After the Fall

Overview

So much is forgotten in the Republic: the way the seasons used to turn like pages in a book, the technology that once made life easy for everyone, even the art of reading. For fifteen-year-old June, the forgetting goes even deeper, ever since a mysterious accident six years ago stole her mother and her memory. When a strange circus with ties to her family comes through town, she follows them without a second thought. In the outside world, June has to navigate a landscape and society pushed to the edge by the powerful forces of climate change, and to decide who she can trust in a world where everyone seems to have secrets. Can she believe the grizzled deputy who somehow knows more about her past than she does? What about the circus performers, who push her away even as they beguile her best friend? Only when she finally uncovers a truth that threatens to change the Republic forever, will she know who her true family is—and whose life is worth saving.

Reviews

“An intricately woven tale by a master storyteller. I was unable and unwilling to escape June’s shattered world of hardship and painful longing for better times. If you are enthralled by well-crafted, post-apocalyptic worlds and those who inhabit them, Ellen Parent beautifully written After the Fall will not disappoint. It’s been a while since I held a true page-turner in my hands.” -Morgan Howell, author of THE MOON WON’T TALK

“The story of a young woman desperately searching for her mom in a harrowing landscape she barely recognizes. All she knows is that the traveling circus might hold the key. Think STATION ELEVEN meets THE ROAD, filtered through the prism of Robert Cormier. Ellen Parent has created a world that isn't ours, but could be—that’s what gives this post-apocalyptic novel its power.” -David Yoo, author of THE CHOKE ARTIST and STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE

“June has a big heart and a truthteller's tongue. Teens will love following her on her quest to seek her mother, to uncover secrets, and to discover a better life in the dangerous and deeply flawed Republic of Vermont.” -Laura Williams McCaffrey, author of MARKED and THE WATER SHAPER

"Through lyrical and heart-wrenching prose, debut author Ellen Parent explores the complexities of family, interweaving the unbreakable ties of blood with the bonds of kinship forged through shared experiences and unwavering loyalty. Courage emerges as the defining force that shapes June's path—the courage to pursue her loved ones and the equally formidable courage to let them go.” -Robyn Dabney, author of THE ASCENDITURE

Author Biography

Ellen Parent has been telling stories since the mid-nineties, when she started whispering them down to her sister on the bottom bunk. Her poetry has been published in Bloodroot, Vermont Magazine, Birchsong, and was shortlisted for the 2014 Vermont Writers Prize. After the Fall is her first novel. She lives in rural Vermont with her delightful husband, her precocious daughter, and two eccentric cats.