After Dark

A Thriller

By: Minka Kent

Narrated by: Hayden Bishop, Hannah Church

Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

She’s a pariah with a killer past. Her bid to escape it is nothing short of terrifying in a heart-pounding novel of suspense by Washington Post and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Minka Kent.

Afton Teachout has been an outcast in her small town for twenty years—ever since she was accused of murdering her mother’s lover in a blackout fit of rage. That is, if one believes the malicious lies.

Living with her grandmother, working a hotel night shift, and relying on pills to get a day’s sleep, Afton is due a little luck. It comes in the form of an unexpected financial windfall. With her newfound wealth, Afton sets a secret plan in motion to help her only friend, Sydney, flee a toxic husband. But the best intentions soon spin out of control.

Afton is getting unsettling calls from a restricted number, and someone has been lingering outside her home. As Sydney’s troubled marriage comes into focus, so does Afton’s past. Her second chance—for herself and for Sydney—isn’t what she dreamed of at all. In fact, it’s becoming a nightmare.

©2023 Nom de Plume, LLC. (P)2023 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"Even readers who see the murder's inescapable solution coming long in advance will be deeply shaken when it arrives.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

The past will reveal itself

Afton was accused of murdering her mother’s lover. With Afton’s extensive psychiatric history her sentence was reduced five years of probation and community service. Twenty years later Afton continues with her not guilty plea. The truth is, no one knows for sure what happened that night. Not even Afton.
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Through it all, her friend Sydney stood by her as well as Sydney’s mom. Afton and Sydney’s friendship has caused friction between Sydney’s husband. He believes Sydney is dangerous cautioning his wife to stay away from her, but Sydney doesn’t listen.
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Minka Kent has quickly become one of my one-click authors. I’m a sucker for a good thriller and psychological thriller. After Dark was a spontaneous purchase done with no prior knowledge of what the story was about. That tends to be how I prefer my thriller reads to be, I like going in blind. Yet with this one I had to stop at chapter four to go back to the premise to gain a better understanding of what I was dealing with because I was lost. Now that I have the pieces to the puzzle I can focus on the larger picture instead of trying to figure it out on my own.
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This was a slow burn about halfway in. Just in time the story finally came into its own. It took some time to set up but once everything was laid out I found it be quite interesting.
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My favorite way to experience a book is by investing in both the ebook and audiobook. This is an unabridged audiobook allowing readers to follow along with the ebook. I listened using the audible app. Hayden Bishop and Hannah Church were the two narrators performing After Dark. Both did an except job bringing this story to life. I couldn’t even tell them apart.

A twist you don't see coming!

This book certainly puts a spin on the whole, "keep your friends closer and your enemies closer," saying. Afton and Sydney are longtime friends from youth, with a period of estrangement thrown in after the murder of Sidney's father, whom Afton was said to have murdered. Years later, the two are still good friends. Sydney is Afton's only friend, and Afton wants nothing more than the best for her friend Sydney. After coming into some money from winning the lottery, Afton does what any good friend would do and helps Sydney out when she learns of her financial struggles and cheating husband. Only something isn't right, and strange things are happening. Naturally, Afton believes Sidney's husband to be behind it all after she threatens to tell Sydney about his cheating if he doesn't stop. Is he to blame for the strange incidents, or is there something more devious going on?

Great read!

Wow! Lots of twists and turns! Finished this book in record time! Minka never disappoints! Read all her books!

I’d rate this a B+

Great book, I’d recommend! Love Minka Kent, this isn’t her best book, but it’s up there. Interesting twist.

Pleasantly Surprised

Really enjoying Minka’s books… wasn’t sure I’d like them but was pleasantly surprised and now I’m in a Minka book devour mode.

Love the storyline.

The narrator mispronounced so many medications and words it was painful! Do your research before you produce a book! As a narrator myself, I cringed at every mispronunciation. It wrecked the experience for me. Love the author, though.

Fast paced thriller

Although you kind of figure it out towards the end, it’s still a good story. There was one unexpected part of it that was surprising. Overall, good story!

I loved this book! More than other Minka Kent books.

I usually enjoy books by this author but this was exceptionally good. I thought the narrators were perfect for their characters. The story was interesting and the ending was very worth the listen.

Surprising in the Best ways

This was all around a great story. the twists were original, the characters rich & interesting, and the narration worked well. I was pleasantly surprised. Fun listen.

Enjoyable, but a little predictable

It's worth the read, and I enjoyed the story. It kept me engaged, but there were a couple of things that drove me nuts, one of which was the fact that the protagonist shelled out all that $$ without even having taken her ticket in. That was irrational in the worst way, and I can't see any reason for it other than to further the plot up to the first real twist, which I had seen coming from the start...so that didn't really work for me. Lot of irrational decisions by a lot of characters that required some suspension of disbelief, but I enjoyed the story enough to let it slide. I did see the end coming...knew who was responsible almost since the beginning as well. So story, great. Execution, a little meh. I'm glad I read it, though, because all in all, I was entertained, and it held my interest from start to finish. There was a huge red herring that was left unaddressed, however, and that's enough for me to take it down half a star.

Mild Spoiler that you'll only understand once you've read it: When one of the characters cleaned up for her friend, she implied that she had found something. The way she said it made it seem as if whatever she found somehow changed something significant...caused a significant issue that would need solving. It made it seem as if that something had to do with her husband. Then...the huge event came and went and the twist was revealed and nothing ever came of the thing she found, nor was it ever revealed what it was. If she was referring to the invitation in the drawer, that would make absolutely no sense, because she had already known about that and discussed it with her friend. So if that was it, it's an inconsistency. If it wasn't, it was a huge intentional red herring that was just thrown in haphazardly and never fleshed out, which is a huge no no for me. I did appreciate that there was never a scene with the guilty party had a long diatribe and laid out their dastardly plan, so I'll as back a quarter star. 3.25 out of 5 for me.