After Paris

Author: Nicole Kennedy

Publisher: Aria/Head of Zeus

Available: 6^th April 2023 in Paperback, eBook & Audiobook

Thank you to The Squadpod Collective & Aria for my gifted copy. My review is based on my experience of the book and any thoughts expressed here are solely mine alone.

Book Details:

Three best friends. A weekend away. And a whole lot of baggage.

Alice, Nina, and Jules have been best friends for twenty years. They met in Paris and return there once a year, to relive their youth, leave the troubles of home behind, and indulge in each other’s friendship and warmth. But this year, aged thirty-nine, the cracks in their relationships are starting to show…

After their weekend together in Paris, the three women never speak again. Each claims the other two ghosted them. But is there more to the story?

My Thoughts:

Happy Paperback publication day Nicole, it’s my pleasure today along with my fellow Squadpod members to share my thoughts on After Paris. A delightful novel: the perfect escape from the everyday without the need to leave your sofa, it is filled with French patisserie, friendship, frolics, and fissions of friction. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have.

The novel follows the friendship of three women, who meet for the first time in 1999, in Paris, each one is there for different reasons but until their chance encounter in a bathroom just before a grand debutant ball, none of them are having the time of their lives! The story is told in the past, present, and future and we are party to their complicated lives and loves and I found Nicole is skilled in creating the varied nuanced elements of female friendships and their transitions over time from young expectant women, with hopes and dreams to middle age, where some of the bloom has worn off, especially after marriage, children and careers and the inevitable ups and downs of life have taken their toll.

Despite their close friendship over the years, Alice, Nina, and Jules, have kept some secrets to themselves and now each is facing a specific trial and ones that virtually any reader may have experienced themselves, which does make the women eminently relatable to. As the story progresses, you learn of each woman’s circumstances and that none of them are prepared to come clean and divulge to the others, what is really going on! Which of course is going to lead to a contretemps of epic proportions, as the truth will impact them all and the course of their friendship. The story see’s Jules, leaving Paris without even saying goodbye, Nina swiftly follows suit and poor Alice is left waiting for her friends in a café, without any clue of what is/has happened and when it dawns on her, they aren’t coming, she is left wondering what she could possibly have done to offend them! But of course, I am not revealing what happens next, that is for you to discover for yourselves, when you read the book.

Nicole has created an engaging and entertaining character driven novel, that both illustrates and examines the diverse and occasionally dramatic dynamics of female friendships in an authentic manner. She has also eloquently covered some of the more pertinent societal issues, that modern women face, such as IVF, addiction, motherhood, and adult neurodiversity. These elements certainly give you pause for thought as you read.

I confess one my favourite elements of this book, were all the sumptuous mentions of various mouth-watering French food, especially the patisserie, which transported me back in time to my many visits to Paris and the south of France and did make me decidedly peckish as I read! As the Easter weekend approaches, this book will be the perfect companion to your Easter Egg consumption.

Happy Reading Bookophiles

About the Author:

Nicole Kennedy grew up in Essex and studied Law at Bristol University. She has always loved to write but her efforts were waylaid by work as a corporate lawyer in London, Paris and Dubai. During Nicole’s second maternity leave she began writing poems on motherhood and family life. She completed her first novel during her third maternity leave (by then it was easier than leaving the house) and her second during the pandemic (by then she wasn’t allowed to leave the house).

Nicole lives in Kent with her husband and three sons. You can find her on Instagram (@nicole_k_kennedy) and Twitter (@nicolekkennedy).