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Book Guardian of Night

    Book Details:
  • Author : Tony Daniel
  • Publisher : Baen
  • Release : 2013-02-26
  • ISBN : 9781451638790
  • Pages : 0 pages

Download or read book Guardian of Night written by Tony Daniel and published by Baen. This book was released on 2013-02-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hunt for Red October in space, complete with a fascinating alien “Sean Connery” ship commander, heroic human space-naval officers, and a rousing blast-off of a final battle on the edge of the Solar System. For alien commander Arid Ricimer there was no going home. His species was winning the war with Earth, but the civilization he had fought for was gone, destroyed from within by ideologues and bureaucrats. So he does the only thing that makes sense to a person of integrity—he attempts to defect to Earth with his officers and an entire spaceship, a vessel that mounts a superweapon of almost unimaginable power. Hot on his heels is his former fleet, a force that has already devastated Earth once, and is poised to wipe humanity from existence forever, ready to do almost anything to deny Earth a chance. To the defenders of Earth he is an enigma—and potentially a Trojan horse. Yet after years of battling back from the brink of destruction, the U.S. space navy has the war-tested heroes to rise to the challenge Ricimer represents—and the danger that follows him—if only those in charge will listen. The players are in motion and the greatest confrontation this sector of the galaxy has ever witnessed is at hand. Now all depends on the courage of an honorable alien warrior and the intelligence and daring of his human allies. About Guardian of Night: “[A] large cast of utterly graspable humans, mostly military and political folks, of all ranks and capacities and temperments. Daniel has a keen eye for the kinds of in extremis thinking and behavior that such a wartime situation would engender, acts of desperation, resignation, wild courage, and irrational hope. He paints neither pure villains nor pure heroes, but conflicted individuals each striving to do the best that their own inner light reveals. . .Following in the footsteps of Poul Anderson and Greg Bear, Tony Daniel makes a triumphant return.”—Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine “. . .an unparalleled success and could easily become a classic in military science fiction. . .Daniel creates. . .believable aliens as well as humans who are all striving for the same goal: capture the Guardian of Night. I was surprised and delighted by the depth of characterization in this book and recommend it to you heartily.”—Galaxy’s Edge About Tony Daniel: “[D]azzling stuff.”–New York Times Book Review “Remember his name, and keep watching for whatever he does.”–Roger Zelazny “Daniel proves that the Golden Age of science fiction is right here and now.”–Greg Bear About Metaplanetary, by Tony Daniel “[A] panoramic tale of men and women engaged in a war that spans both virtual and normal realities and that calls into question the nature of human intelligence and the price of freedom.”–Library Journal The best science fiction novel I've read in five years.”–Lucius Shepard About Superluminal, by Tony Daniel “Daniel renders his 31st-century battles and human dilemmas utterly fascinating.”–Washington Post Book World “[T]eems with vivid characters and surprising action.” –Publishers Weekly (starred review) “[B]rilliantly realized. . . the story remains gripping throughout.”–Booklist “A fascinating future world which encompasses some of the best science fiction has to offer, along the lines of 'Doc' Smith, Greg Bear, and Bruce Sterling. . .”–Starlog

Book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

Download or read book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time written by Mark Haddon and published by Anchor Canada. This book was released on 2009-02-24 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bestselling modern classic—both poignant and funny—narrated by a fifteen year old autistic savant obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, this dazzling novel weaves together an old-fashioned mystery, a contemporary coming-of-age story, and a fascinating excursion into a mind incapable of processing emotions. Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. At fifteen, Christopher’s carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbour’s dog Wellington impaled on a garden fork, and he is initially blamed for the killing. Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer, and turns to his favourite fictional character, the impeccably logical Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration. But the investigation leads him down some unexpected paths and ultimately brings him face to face with the dissolution of his parents’ marriage. As Christopher tries to deal with the crisis within his own family, the narrative draws readers into the workings of Christopher’s mind. And herein lies the key to the brilliance of Mark Haddon’s choice of narrator: The most wrenching of emotional moments are chronicled by a boy who cannot fathom emotions. The effect is dazzling, making for one of the freshest debut in years: a comedy, a tearjerker, a mystery story, a novel of exceptional literary merit that is great fun to read.

