Night Must Always Come

Welcome to Sally's book-a-day-for-2017 blog. If unfamiliar with the blog, scroll down.

Night Must Always Come (Post 89)

If the cover of Night Must Always Come (1999) reminds you of a 1970s gothic romance, well... good. That's the effect we wanted. I wrote this long supernatural thriller/romance back when markets for paranormal were opening up as they had in the '70s. The difference was that this time instead of paperbacks, they came out as ebooks on floppy disc and/or CD. Because Night came out with an American (or was it Canadian?) publisher, the heroine is American. Her name is Susannah Ashendon and she is somewhat flummoxed when her cousin, who is also her solicitor, informs her she's inherited an old house in Australia. Suzo, partly to annoy her cousin, flies out to inspect her property before selling it off. 

To her annoyance, another claimant turns up, also inspecting the property. A snowstorm maroons them both there. They decide they can manage to be civilised until the snow melts but when William "Tad" Ashendon goes up to the attic and fails to return, Suzo goes up to find out what he's up to.

What she finds takes "disturbing" to a whole new level. Tad is running a fever. He has no idea who he is, but he seems to think he knows who she is and it isn't who she knows she is. Come morning everything seems normal, but the following days teach them night must always come.  

Night Must Always Come is one of my family history/family secrets stories, and I recall spending a lot of time with charts and spreadsheets working out exactly who was doing what to whom. The result was a complication I was pleased with. Night has been out of print for a long time, but I may print it as a paperback some time. The catch is, as with In Search of a Husband (Post 82) the story is set in the late 1990s. Believe me- today's technology has messed up an awful lot of plot points.

About the Blog 

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. She runs http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com and Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. If you enjoyed a post, or want to ask about any of my books or my manuscript assessment service, post a comment and I'll get back to you.