Annie Brown is 37 years old with a loving husband and four children. One night while fixing dinner, she has a brain aneurysm and dies. After Annie is a character study of Annie, a fun loving perceptive woman who loved being a wife and a mother. It also describes how her husband, children and best friend react and eventually cope with their loss.

Although After Annie sounds like a terribly depressing read, in Anna Quindlen’s hands it really isn’t. It is a heart warming novel about good people doing the best they can during a trying, traumatic year.