Book Our Souls at Night

    Book Details:
  • Author : Kent Haruf
  • Publisher : Vintage
  • Release : 2015-05-26
  • ISBN : 1101875909
  • Pages : 192 pages

Download or read book Our Souls at Night written by Kent Haruf and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-05-26 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A spare yet eloquent, bittersweet yet inspiring story of a man and a woman who, in advanced age, come together to wrestle with the events of their lives and their hopes for the imminent future. In the familiar setting of Holt, Colorado, home to all of Kent Haruf's inimitable fiction, Addie Moore pays an unexpected visit to a neighbor, Louis Waters. Her husband died years ago, as did his wife, and in such a small town they naturally have known of each other for decades; in fact, Addie was quite fond of Louis's wife. His daughter lives hours away, her son even farther, and Addie and Louis have long been living alone in empty houses, the nights so terribly lonely, especially with no one to talk with. But maybe that could change? As Addie and Louis come to know each other better--their pleasures and their difficulties--a beautiful story of second chances unfolds, making Our Souls at Night the perfect final installment to this beloved writer's enduring contribution to American literature.

Book The Night Circus

    Book Details:
  • Author : Erin Morgenstern
  • Publisher : Anchor
  • Release : 2011-09-13
  • ISBN : 0385534647
  • Pages : 389 pages

Download or read book The Night Circus written by Erin Morgenstern and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Two starcrossed magicians engage in a deadly game of cunning in the spellbinding novel that captured the world's imagination. • "Part love story, part fable ... defies both genres and expectations." —The Boston Globe The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.

Book Set the Night on Fire

Download or read book Set the Night on Fire written by Mike Davis and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 809 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Los Angeles Times Bestseller This riveting tour through 1960s Los Angeles is a “history from below, in the very best sense” as it celebrates the “grassroots heroes and struggles” of the social movements of the era (Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Natural Causes). “Authoritative and impressive.” —Los Angeles Times “Monumental.” —Guardian Los Angeles in the sixties was a hotbed of political and social upheaval. The city was a launchpad for Black Power—where Malcolm X and Angela Davis first came to prominence and the Watts uprising shook the nation. The city was home to the Chicano Blowouts and Chicano Moratorium, as well as being the birthplace of “Asian American” as a political identity. It was a locus of the antiwar movement, gay liberation movement, and women’s movement, and, of course, the capital of California counterculture. Mike Davis and Jon Wiener provide the first comprehensive movement history of L.A. in the sixties, drawing on extensive archival research and dozens of interviews with principal figures, as well as the authors’ storied personal histories as activists. Following on from Davis’s award-winning L.A. history, City of Quartz, Set the Night on Fire is a historical tour de force, delivered in scintillating and fiercely beautiful prose.

Book Gaudy Night

    Book Details:
  • Author : Dorothy L. Sayers
  • Publisher : DigiCat
  • Release : 2022-08-16
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 443 pages

Download or read book Gaudy Night written by Dorothy L. Sayers and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Gaudy Night" by Dorothy L. Sayers. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Book The End of Night

    Book Details:
  • Author : Paul Bogard
  • Publisher : Little, Brown
  • Release : 2013-07-09
  • ISBN : 0316228796
  • Pages : 336 pages

Download or read book The End of Night written by Paul Bogard and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2013-07-09 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deeply panoramic tour of the night, from its brightest spots to the darkest skies we have left. A starry night is one of nature's most magical wonders. Yet in our artificially lit world, three-quarters of Americans' eyes never switch to night vision and most of us no longer experience true darkness. In The End of Night, Paul Bogard restores our awareness of the spectacularly primal, wildly dark night sky and how it has influenced the human experience across everything from science to art. From Las Vegas' Luxor Beam -- the brightest single spot on this planet -- to nights so starlit the sky looks like snow, Bogard blends personal narrative, natural history, science, and history to shed light on the importance of darkness -- what we've lost, what we still have, and what we might regain -- and the simple ways we can reduce the brightness of our nights tonight.

Book The City in the Middle of the Night

Download or read book The City in the Middle of the Night written by Charlie Jane Anders and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2019-02-12 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *The Verge's Science Fiction and Fantasy Book We're Looking Forward to in 2019 *AV Club's 15 Most Anticipated Books of 2019 *Book Riot's Most Anticipated Books of 2019 *Kirkus' 30 Speculative Fiction Books You Should Read in February 2019 *Bookish's Winter's Must-Read Sci-fi & Fantasy *Bookbub's Best Science Fiction Books Coming Out in 2019 *YA Books Central's Buzzworthy Books of 2019 “This generation’s Le Guin.” —Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less Charlie Jane Anders, the nationally bestselling author of All the Birds in the Sky delivers a brilliant new novel set in a hauntingly strange future with #10 LA Times bestseller The City in the Middle of the Night. "If you control our sleep, then you can own our dreams... And from there, it's easy to control our entire lives." January is a dying planet—divided between a permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other. Humanity clings to life, spread across two archaic cities built in the sliver of habitable dusk. But life inside the cities is just as dangerous as the uninhabitable wastelands outside. Sophie, a student and reluctant revolutionary, is supposed to be dead after being exiled into the night. Saved only by forming an unusual bond with the enigmatic beasts who roam the ice, Sophie vows to stay hidden from the world, hoping she can heal. But fate has other plans—and Sophie's ensuing odyssey and the ragtag family she finds will change the entire world. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Book The Great Night

