The Night Child
Anna Quinn
File Size: 1793 KB
Print Length: 200 pages
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing (January 30, 2018)
Publication Date: January 30, 2018
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B071KHVTV9
Book Blurb: This breathtaking debut novel examines the impact of traumatic childhood experiences and the fragile line between past and present. Exquisitely nuanced and profoundly intimate, The Night Child is a story of resilience, hope, and the capacity of the mind, body, and spirit to save itself despite all odds.
Nora Brown teaches high school English and lives a quiet life in Seattle with her husband and six-year-old daughter. But one November day, moments after dismissing her class, a girl’s face appears above the students’ desks—“a wild numinous face with startling blue eyes, a face floating on top of shapeless drapes of purples and blues where arms and legs should have been. Terror rushes through Nora’s body—the kind of raw terror you feel when there’s no way out, when every cell in your body, your entire body, is on fire—when you think you might die.”
Twenty-four hours later, while on Thanksgiving vacation, the face appears again. Shaken and unsteady, Nora meets with neurologists and eventually, a psychiatrist. As the story progresses, a terrible secret is discovered—a secret that pushes Nora toward an even deeper psychological breakdown.
Review: This was a terrific read. I had trouble putting it down when I needed to get back to my office and my own writing. Right away I could feel Nora’s anxiety and fear when this young girl appeared. Was it real, or was she hallucinating?
Nora’s strength and determination to push her way back to “normal” made her an even more endearing character, and somehow I knew she would make it. The question was, at what cost? The author did not hold back on upping the ante for Nora at every turn, and it is quite a wild ride for the reader and the character until the end.
I don’t want to offer any spoilers, so I won’t reveal the secret, or the ultimate resolution, but everything wraps up quite nicely.
I was impressed with the quality of the writing in this debut novel and will definitely look for her next one.
About the Author: Anna Quinn is a writer, teacher, and the owner of The Writers’ Workshoppe and Imprint Bookstore in Port Townsend, WA. She is a published poet and essayist with twenty-six years of experience teaching and leading writing workshops across the country. Anna’s first novel, The Night Child, published by Blackstone Publishing, was released Jan. 30th, 2018.
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