From the bestselling author of The Good Neighbor comes a gripping thriller about an engagement party gone fatally awry.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 … 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.
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Another page-turner for A.J. Banner. When a women’s former best friend is found dead at the bottom of a cliff after a dinner party, she’s left questioning everyone around her, including herself.
After Nightfall is a moody, haunting thriller that masterfully explores the complex dynamics of fractured families, fractured marriages, and fractured friendships. This book grabbed me from the opening scene and kept me frantically turning pages until the shocking final chapter. A. J. Banner’s best book yet!
I loved this book! So many twists and turns it kept me guessing right up to the end. Every time I thought I figured out who the killer was I was wrong. If you’re looking for a good thriller, mystery, this book is for you!
After Nightfall by author A.J. Banner is an excellent psychological suspense which kept me reading into the night! Marissa Parlette is attending a dinner party at Nathans home and he presents her with an engagement ring, this should be a wonderful dinner party, right? Things so terribly wrong as the night progresses.
I won’t post spoilers because each event will ultimately lead you to clues about a person who is unstable and is guilty of murder. Marissa happens to always be the one calling 911 for emergency services as more of her acquaintances begin to suffer life-threatening events. The most fragile person to be affected by the tragedies is little Anna, Nathan’s daughter with his ex-wife, Rianne.
The book is a very well written thriller with lots of motives and several characters who are guilty of something!
Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.
Moody and beautifully atmospheric, After Nightfall is a psychological thriller that will keep you guessing until the final page, the final sentence even, a heart-stopping revelation. I highly recommend it!
A. J. Banner keeps the pages turning with this twisty thriller that strikes right at the heart of our closest relationships.
This book met all my favorite things for a ‘whodunnit’. There were elements that were fairly easy to figure out, but the who was actually a little more difficult to figure out. My favorite kind of story. The characters were all very enjoyable and really added to the mystery of who the guilty party could be.
****I received an ARC for an honest review****
Fun tidbit: Lauren doesn’t like things touching her neck, doesn’t wear scarves, necklaces or turtlenecks….just like me .
Wow A.J. killing it again! In some ways this book reminds me of the old “movie of the week” they used to play on Sunday nights. Just the right amount of drama and mystery.
When you think you have it figured out, you better think again. I’m pretty good at deducing “whodunit”, not in this one. It came so far out of left field.
Mind Bending Suspense
Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor! I was gripped by the end of Chapter One and After Nightfall did not let me go until the very end. Broken families, fractured friendships from the past and Marissa is in the middle of it all. Newly engaged, she is trying to mend her friendship with Lauren, who betrayed her years ago. She’s trying to forge a relationship with her future step-daughter Anna and co -parent with her fiance’s ex wife, but something sinister is connected to nearly everyone she is attempting to trust. Marissa, suspicious and impatient for answers, begins to investigate on her own and peels back layer after layer of deceit discovering that virtually everyone in her circle has a secret to keep including her future brother-in-law and his wife. Like Marissa, I started to trust no one in this story. My heart just broke for little Anna and all that she had to endure. I loved the Pacific Northwest setting which was ideal. For me, the ending was a bit abrupt. I’m left to write my own epilogue and although I feel one would have been nice, life is not always tied neatly with a bow and the lack of one doesn’t detract from the overall story.
With it’s breakneck pace and vivid descriptions this was a book that kept me up past my bedtime. The characters were each complex but believable and their development was perfect for this story. A masterful storyteller Ms. Banner hit all the marks. This is what suspense should be.
I wasn’t sure when it started out, but then it got really good. I couldn’t stop until I found out what happened. Just when I thought all the ends were tied up, more details came out at the end, only to end abruptly, leaving me hanging. This was a 5 star read until the end, which is why I took one star off.
I would read Banner again. I enjoyed the story with all the twists and turns, despite the ending.
I read a lot of domestic thrillers and few have as many of the ingredients I like as does After Nightfall. It starts off at a dinner party and you quickly realize the people present are riddled with secrets. And it only gets more interesting from there. I tend to do my reading at bedtime and at least one sleepless night is attributable to After Nightfall. It’s a thriller that is also a mystery with more twists than a crazy straw. I can’t recommend it enough. A.J. Banner’s other works have immediately shot to the top of my must-read list.
One of the best books I’ve read this year.
A great “Who done it” mystery! My first book by this author, and can’t wait to read more of her books!!
The story opens with a small engagement party. Marissa, a speech pathologist, has agreed to marry Nathan Black, the divorced father of nine-year-old Anna. At the party are Lauren and her husband Jensen, Nathan’s next-door neighbors. Lauren was also Marissa’s best childhood friend, but became estranged in college and have only recently reconnected. Also present are Nathan’s cardiac surgeon brother, Keith, and his skittish wife, Hedra. To say that the evening is awkward is a major understatement. And things only get stranger later that night when Marissa catches Nathan sneaking out at 2:05 a.m. and finds Lauren dead at the bottom of a steep, rocky cliff the next morning.