    Book Details:
  • Author : Chris Adrian
  • Publisher : Granta Books
  • Release : 2011-06-02
  • ISBN : 9781847083685
  • Pages : 304 pages

Download or read book The Great Night written by Chris Adrian and published by Granta Books. This book was released on 2011-06-02 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On Midsummer's Eve three heartsick lovers are trapped in San Francisco's Buena Vista Park. Ill met by moonlight, they are stalked by a psychopathic Puck, in thrall to a beautiful Titania, and ambushed by a homeless musical theatre troupe. Together they must survive a night that might just repair their hearts, if it doesn't destroy them first. Selected by the New Yorker as one of the best young writers in America, Adrian has created a singularly playful, moving and humorous novel - a story that effortlessly crosses the borders between reality and dreams, suffering and magic, and mortality and immortality.

Book The Oracle of Night

    Book Details:
  • Author : Sidarta Ribeiro
  • Publisher : Pantheon
  • Release : 2021-08-17
  • ISBN : 1524746916
  • Pages : 487 pages

Download or read book The Oracle of Night written by Sidarta Ribeiro and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking history of the human mind told through our experience of dreams—from the earliest accounts to current scientific findings—and their essential role in the formation of who we are and the world we have made. "A resounding case for the mystery, beauty and cognitive importance of dreams." —The New York Times What is a dream? Why do we dream? How do our bodies and minds use them? These questions are the starting point for this unprecedented study of the role and significance of this phenomenon. An inves­tigation on a grand scale, it encompasses literature, anthropology, religion, and science, articulating the essential place dreams occupy in human culture and how they functioned as the catalyst that compelled us to transform our earthly habitat into a human world. From the earliest cave paintings—where Sidarta Ribeiro locates a key to humankind’s first dreams and how they contributed to our capacity to perceive past and future and our ability to conceive of the existence of souls and spirits—to today’s cutting-edge scientific research, Ribeiro arrives at revolutionary conclusions about the role of dreams in human existence and evolution. He explores the advances that contempo­rary neuroscience, biochemistry, and psychology have made into the connections between sleep, dreams, and learning. He explains what dreams have taught us about the neural basis of memory and the transfor­mation of memory in recall. And he makes clear that the earliest insight into dreams as oracular has been elucidated by contemporary research. Accessible, authoritative, and fascinating, The Oracle of Night gives us a wholly new way to under­stand this most basic of human experiences.

Book Provinces of Night

    Book Details:
  • Author : William Gay
  • Publisher : Anchor
  • Release : 2009-09-09
  • ISBN : 0307489868
  • Pages : 304 pages

Download or read book Provinces of Night written by William Gay and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2009-09-09 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It’s 1952, and E.F. Bloodworth is finally coming home to Ackerman’s Field, Tennessee. Itinerant banjo picker and volatile vagrant, he’s been gone ever since he gunned down a deputy thirty years before. Two of his sons won’t be home to greet him: Warren lives a life of alcoholic philandering down in Alabama, and Boyd has gone to Detroit in vengeful pursuit of his wife and the peddler she ran off with. His third son, Brady, is still home, but he’s an addled soothsayer given to voodoo and bent on doing whatever it takes to keep E.F. from seeing the wife he abandoned. Only Fleming, E.F.’s grandson, is pleased with the old man’s homecoming, but Fleming’s life is soon to careen down an unpredictable path hewn by the beautiful Raven Lee Halfacre. In the great Southern tradition of Faulkner, Styron, and Cormac McCarthy, William Gay wields a prose as evocative and lush as the haunted and humid world it depicts. Provinces of Night is a tale redolent of violence and redemption–a whiskey-scented, knife-scarred novel whose indelible finale is not an ending nearly so much as it is an apotheosis.

