Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    After the Party
    After the Party
    After the Party
    Audiobook10 hours

    After the Party

    Written by Cassie Hamer

    Narrated by Rebecca Macauley

    3.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    'After The Party forces the reader to confront uncomfortable questions like, How far would you go to protect a child? How clear is the line between right and wrong? And, what does it truly mean to be a good mother?' - Mamamia


    Be careful what you wish for...

    Lisa Wheeldon has a lovely life. Wife to a gorgeous husband, Scott, and a devoted mother to two small daughters, the former accountant has everything she wants - except a third child. But the universe has a strange way of providing.

    On the surface, Ava's fifth birthday party seems the ideal opportunity for Lisa to meet her daughter's new kindergarten friends - all 32 of them! But from beginning to end, the day is a complete nightmare, capped off by the discovery of a little girl hiding in the Wheeldon's backyard. At first, Lisa reasons that Ellie's mum is running late. But when they open a gift from the mysterious little girl, it becomes clear her mother has no intention of returning at all...

    What sort of mother abandons her child? And why has she chosen the Wheeldons?

    Together, Lisa and her sister Jamie launch their own efforts to find the missing mum, a journey that will force Lisa to face her past, Jamie to confront her future and see both embroiled with angry exes, pragmatic fortune-tellers, Russian mobsters and a hyena pack of yummy mummies.

    A journey that will force Lisa to rethink all she knows about being a good mother.

    Liane Moriarty meets Marian Keyes with a touch of Christos Tsiolkas's The Slap in this hilarious, touching and clever novel that asks what wouldn't you do to save a child?

    PRAISE FOR AFTER THE PARTY

    'Everything I love in a novel ­- jam-packed with intrigue and humour - After the Party will keep you turning the pages into the early hours.' - Bestselling Australian author Rachael Johns

    'a light-hearted and heart-warming story about parenting, marriage and family...I can see it being passed from sister to sister, or from girlfriend to girlfriend, with a knowing look, an exasperated sigh and a genuine giggle.' - Cass Moriarty, bestselling author of The Promise Seed and Parting Words

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJan 20, 2020
    ISBN9781460781685
    Author

    Cassie Hamer

    Cassie Hamer has a professional background in journalism and PR, but now much prefers the world of fiction over fact. Her debut novel, After the Party, was published in 2019, and her second novel, The End of Cuthbert Close, in 2020. Cassie lives in Sydney with her terrific husband, three mostly terrific daughters, and a labradoodle, Charlie, who is the youngest and least demanding family member. In between making school lunches and walking the dog, Cassie is also working on her next novel, but she always has time to connect (or procrastinate) with other passionate readers via her website - CassieHamer.com - or through social media. You can follow her on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

    Related to After the Party

    Related audiobooks

    Family Life For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Our Unconventional Love Affair

      Mar 16, 2020

      Our Unconventional Love Affair
      6 min read

    • Article

      Dodging the Swarm

      Apr 4, 2023

      Dodging the Swarm
      3 min read

    • Article

      Glad Tidings

      Apr 10, 2024

      I unwrap my grandmother’s tinkling candle carousel without incident. We’ve used the same bubble wrap for years, and I’m not sure what good the airless plastic does to protect it, but anyway, the metal is tarnishing. Next, I arrange the poinsettias my

      12 min read

    • Article

      Another Gift Bag On The Porch. Thanks, Secret Santa

      Jan 1, 2019

      We put a new roof on the house last week, so I expect it never to rain again. It's one of those rules of inverse preparation. You wash the car; it rains. You put a new lid on the house; it doesn't. Call it "Erskine's Law": the ultimate triumph of iro

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Education of Mrs. R.

      Sep 6, 2022

      An adolescent shriek woke her. Cockerels, she thought, cockerels, with a wry twist to the word. She lay in the dark listening. There was no use in covering her head; the screaming still came through. The soloist was suddenly submerged in the chorus.

