Review: AFTER NIGHTFALL by A.J. Banner

Thank you so much Amazon Publishing for providing my free copy – all opinions are my own. 

Description: 

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.

My Review: 

This is the perfect compulsive summer read as I devoured it in one day! It’s a short mystery with a ton of depth and a subtle darkness that I love. Marissa and Lauren were the best of friends until one day a betrayal tore them apart. Years later, Lauren and her new husband move into their new home which happens to be next door to Marissa’s fiancé’s house. They try to rekindle their old friendship as Marissa attempts to forgive the past, but one day Lauren’s body turns up on the beach and Marissa is desperate to know what happened.

This is a very sharp, suspenseful, and twisty psychological thriller and Banner does a fantastic job building the tension. My mind went all over the place trying to figure out what happened to Lauren and I really enjoyed reading from Marissa’s perspective. I was engrossed in the Pacific Northwest setting with vivid descriptions and richly developed characters – I was completely sucked in! So many secrets and surprises make for a fun, intriguing read. AFTER NIGHTFALL is gritty, atmospheric, and highly addictive. It’s my first A.J. Banner novel and it certainly will not be my last!

My rating is 4 out of 5 stars! 

Click here to purchase on Amazon. 

Comments

One response to “Review: AFTER NIGHTFALL by A.J. Banner”

  1. April Avatar
    April

    I’ve been so excited to read this and after your review it’s definitely going into my TBR list like NOW 😁 THANK YOU!

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