Book Night Owls

    Book Details:
  • Author : Jenn Bennett
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Release : 2015-08-13
  • ISBN : 1471125319
  • Pages : 304 pages

Download or read book Night Owls written by Jenn Bennett and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-08-13 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: RITA Award for Best Young Adult Romance Feeling alive is always worth the risk... Meeting Jack on the Owl - San Francisco's night bus - turns Beatrix's world upside down. Jack is charming, wildly attractive . . . and possibly one of San Francisco's most notorious graffiti artists. On midnight rides and city rooftops, Beatrix begins to see who this enigmatic boy really is. But Jack is hiding much more - and can she uncover the truth that leaves him so wounded? A unique and profoundly moving novel, Night Owls will linger in your memory long after the final page. Praise for Night Owls “Take a contemporary San Francisco, add an undertone of classic Romeo and Juliet, some grit and viscera, and this story of two remarkable teens is the result…A thought-provoking exploration of art as an expression of love and pain.” Kirkus Reviews “An appealingly realistic romance that will curl toes and inspire sighs.” School Library Journal “Artsy, cool and everything you want a San Francisco adventure to be. Get ready to be swept away.” Maximum Pop “Fans of contemporary YA are sure to be won over with this compelling read.” Buzzfeed “Fresh, original, touching, addictive, beautiful, and crammed cover to cover with the white-hot intensity of first love.” Ann Aguirre, New York Times & USA Today bestselling author of the Razorland trilogy “If we could order up our dream young adult love story, it would look very much like Night Owls.”—iBooks’ Editors (one of iBooks UK Best Books of the Month for August 2015, iBooks US Best Books of the Month November 2015)

Book Night of the Animals

    Book Details:
  • Author : Bill Broun
  • Publisher : HarperCollins
  • Release : 2016-07-05
  • ISBN : 0062400819
  • Pages : 334 pages

Download or read book Night of the Animals written by Bill Broun and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this imaginative debut, the tale of Noah’s Ark is brilliantly recast as a story of fate and family, set in a near-future London. Over the course of a single night in 2052, a homeless man named Cuthbert Handley sets out on an astonishing quest: to release the animals of the London Zoo. When he was a young boy, Cuthbert’s grandmother had told him he inherited a magical ability to communicate with the animal world—a gift she called the Wonderments. Ever since his older brother’s death in childhood, Cuthbert has heard voices. These maddening whispers must be the Wonderments, he believes, and recently they have promised to reunite him with his lost brother and bring about the coming of a Lord of Animals . . . if he fulfills this curious request. Cuthbert flickers in and out of awareness throughout his desperate pursuit. But his grand plan is not the only thing that threatens to disturb the collective unease of the city. Around him is greater turmoil, as the rest of the world anxiously anticipates the rise of a suicide cult set on destroying the world’s animals along with themselves. Meanwhile, Cuthbert doggedly roams the zoo, cutting open the enclosures, while pressing the animals for information about his brother. Just as this unlikely yet loveable hero begins to release the animals, the cult’s members flood the city’s streets. Has Cuthbert succeeded in harnessing the power of the Wonderments, or has he only added to the chaos—and sealed these innocent animals’ fates? Night of the Animals is an enchanting and inventive tale that explores the boundaries of reality, the ghosts of love and trauma, and the power of redemption.

Book Day for Night

    Book Details:
  • Author : Frederick Reiken
  • Publisher : Reagan Arthur Books
  • Release : 2010-06-01
  • ISBN : 0316132845
  • Pages : 218 pages

Download or read book Day for Night written by Frederick Reiken and published by Reagan Arthur Books. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "If you look hard enough into the history of anything, you will discover things that seem to be connected but are not." So claims a character in Frederick Reiken's wonderful, surprising novel, which seems in fact to be determined to prove just the opposite. How else to explain the threads that link a middle-aged woman on vacation in Florida with a rock and roll singer visiting her comatose brother in Utah, where he's been transported after a motorcycle injury in Israel, where he works with a man whose long-lost mother, in a retirement community in New Jersey, recognizes him in a televised report about an Israeli-Palestinian skirmish? And that's not the half of it. In Day For Night, critically acclaimed writer Frederick Reiken spins an unlikely and yet utterly convincing story about people lost and found. They are all refugees from their own lives or history's cruelties, and yet they wind up linked to each other in compelling and unpredictable ways that will keep you guessing until the very end.

