Hold Back the Night

Absolutely brilliant, loved it. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me an advance copy, I will definitely be recommending.

Made up in three parts and time lapsed throughout the book, it is at once charming, thoughtful and enlightening. A story that is carefully considered and educational through its telling of one woman's journey. Very good thank you netgalley for arc.

I don’t think I have quite the right words to describe this book. It follows Annie’s life, starting in the 1950s where she’s a nurse in an institution, to the 1980s where she provides lodging for men who are dying from AIDS, to the height of the pandemic in 2020. Over the years, the reader follows her as she struggles with her choices, regret and guilt.

Moor built up such vivid characters with heartbreaking stories and endings. I found myself unable to stop thinking about Annie and the lives she changed, for better and for worse. There was something to haunting about the way Moor paired the different timelines and the key events in each one. This book was nothing short of remarkable, overflowing with emotion and heartache. Truly a book I’ll remember for a long, long time, that tells a story that desperately needs to be told.

This was such a great book - I loved how the 3 different timelines worked and revealed parts of the plot as we went along. A very emotional and hard-hitting book and I thought the morality lens we viewed the story through worked really well.

Oh my days, this book nearly broke me...
We start in March 2020 - at the beginning of lockdown. Annie lives alone and has way too much time on her hands. She starts to think back on her life, as I think we all did at that time, I certainly did! This reminiscing steps up a gear when she receives a phone call informing her of the death of her old friend, Rita. And so we go back... to 1959 when Annie first met Rita when they both started work at Fairlie Hall mental hospital as second year placement nurses.
We also delve into the 1980s at a time when Annie has just lost her husband who died suddenly in a tragic work accident. A chance encounter has her opening up her home to a young man who is ill. Her nursing skills a bit rusty but the intention still being strong.
And so begins a rather emotionally harrowing story which encompasses the conversion/aversion therapy of the late 50s, as well as the much better known AIDS crisis of the 80s. It's all a bit shocking for those who had little idea of the real impact this stuff had on people. I am more familiar with the latter than the former but I did a bit of googling and was extremely shocked at what I discovered outwith this story.
The way that the author has constructed the book, the way she weaves the three timelines around and about each other is absolutely perfect. We get the story progressing in the present day with explanation and background delivered by the injection of the past.
The story contained herein is very characters driven and boy does this author write some great characters. I have already seen this in her previous books, The Keeper and Young Women, and the ones in this book are no exception to this.
One thing to also mention is that despite the harrowing themes that this book includes, it never gets too dark. There is always a light shining out, always some hope, and the tears I shed during reading it were both tears of joy as well as sorrow. Yes I did get a bit over involved in the characters' lives. Hard not to when they are so compelling and easy to connect to.
And the ending was just perfect, and really fitted what had gone before. You'll see when you get there yourself.
All that's left is to wonder what the author will have in store for next time and hope it'll be soon. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

A thoughtful and interesting book which looks at the way society’s view of homosexuality changed during the twentieth century. This is the story of Annie over three timeframes and storylines, from her time as a nurse in a mental health institution in the 1950s, when homosexuality was still illegal, as a single mother in the 1980s, offering men suffering from AIDS support and a roof over their heads through to the current day.

With thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy.

"Hold Back the Night" is an unflinching novel with an equally unflinching protagonist in the form of Annie. The readers is taken through three timelines, almost three different lives that Annie goes through within one lifetime.
Annie's a peculiar protagonist to read about, she is efficient as a nurse, as a mother and wife, but a lot of the times she comes accross as lacking empathy and compassion for the people around her.
The first timeline is set in 1959, it is just a few years after the war and Annie's joining the ranks as a psychiatric nurse together with Rita. The two quickly realise they must set their own feelings and thoughts aside to get by.
We meet Annie again in 1983, when Annie is reeling from the loss of her husband. She starts taking in queer men dying of AIDS in a time where that was not common, and so she fills the house with people to take care of once more.
Her present timeline is during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Annie reminisces about those years and experiences.

While Annie's a straight woman, her lifetimes are defined by queer men, their shame and their own damaged existences in those times. One of the strength of this book, especially as a queer reader and from a queer perspective, is exactly Annie's role as an outsider to the community. She is someone who develops her own relation to queerness, adjacent to that of a community member, and allows herself to live alongside people that others shamed away.

