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.

Praise for After the Fall

 “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 Have 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

"Ellen Parent truly has the gift of the storyteller's voice. Her modest but robust prose rolls out this lovely story in which dire things transpire, and yet love and persistence prevail."

-Sandra Scofield, author of The Scene Book and Little Ships, a Novel

"We all cling to something: a memory, a fantasy, even a lie. In Ellen Parent’s propulsive and emotional new novel After the Fall, set in a post-climate-collapse Vermont, teenage orphan June and her adopted brother Thomas, and the dark and troubled disgraced lawman Jacob deal with the visceral aspects of day-to-day survival, but they want—need—more. They need to make the stories they hold so tightly to real. Told with equal parts insightfully emotional and harrowingly vivid prose, the journey June embarks upon through this intricately crafted and detailed world is risky, exciting, and finally deeply human and emotional. In the end a deeper meaning is revealed as each character is forced to come face to face with their inner stories and decide if they can let them go; just like each of us. Poignant, gripping, immaculately drawn, heroically exciting, and deeply relatable, After the Fall is a story that will stay with each reader for a long time."

-Jim Naremore, author of American Still Life and The Arts of Legerdemain as Taught by Ghosts

"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

“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