure bliss, dear fellow Accomplice.
Awesome!
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