This was ‘The Shining’ level tense. Such a smart chiller. What Gothic fan doesn’t love an execrable locus, unreliable narrator, creepy child trope? I read it all through the night, like the characters would. Because they got NO SLEEP! M. R James level horrors. Spread the news…new terror in town. Can’t wait to read Hardy’s next work. Holy hell.

Oh I absolutely loved this! The protagonist was so fascinating and the uneasy atmosphere was written so well. I would definitely want to read more from this author. So good! Thank you NetGalley and the publisher - I'm super grateful for the early review copy.

Some books don’t creep up on you quietly. They barge straight in and start rearranging your head. Night Babies by Lucie McKnight Hardy is one of those. From the first few pages, there’s a pulse of unease, that low hum that tells you something isn’t right, and before you know it, you’re knee-deep in dread.

Astrid Aspden should be having her moment, her first solo exhibition, a fresh start with her partner, Kit. But life being life, there’s a flood, a pile of ruined paintings, and a desperate invitation to stay in her friend’s half-renovated chapel in rural Wales. What starts as a favour becomes a slow, exquisite unravelling.

The chapel, with its rotting edges and strange whispers, is a character in itself, one that doesn’t so much haunt Astrid as consume her. The landscape, too, plays its part: that wild Welsh beauty that appears picture perfect from afar but conceals something ancient and unfriendly beneath. Having walked parts of the Beacons myself, I could practically smell the damp earth and feel the cold air biting at the back of my neck. Hardy captures that kind of setting so precisely that it’s like she’s bottling dread.

Astrid’s mind starts to fray, and Hardy makes sure we feel every thread come loose. Her descent is brilliantly drawn; she’s disturbed, certainly, but the line between internal madness and external haunting is deliciously blurred. The tension between her and her old friend Flora, the echoes of their shared past in Florence, and the growing distance with her partner Kit, all pull at the seams of her sanity. Every relationship in the book feels taut, ready to snap, and when it does well, it’s not a clean break.

The horror here isn’t loud; it’s creeping, psychological, soaked in grief and guilt, the kind that gets under your skin, curls up somewhere dark, and stays there.

I read this via NetGalley, and I’m so sorry to say you’ll have to wait until April to get your hands on it, but trust me, it’ll be worth the wait. Creepy, claustrophobic, and gorgeously written, Night Babies is one of those rare reads that can make you question whether the horror is really in the house or in your own head.

Brooding, brilliant, and quietly devastating, the kind of book that seeps into your bones and doesn’t leave when you turn the last page. I’ll be hunting down everything Hardy has ever written.

Was delighted to get an advance of this, and wasn't disappointed. Very atmospheric and had that othery type vibe in the writing style. Very descriptive which gives you a sense of place and time. I'll be keeping an eye out for Hardy in the future.