Blog touring again today, and we’re off to Australia with Nicole Trope’s The Day After The Party. This one is about friendship, but is full of jealousy, betrayal, lies and secrets. Well, they do say you should keep your friends close …
Blurb:
The perfect birthday or the perfect nightmare?
Katelyn smiles around at her husband and friends, gathered to celebrate her thirty-sixth birthday in their beautiful home decorated with fairy lights. But the next day Katelyn wakes up shaken and terrified in a hospital bed…
She doesn’t remember the sweet taste of birthday cake icing, or how angry her best friend was at midnight, or the terrible things her husband said. She doesn’t remember the party at all.
When she asks her husband what happened the night of the party he says ‘nothing’. But her blood runs cold at the way his voice lilts slightly. The way it always does when he is lying.
Did someone at the party harm her?
What is her husband hiding?
Or did Katelyn herself do something terrible?
Only one thing is certain. Nobody can be trusted. And if Katelyn’s memories of the party do come back, it will tear them all apart…
My Review:
Katelyn and Leah become best friends when they’re just six years old. It’s not exactly by choice, but more by circumstance. However, the friendship is a solid one and as the story unfolds, we are taken through a series of flashbacks over the years as we see things through the eyes of both Katelyn and Leah.
But the party in question is for Katelyn’s 36th birthday. She’s gone all out – creating a gorgeous Winter Wonderland in the home she shares with her husband Toby and her 3-year-old daughter Harper. When she wakes up the following day though, it’s not to lovely memories of an enjoyable, successful night … it’s to … well, nothing, because she can’t remember any of it! She doesn’t even remember opening the door to welcome Leah into her home, although she knows without a doubt that she must have been there.
She’s told that she has something called Transient Global Amnesia (TGA). She’s only forgotten what happened immediately before and after whatever it was that caused such immense shock. The doctors cannot tell her when, or if these memories will return. Katelyn needs to piece together the lost night of her party. Surely something must have happened, despite Toby’s claims that absolutely nothing did! She knows he’s lying.
This is a thrilling page-turner! It’s like a domestic noir/mean girls mash-up! The alternating points of view, combined with the changing timelines give the reader a fully-rounded look at all the players in this twisty, back-stabbing game, that most of them aren’t even aware they’re playing!
Nicole Trope has done what only truly gifted authors are able to do: created a rather not-nice bunch of people, who are mostly rather unlikeable, but who readers become totally invested in, wanting to know what horrible things they’re thinking and plotting, while presenting as perfectly nice and friendly, going about their everyday business.
Highly recommended, especially if you enjoy a book that takes a really in-depth, insightful look at the intricacies and complexities of female friendships. The medical information about TGA was really interesting and not overwhelming. I’m always fascinated about the research it takes for an author to include relevant information on a medical condition without becoming too technical that the reader loses interest.
Thank you to Bookouture for the blog tour.
Purchase link: https://geni.us/B0CFLL3WLNsocial
About the author:
Nicole Trope went to university to study Law but realised the error of her ways when she did very badly on her first law essay because – as her professor pointed out – ‘It’s not meant to be a story.’ She studied teaching instead and used her holidays to work on her writing career and complete a Masters’ degree in Children’s Literature.
The idea for her first published novel, The Boy under the Table, was so scary that it took a year for her to find the courage to write the emotional story. She went on to publish a further five novels in Australia before joining Bookouture in 2019. She is a USA Today and Amazon bestseller in the USA, UK, AUS and CAN.
She lives in Sydney with her husband and three children.
Author social media:
Facebook: @NicoleTrope
Twitter: @nicoletrope
Author email sign up: https://www.bookouture.com/nicole-trope
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