The World After Alice

Morgan and Benji surprise their families with a wedding invitation to Maine, twelve years after the loss of sixteen-year-old Alice Weil, Benji's sister and Morgan's best friend. As the headstrong young couple brings the two families together for the first time since the funeral, they wonder: can old wounds truly be mended? Rekindled old flames, new lovers, and deep resentments abound. Even the bride harbours delicate secrets about her friend's death that threaten the happiness she has worked so hard for. Will the fragile peace the wedding offers survive the sunny weekend? Or are these two families about to find out that the darkest secrets always come to light in the end?

Format: Hardback
Length: 400 pages
Publication date: 01 August 2024
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Read the gorgeous and poignant debut novel from Lauren Aliza Green, for fans of Anne Tyler and Claire Lombardo.

A 'sizzling summer read' Grazia
A 'Literary Summer Romance' Pick by Vogue
'Deeply moving' Heat

One of Forbes’s 2024 '30 Under 30' in Media
One of Lit Hub’s 'Most Anticipated Books' of 2024

'Glimmers with fine writing and notes of human insight. There's a quiet beauty to Lauren Aliza Green's work, and I am now a fan' Ann Napolitano, bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

'Such a fascinating portrayal of secrets, deceit, the complicated nature of family relationships and societal expectations. I will be recommending this book to everybody I know!' Reader Review *****

----

When Morgan and Benji surprise their families with a wedding invitation to Maine, they’re aware their relationship will come as a shock.

Twelve years have passed since the loss of sixteen-year-old Alice Weil, Benji’s sister and Morgan’s best friend.

No one is quite the same. As the headstrong young couple brings the two families together for the first time since the funeral, they wonder: can old wounds truly be mended?

When the guests descend upon the tranquil coastal town for the whirlwind nuptials, it soon becomes clear that these estranged families are not ready to move on.

Rekindled old flames, new lovers and deep resentments abound. Even the bride harbours delicate secrets about her friend’s death that threaten the happiness she has worked so hard for.

Will the fragile peace the wedding offers survive the sunny weekend?

Or are these two families about to find out that the darkest secrets always come to light in the end?

----

'A page-turner of a family drama . . . at turns brutally honest, funny and deeply empathic' Charmaine Wilkerson

'A bouquet of a book: thoughtful, heartfelt, funny, tender, tough and gorgeously written. A tremendous new writer' Elizabeth McCracken

'A study of grief, resilience and surprising joy. I know these characters will stay with me' Mary Beth Keane

'Intricately structured and elegantly written . . . a family drama that pivots between the sweeping and the intimate in seamless, wildly entertaining prose' Catherine Lacey

'Green writes with a poet’s ear and an impressionist’s eye, and the result is a wise, elegiac novel that is impossible to put down even after turning the last gorgeous page' Bret Anthony Johnston

'Truly elegant . . . I turned the pages as fast as I could, aching to understand the impossible' Hanna Halperin

Weight: 502g
Dimension: 146 x 224 x 36 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780241684658