Did Lauren fall? Or was she pushed? Where was Nathan going at that hour of the night? Has he been completely honest with her? What about Hedra’s bizarre behavior, that included running from the dinner table to the bathroom, and whispering between her and Nathan in the hallway?
The more Marissa seeks answers, the deeper into a mysterious web of lies, deceit, betrayal, and secrets she finds herself. And the investigating detective is becoming increasingly curious about the fact that Marissa manages to happen upon or be at the center of events that require police and medical intervention far more often than is remotely normal.
In A. J. Banner’s deftly-plotted mystery, every character — without exception — becomes a suspect and nothing is as it seems on the surface. At one point, Marissa finds her own footprints outside of Nathan’s house and discovers her shoes are wet, with grass and debris clinging to them. But she doesn’t remember donning them or walking through the woods. So how did they get that way? Is Nathan’s wife, Rianne, really “unhinged,” as he claims? Has he been faithful to her? And what did Lauren want to tell Marissa following the engagement party, when she promised they would speak the following morning?
The story moves at a fast pace, never bogging down as the clues mount but then seem to lead to dead ends. Motives abound, but the questions that continue to nag Marissa believably center around Nathan’s behavior. After all, what happened to Marissa in college is revealed, along with details about her relationship with Nathan, at expertly-timed intervals, demonstrating that her wariness is well-founded.
When Banner finally reveals what happened on that fateful night, readers will be shocked and likely find themselves re-reading the opening sequence of the book. Because, after all, the conversation during that engagement party foreshadows what is to come and demonstrates Banner’s intricate plot and nearly flawless manner in which she executes it in After Nightfall.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book.
The whole time I was reading this book I was trying to unravel the mystery myself. I am really torn that there isn’t a sequel. This is in my Top 5 favorite novels.
Riveting plot with dynamic characterization. The story is full of betrayal and secrets that just keep unfolding. Banner does a magnificent job of keeping the reader’s attention with her face paced writing style and her attentiveness to reveal just enough detail to lure us to that next chapter. She evades the reader until the very end. 5 stars.
This book has so many twists and turns it was a surprise as to who the killer was. Never expected that person. Wonderful book and story line. Recommend to the real mystery readers.
This is the first book I’ve read by A.J. Banner and I was totally pulled into a story that I had no idea of who did what. It was great! Definitely a book that had me guessing and guessing and guessing. It kept me turning the pages.
I would get to the end of a chapter and just HAD to continue reading to find out what was going to happen next. From chapter to chapter new twists and turns would occur. I would find myself questioning whether a new “suspect” was responsible and how. Nothing was ever as it seemed from the beginning to the surprising end! Truly a page turning read.
The characters were well developed and I liked some and totally despised others. I like an author who can make me have feelings for the characters. It pulls me into the story like I’m a part of it, and Ms. Banner does a great job of that in this book. Her writing is so descriptive and had me “living” in the scenes.
There is a passage I liked when Marissa is trying to untangle her doubts, fears, unsettled questions, and find where she’s supposed to go from that point….
“I’m grateful to be back at the school, immersing myself every day in the solace of work. This morning, a chickadee fluffs its wings in the birdbath outside my office window. With such ease, the feathers flutter, droplets of water flying in all directions. Buoyant, ethereal, the tiny creature takes flight above the planet’s troubles. There is something timeless and otherworldly about birds, the surviving descendants of dinosaurs. Evidence of past eons. I could take comfort in knowing that millions of years from now, our lives will amount to nothing but a cosmic hiccup. Lauren’s unseeing eyes will revert to stardust. Nathan and Hedra, locked in an intimate embrace, will disappear into ancient history. Of this I can be sure. Nobody will remember me missing Nathan and Anna and the life I thought we had.”
This made me think about life and how we touch other people in our lives. That we need to let them know they are important and that they matter.
I really had a hard time putting this book down. Like I said above, this is the first book I’ve read by this author, but won’t me my last! It is a 5 star read for me.
A well-written mystery with strong characterization and some unexpected plot twists. On the night of her engagement, Marissa is upstaged by her (former) best friend’s obnoxious behavior. At the end of the evening, the friend starts to entrust Marissa w/ an important revelation, but then holds off, planning to tell Marisa another time. But another time never comes. Marissa finds her friend’s battered body early the next morning.
Marissa’s house is vandalized and a sentimental item stolen. Bizarre behavior by those around her baffle her; other people come to harm; a suspicious detective notes Marissa’s proximity to these strange events. Marissa takes it upon herself to investigate her estranged friend’s death, putting her relationships, her happiness, and her life in jeopardy.
At times the plot and even the dialogue take on soap opera-like tones. But the intrigue is steadily draws the reader along. As mentioned, the twists often, though not always, surprise. A.J. Banner keeps the reader guessing at many points, even in some subplots. She avoids the trap of resolving the plot line wIth a sappy, improbable happy ending. And she tosses in one last surprise at the end, as a parting gift to her readers.
I enjoyed the book immensely and would definitely read another novel by this author.
Incredible story. Written with gifted imagination. Keeps the reader on edge and non-stop page turner. A Must read. This author is incredible!