After You've Gone - Jeffrey Lent

A widower finds healing and the surprise of new love in 1920s Amsterdam in this "intricate and rewarding" historical novel (Publishers Weekly).

College professor Henry Dorn has spent years building a family in Nova Scotia, but it only takes a single afternoon for it to fall apart. Abruptly widowed of the love of his life, Henry buys a steamer ticket for Amsterdam, the city of his heritage, hoping to start life anew.

Nothing could have prepared Henry for the woman he meets on the ship: the fiery Lydia Pearce-one of a new generation of self-sufficient women. Before long the two have fallen into an affair of a depth and significance for which neither was prepared. But the memory of his wife and the vexed relationship he had with their son haunt Henry in the midst of his new beginning.

After You've Gone beautifully charts the sweep of a life, the grim reach of Word War I, and the discovery-and loss-of life-defining love.