AFTERLOVE

A woman haunted by tragedy tries to make contact with the world beyond in this novel by Rosenblum, the author of more than 20 pseudonymous novels. Kate Weyland loses a lucky earring on the morning of an important job interview. Running late, she asks her husband to drive their seven-year-old twin daughters to school. He and the girls end up in the path of a speeding police car, and all three of them die. While she's still reeling from grief, Kate goes on a trip to Nantucket Island to help a friend close her cottage, and she hears of a local recluse who is said to have driven a ghost from a nearby B and B. Kate is normally skeptical, but in her vulnerable state the idea of communicating with her family beyond the grave captures her imagination, and she consults the mysterious Gabriel Farr. He apparently contacts her husband, but reaching the spirits of the twins proves elusive. The channeling attempts are so cathartic that Kate succumbs to an almost hypnotic physical attraction for Gabriel, but she soon discovers that, like any medium worth his salt, this one has a shadowy past. Rosenblum's thoughtful but repetitious exploration of faith, the afterlife and the charlatans who prey on those in mourning is burdened with too much exposition; Kate's often windy introspection slows the pace considerably. Still, the drama is reasonably engaging, and many readers will relate to Kate's desperation. (Mar.)