      13 min read

    • Article

      Wintry Days in the Upper Room

      Dec 5, 2023

      Wintry Days in the Upper Room
      2 min read

    • Article

      Book Extract

      May 16, 2022

      Book Extract
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Double Life

      Feb 6, 2020

      A Double Life
      10 min read

    • Article

      Benzo Mama

      Sep 7, 2021

      Benzo Mama
      30 min read

    • Article

      The Fox And CINDERELLA

      Dec 7, 2022

      The Fox And CINDERELLA
      6 min read

    • Article

      Jason the Heat Guy

      Jan 11, 2021

      Jason the Heat Guy
      11 min read

    • Article

      Christmas In The 1940s

      Oct 4, 2022

      Christmas In The 1940s
      4 min read

    • Article

      Needled

      Dec 27, 2019

      Needled
      5 min read

    • Article

      Best Of The Best

      Oct 29, 2022

      Best Of The Best
      8 min read

    • Article

      In Granny’s Care

      Apr 5, 2022

      In Granny’s Care
      4 min read

    • Article

      Everything But The Kitchen Sink

      Oct 10, 2021

      When Mary Little walks into her kitchen on Tuesday morning, the sink is under the window. At first she can’t even find it. She looks at the space where the sink is supposed to be, at the end of the island, and the sink is gone. Her son, Ben, sits the

      18 min read

    • Article

      Cupboard LOVE

      Jul 26, 2023

      Cupboard LOVE
      6 min read

    • Article

      From Marge Simpson to Susan Kennedy: TV’s best mums!

      Mar 27, 2022

      The small screen boasts some magnificent mums. They are loving, loyal and always there to listen. They lay on excellent dinners and even better cuddles. So, to mark Mother’s Day, we’ve taken time out from our chores and homework (they gave us permiss

      3 min read

    • Article

      My Country Childhood

      Sep 4, 2019

      AUTHOR AND FORMER executive director of the Australian Writers Guild, Angela Wales, 71, moved from Bondi in Sydney to Walcha in the Northern Tablelands of NSW when she was five years old. Angela’s father, Bob, was to take over a struggling sheep prop

      7 min read

    • Article

      Guests

      Jun 15, 2019

      The month after our mother died, our father began bringing women home. It felt like a behind-her-back kind of operation. “I’m going to have a guest over tonight,” is what he would say. David and I stayed out in the living room, turned up cartoons, bu

      11 min read

    • Article

      Come With Me

      Nov 22, 2018

      Come With Me
      23 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Apr 1, 2022

      Isobel Waugh, age 10 Rochester, NY Crunch. Lynn looked up from her book. She sighed, got up, and walked over to the window. Snowflakes danced around the frost-covered glass. Lynn rubbed her sleeve against it, and the window cleared. The ground was

      7 min read

    • Article

      Lech

      Feb 8, 2022

      Lech
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Southern Christmas

      Nov 1, 2023

      A Southern Christmas
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for After the Party

    3.5/5

    6 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Dear Lisa,I’m sorry. Please know this, above all else. I am truly sorry to put this responsibility on you but I have been left with little choice.”After an exhausting morning hosting 32 kindergarten children for her daughter’s fifth birthday, Lisa Wheeldon is stunned to learn that one tiny guest won’t be collected any time soon. In amongst the gifts, is a heartfelt plea for Lisa to look after six year old Ellie for a few weeks while her mother, a complete stranger, deals with some unspecified crisis. Lisa knows she should notify the relevant authorities, but having experienced the perils of the foster system first hand, decides she will care for Ellie, at least temporarily, while making every effort to track down the absent mother.Child abandonment seems an unlikely theme in which to find humour, but Hamer somehow does as Lisa enlists the help of her sister, Jamie, and an odd selection of school mum’s she barely knows, in an effort to find Ellie’s missing mother. Lisa’s attempts are well intentioned, but she doesn’t have the cunning, or know how, to deal with the situation she finds herself in, so she does what she can do well, which is care for Ellie.As a mother, I could relate to several of Lisa’s experiences in the book - the chaos of children’s birthday parties, and the gossipy and competitive nature of primary school mum’s particularly, though Lisa’s naivety is a bit of a stretch. I think the story could included less of Jamie’s relationship troubles, they were a distraction. I think the plot would have been better served by focusing more on ‘Missy’, Ellie’s mum’s, past and present.I think Hamer just tried to include too much, not an unusual error in a debut novel, so the focus was split and in the end, the novel was a bit messy. However, I did enjoy the humour, and overall found After the Party to be a quick, easy read.