I love it when a character's story is told over their life. We get to see them as young, middle aged, and older, see them as a partner, a spouse, a parent, a widow. It is such a fascinating character device.

The scenes set in 2020 are in first person as Annie, with the other two sections in third person. This gives us both and insider and outsider look at the goings on. The scenes in the 50s and 80s are not just Annie's scenes. And I think that's why it's in the third person; whereas the 2020 scenes are about Annie, and that's why it is in first. It could have been complicated and a bit flitty, difficult to get your head round, but it really works.

I generally don't like stories set during the pandemic, because I feel we lived it, I don't want to relive it, I come to books for escapism. But I didn't mind it too much in this because it's balanced out by the other two sections, and the pandemic itself didn't really play a huge part in the book, so it was okay.

I know it was a different time then, and that hindsight is a marvellous thing, but to read, even in a fiction book, about the AIDS crisis and how these innocent young men were treated so abhorrently, it's so sad but also frustrating. But not only that, just how people were treated in general, especially those with mental health difficulties. It's hard to read, but important to remember.

It's and interesting look at Annie's life, and how she develops. In the 50s, I felt she was quite...to the book. Doing what she had to do in the way she was meant to, following the rules, but questioning them, at least in her head. And then in the 80s, I felt she was initially a bit cold. There was compassion but it felt more like it was her obligation to help, rather than anything else, but she does warm up. And then in the 2020s, you can finally see that heart of hers and how her past has impacted her today.

There are many characters, the main one obviously being Annie, but then we also have Rita who is a second main character, at least in the 1950s scenes. But this is Annie's story from the very start to the very end, and she's a strong presence, and I loved exploring her story from young to old, and how those she met in the past are still affecting her present.

It is such a sensitive book, without being patronising or too aww-bless. It's tender, but doesn't hide away from the raw honesty of the time. There are difficult topics: AIDS, homophobia, mental illness, COVID, death, grief, torture, conversion therapy.

It's not the easiest book to read, which isn't surprising really, given the topics, and yet I felt compelled to be absorbed in it, like I owed it to these fictional characters and the real people they represented. It's not easy to read, but it is important to read.

It's not a very long book, but that's not to say you feel short-changed. It fees like it's long, not in a negative way, but in the sense that it is so packed with emotion that I feel it can't possibly have been a short book. It doesn't drag, nor is it too fast. It's pitched perfectly. If it was any shorter, then you wouldn't have been as invested in the characters, but any longer and it would stretch too much and filled with...well, filler.

For me, it is an exploration of love. Of love for family and friends, colleagues, strangers. Of hetero and homosexual love. Of love amongst hatred. Of love amongst anger. Of love against obstacles. Of nostalgic love, reflective love, "wrong" love.

I worked as a psychiatric nurse for many years, so Hold Back The Night book description immediately piqued my interest. Jessica Moor takes an unflinching look at nursing during the 1950s through the eyes of student nurse Annie. From the barbaric treatments used to treat mental health problems to the stigma and awful treatment of AIDS patients, it’s hard-hitting, shocking and emotive.

As I mentioned, the story follows Annie’s nursing journey, which begins in the 1950s where she’s a nurse in Fairlie Hall, a mental hospital. It moves on to the 1980s where she provides a home for men who are dying from AIDS. The story begins in 2020 at the height of COVID and moves back and forth across the three timelines. We learn how Annie struggles with past choices, regret and guilt.

I wasn’t a huge fan of Annie’s as a junior nurse. I would describe her as ‘efficient’, a stickler for following procedure but lacking compassion and empathy. Moving to the 1980s, it felt like she was looking for redemption by taking in lodgers to ease her own guilt. Her relationships with best friend Rita, Lizzie, her daughter and her lodgers seemed to lack warmth. Although in Annie’s defence, this may have stemmed from her years working in Fairlie Hall.

Jessica draw’s parallels between COVID and AIDS through the changing timelines which I thought were very well done. Although very different illnesses, they both caused similar reactions of panic, isolation and ignorance. I found these scenes the most upsetting, knowing full well that this was unfortunately the ‘norm’ back then!

Fantastic novel. The three timelines just tell the story perfectly and I enjoyed this so much.

Will be recommending to all my friends

Thank you for the digital review copy, Bonnier Books UK, Manilla Press.

This was a really intriguing story.