Night Babies - Lucie McKnight Hardy

NIGHT BABIES

LUCIE MCKNIGHT HARDY

****

All my fears have vanished, and I realise now that my dreams were not nightmares but a sign of what was to come, how this will end. An inevitability.'

Things were looking up for Astrid Aspden and her partner, Kit, until their house flooded. With Astrid's first solo art exhibition just weeks away, her paintings are ruined and excitement has turned to despair.

She is thrown a lifeline when her best friend Flora invites her to stay in a run-down chapel she and her partner, Sim, are renovating in the Brecon Beacons. As Astrid and Kit settle into their new surroundings to salvage her work, they soon learn about the unsettling history of the chapel and what lies beneath the nearby reservoir.

As the weeks go by, tensions simmer between Astrid and Flora as sour memories flare up from their teenage past and deep wounds are laid bare from an ill-fated school trip to Florence. Her relationship with Kit begins to fray as the chapel and the surrounding hostile beauty of the valley begin to intrude on their lives.

Astrid throws herself into her work but the longer she spends in the chapel the more she begins to notice things: handprints on her paintings, shadowy figures reflected in the reservoir and voices whispering in the night. As the darkness of the Welsh valley closes in on Astrid, will she be able to run from the looming horror or be consumed by it?

Whether it is the past, the otherworldly, or the truth - they all haunt this menacing and claustrophobic novel.

MY REVIEW

****

I love reading horror, even outside of October and I particularly enjoy stories which revolve around a haunted house, so I was excited to request Night Babies.

Astrid and Kit move in with their friends in their converted chapel overlooking a reservoir in the Brecon Beacons. But the longer they stay there, they begin to realise something may be wrong as they contend with whispering, weird dreams and behavioural changes…

The writing style of Night Babies is beautiful – as main character Astrid is a painter, she sees the world around her in a kaleidoscope of colour, with its beauty of shapes and edges and a need to paint everything in front of her to make sense of what she is seeing. This makes for beautiful, dark and unsettling prose which really, pardon the pun, paints a vivid picture of the setting of the chapel in the grounds of the reservoir. The narrative also alternates between the present day and flashbacks of a school trip to Italy with Astrid and her friend Flora. I liked how this flashback provided vital context to Flora and Astrid’s relationship, and more information about Astrid’s personality, decisions she has made throughout her life and the secrets she has held onto. I also enjoyed the way that Hardy keeps the reader off balance throughout – with an offhanded comment or flashback reveal that suddenly changes the entire framework that we have been viewing this story through.

Night Babies is a slow-burn horror, with emphasis on the slow burn. Although the entire book is darkly unsettling, I felt like I was constantly waiting for a twist or a reveal, and the middle of the book dragged and felt repetitive in places due to this. Although the events do build up to a shocking conclusion, I felt like I was actually left with a lot more questions than answers and the decision not to include a reference to Kit in the epilogue was an odd one – I was left wondering what happened in that side of the story.

Overall, Night Babies is a beautifully written and evocative horror, but it is a very slow-paced read and I was left with a lot of questions by the end. Thank you to NetGalley & John Murray Press for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

LINKS TO BUY

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