Tag: Book Reviews

If you’ve ever wondered how the past can lie dormant for years before roaring back to life, After the End by Barbara Abel shows exactly how a single move, a single neighbor, or a single meddling ex-husband can crack open every secret you thought you’d buried. Though this book is technically a sequel to Mothers’ Instinct, it stands completely on its own—I never once felt as though I were missing context from the first novel. (That said, this story was so gripping that I may go back and read the earlier book anyway.) This one, translated from French, releases December 9, 2025 in the U.S.

Abel builds the tension slowly and deftly, layering each moment with a sense of inevitability—as though Fate itself is pushing the characters toward a collision neither they nor the reader can avoid. Recently divorced Nora Depardieu hopes her new home will give her and her children the fresh start they need. What she doesn’t realize is that the Geniots—Tiphaine and Sylvain—once lived in the very unit she has just moved into. Eight years earlier, a devastating crime occurred next door, in the home the Geniots now occupy. After the tragedy, they became their neighbors’ son, Milo’s, guardians and moved into his house, leaving their old half of the building empty…until Nora arrives.