Book Night Train

    Book Details:
  • Author : Thom Jones
  • Publisher : Little, Brown
  • Release : 2018-10-16
  • ISBN : 0316449350
  • Pages : 510 pages

Download or read book Night Train written by Thom Jones and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A posthumous and definitive collection of new and selected stories by "virtuoso of the short story" (Esquire) and National Book Award finalist Thom Jones. This scorching collection from award-winning author Thom Jones features his best new short fiction alongside a selection of outstanding stories from three previous books. Jones's stories are full of high-octane, prose-drunk entertainment. His characters are grifters and drifters, rogues and ne'er-do-wells, would-be do-gooders whose human frailties usually get the better of them. Some are lovable, others are not, but each has an indelible and irresistible voice. They include Vietnam soldiers, amateur boxers, devoted doctors, strung-out advertising writers, pill poppers and veterans of the psych ward, and an unforgettable adolescent DJ radio host, among others. The stories here are excursions into a unique world that veers between abject desperation and fleeting transcendence. Perhaps no other writer in recent memory could encapsulate in such short spaces the profound and the devastating, the poignant and the hallucinatory, with such an exquisite balance of darkness and light. Jones's fiction reveals again and again the resilience and grace of characters who refuse to succumb. In stories that can at once delight us with their wicked humor and sting us with their affecting pathos, Night Train perfectly captures the essence of this iconic American master, showcasing in a single collection the breadth of power of his inimitable fiction.

Book At Night All Blood Is Black

Download or read book At Night All Blood Is Black written by David Diop and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *WINNER OF THE 2021 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE* *ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2021* Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction Shortlisted for the 2022 DUBLIN Literary Award "Astonishingly good." —Lily Meyer, NPR "So incantatory and visceral I don’t think I’ll ever forget it." —Ali Smith, The Guardian | Best Books of 2020 One of The Wall Street Journal's 11 best books of the fall | One of The A.V. Club's fifteen best books of 2020 |A Sunday Times best book of the year Selected by students across France to win the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, David Diop’s English-language, historical fiction debut At Night All Blood is Black is a “powerful, hypnotic, and dark novel” (Livres Hebdo) of terror and transformation in the trenches of the First World War. Alfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who, never before having left his village, finds himself fighting as a so-called “Chocolat” soldier with the French army during World War I. When his friend Mademba Diop, in the same regiment, is seriously injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man’s Land. Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa’s mind as he comes to see this refusal as a cruel moment of cowardice. Anxious to avenge the death of his friend and find forgiveness for himself, he begins a macabre ritual: every night he sneaks across enemy lines to find and murder a blue-eyed German soldier, and every night he returns to base, unharmed, with the German’s severed hand. At first his comrades look at Alfa’s deeds with admiration, but soon rumors begin to circulate that this super soldier isn’t a hero, but a sorcerer, a soul-eater. Plans are hatched to get Alfa away from the front, and to separate him from his growing collection of hands, but how does one reason with a demon, and how far will Alfa go to make amends to his dead friend? Peppered with bullets and black magic, this remarkable novel fills in a forgotten chapter in the history of World War I. Blending oral storytelling traditions with the gritty, day-to-day, journalistic horror of life in the trenches, David Diop's At Night All Blood is Black is a dazzling tale of a man’s descent into madness.

Book The Night Guest

    Book Details:
  • Author : Fiona McFarlane
  • Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • Release : 2013-10-01
  • ISBN : 0374710643
  • Pages : 257 pages

Download or read book The Night Guest written by Fiona McFarlane and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A mesmerizing first novel about trust, dependence, and fear, from a major new writer Ruth is widowed, her sons are grown, and she lives in an isolated beach house outside of town. Her routines are few and small. One day a stranger arrives at her door, looking as if she has been blown in from the sea. This woman—Frida—claims to be a care worker sent by the government. Ruth lets her in. Now that Frida is in her house, is Ruth right to fear the tiger she hears on the prowl at night, far from its jungle habitat? Why do memories of childhood in Fiji press upon her with increasing urgency? How far can she trust this mysterious woman, Frida, who seems to carry with her own troubled past? And how far can Ruth trust herself? The Night Guest, Fiona McFarlane's hypnotic first novel, is no simple tale of a crime committed and a mystery solved. This is a tale that soars above its own suspense to tell us, with exceptional grace and beauty, about ageing, love, trust, dependence, and fear; about processes of colonization; and about things (and people) in places they shouldn't be. Here is a new writer who comes to us fully formed, working wonders with language, renewing our faith in the power of fiction to describe the mysterious workings of our minds. A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2013