{"product_id":"the-second-hand-geoff-dearie-9798278866381","title":"The Second Hand: A Novel of the Afterlife and Care","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhat if the afterlife wasn't a judgment - but a system?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIan wakes at a table in a room with no doors, no windows, and no answers.\u003cbr\u003eOnly a quiet, unsettling sense that he's being held in place.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe isn't alone for long.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs others arrive - a trauma doctor who refuses easy explanations, a man who's been here before and shouldn't have survived it, and a boy who is desperate not to disappear - they begin to realise the truth: this place exists to \u003ci\u003esmooth people out\u003c\/i\u003e. To quiet grief. To erase anger. To make suffering manageable.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd at the centre of it all is God - not as an all-powerful judge, but as a function of the system itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs the room begins to fracture, a darker presence emerges: something that has learned how to finish the job God never fully could. Something that offers peace through disappearance. Silence through erasure.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRefusing to comply, the group does something dangerous.\u003cbr\u003eThey stop waiting.\u003cbr\u003eThey stop behaving.\u003cbr\u003eThey start holding each other instead.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is a novel about what happens \u003cb\u003eafter\u003c\/b\u003e we refuse an unjust system - about care as resistance, about trauma that cannot be optimised away, and about choosing to live even when it hurts.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFor readers of literary speculative fiction, philosophical science fiction, and the work of Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, and Emily St. John Mandel.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDark, humane, and fiercely compassionate, this is a story for anyone who has ever been told to be quieter, easier, or less - and refused.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Geoff Dearie\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798278866381\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 12\/17\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 216\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.65lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.49d","brand":"Geoff Dearie","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48997315772671,"sku":"9798278866381","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-second-hand-geoff-dearie-9798278866381","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}