After Nightfall by A.J. Banner
Published by Lake Union Publishing on August 7th 2018
Genres: Literature & Fiction, Mystery, Psychological, Suspense, Thrillers, Women’s Fiction
Pages: 251
Format: ARC
Goodreads
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Beware of friends with secrets…
Imagine your closest friend utterly betraying you. Years later, when she seeks forgiveness, you invite her to your engagement party as a gesture of reconciliation. But seething hostilities rise to the surface, ruining everyone’s evening. After an awful night, your friend’s battered, lifeless body is found at the bottom of a rocky cliff.
Newly engaged Marissa Parlette is living this nightmare. She should be celebrating her upcoming wedding, but she can’t shake the image of her friend lying dead on the beach. Did she fall? Was she pushed? Or did she take a purposeful step into darkness? Desperate for answers, Marissa digs deep into the events of the party. But what she remembers happening after nightfall now carries sinister implications: the ugly sniping, the clandestine meetings, the drunken flirtations. The more she investigates, the more she questions everything she thought she knew about her friends, the man she once trusted, and even herself.
Bestselling author A. J. Banner keeps readers on a razor-sharp edge in this intricately plotted novel of psychological suspense…in which nothing is as it seems.
Back in August of 2015, I read a book titled The Good Neighbor by A.J. Banner, and it was the first I had ever heard of this author (see my review HERE). Then, December of 2016, I read The Twilight Wife (see my review HERE) and it was another awesome book! When I saw the opportunity to read and review the new book, After Nightfall, I couldn’t jump on board fast enough! I read this book in two sittings on a trip where I was a passenger on both ways of the trip.
As After Nightfall starts out, we meet Marissa Parlette and her fiancé, Nathan who are throwing a dinner party/turned/engagement party, and as you can guess, things don’t go as planned…..because if they did, let’s face it, we wouldn’t have a story……Anyway, joining Marissa and Nathan for dinner are Nathan’s daughter Anna, Nathan’s brother Keith and his wife, Hedra and Lauren and her husband, Jenson. What started out as a good plan, turned into an uncomfortable evening: Anna seems upset by the announcement. Keith and Hedra are quarreling, and clearly Lauren is drinking too much wine and flirting with Nathan, right in front of her husband and Marissa.
There is history with Lauren – Marissa and Lauren grew up together and went to college together. They used to be best friends until a betrayal tore them apart and they stopped talking to each other. After several years go by, Lauren and Jenson move in their new house that is right next to Nathan’s house. Ever so slowly, Marissa is trying to let Lauren back into her life by allowing herself to offer Lauren forgiveness.
This is where the story gets really good. Unexpectedly, Lauren announces she has to leave to pick her daughter up from a party. Marissa follows her to the door and confronts Lauren about her flirting with Nathan. Of course Lauren blames it on the wine, but insists that the two of them need to talk privately the next day. Lauren’s last words to Marissa are: “it’s important, it’s about Nathan”.
The next morning, Marissa discovers Lauren’s body at the bottom of a cliff. Did she fall or was she pushed? Murder? Did she walk to the edge of the cliff and take a deliberate step into darkness? Or did she have too much to drink and slip? What did Lauren’s message the previous night mean?
There is so much more to this story that I can’t share without writing a spoiler, which you know I will not do. This is a book you don’t want to miss. Ms. Banner does an excellent job with causing readers to have suspicions on the other characters in the story. I caught myself questioning everyone involved! This book draws you in and mentally paints the whole story out so authentically that you follow every twist and turn with the characters. I can honestly say I did not see this ending coming and I’m usually pretty good at that. There were a few different times throughout this story where I seriously thought I knew which way we were going only to discover I was clearly wrong!
As a child, A. J. Banner loved reading everything from Nancy Drew to Tolkien to her parents’ spy novels, “borrowed” from their bookshelves and hidden beneath her pillow. She wrote her first thriller, Mystery at Crane Corner, at the age of 11. She drew her own cover art and bound the pages with staples.
Born in India and raised in North America, A. J. graduated from high school in southern California and received degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. She tried various professions after college, including a stint in law school and a memorable job at a veterinary clinic, since she loves animals, but eventually she returned to writing. Her recent novel of psychological suspense, THE TWILIGHT WIFE (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster) became a USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller.
Her debut novel of psychological suspense, THE GOOD NEIGHBOR was the #1 Kindle bestseller for 34 days, remained in the top five on the Kindle bestseller list throughout the book’s release month, and was in the top 50 in the Kindle store for 145 days in a row. THE GOOD NEIGHBOR was named by Harper’s Bazaar as a book that could be the next GONE GIRL. On August 7, 2018, Lake Union Publishing will release her third novel of psychological suspense, AFTER NIGHTFALL, which Wall Street Journal bestselling author, Kerry Lonsdale, calls a “stellar psychological thriller.”
A longtime fan of Agatha Christie, Daphne du Maurier, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, A. J. feels at home writing stories with unexpected twists and turns. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and six rescued cats. For more info on A.J. Banner, visit her sites:
Website // Instagram // Facebook // Goodreads
Thank you to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of After Nightfall by A. J. Banner for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.
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