After Paris by Nicole Kennedy

 

After Paris by Nicole Kennedy.

Published 21st July 2022 by Aria, Head of Zeus.

From the cover of the book:

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?

***********

Alice, Nina and Jules have been friends for twenty years, after meeting during a debutantes' ball at the swanky Hôtel de Crillon in Paris. In the following years, they have taken annual trips to Paris to relive their youth, but it is getting harder to ignore the fact that the different directions their lives have taken means they have gradually grown apart.

This year, the weight of all the baggage that has built up over time leads to significant cracks in their relationships. Each of them is consumed by their own problems, but unable to share what troubles them, and the reunion is a disaster. Although they arrived together, they make solo journeys home, and the many misunderstandings that have arisen lead to them falling out of contact. What happened to their friendship?

We first meet Alice, Nina and Joules in 1999 when they bond over their desire to escape from a fancy debutante ball. The story then plays out over the years, cutting back and forth between significant episodes of their annual visits to Paris, and their disastrous reunion twenty years later. Kennedy slowly weaves together the many threads about how their visits to Paris have changed their ability to confess their true feelings to each other, and very cleverly uses this to show of how the cummulative 'after Paris' ripples break their friendship.

My goodness, there is a lot to unpack in this novel. What starts as an intriguing look at privilege via a youthful escapade behind the scenes of one of the events of the Parisian social calendar, burgeons into a story that delves deeply into how our pasts, and the twists and turns of modern life, affect the decisions we make.

Alice, Nina and Joules are from very different backgrounds, and in many ways their expectations and opportunities are poles apart. There is genuine warmth and tenderness between them, but as the years go by they find themselves telling lies and putting up barriers that really complicate how they relate to each other, and their partners and families. The excuses they make (especially to themselves) are based on good intentions, and are the kind of ones we have all made at some time or another. This makes these women and their dilemmas very relatable, and Kennedy shows real insight into the dynamics of close female friendships as the tale unfurls. I like how she paints these women in authentic shades of grey, balancing out their positive and negative emotions, and their strengths and vulnerabilities. There are times when you do not like them or what they are doing, dying to tell them to stop and think; and others when you feel such empathy for the situations they find themselves in that you want to enfold them in a hug. It makes them seem curiously real somehow.

I am not about to go into the veritable buffet of themes Kennedy touches on in the telling of this tale, as there is real enjoyment the way in which she employs them through such a character driven story. I particularly enjoyed how she explores motherhood, father-daughter relationships, and female addiction, but there is so much more to ponder on too - and she has some very thought-provoking things to say about neuro-diversity, especially in adults. 

This has all the secrets, lies and drama you want from a compelling summer read, but it also takes you to some unexpectedly deep and poignant places.

After Paris is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook, and audio formats.

Buy links:     Waterstones     Amazon

Thank you to Head of Zeus for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Nicole Kennedy grew up in Essex. She was the first person in her family to go to university, and won a place to study Law at Bristol. 

During Nicole's second maternity leave she began writing poems and rhymes on motherhood and family life, which she posted to her blog 'The Brightness Of These Days'. She completed her first novel during her third maternity leave (because by then it was easier than leaving the house). 

Nicole lives in Kent with her husband and three sons.