Astrid Aspden is a young and talented artist who has just secured her first solo exhibition. But in the weeks leading up to the exhibition her house is flooded and her paintings damaged.
Overcome with despair and not knowing what to do, Astrid is thrown a lifeline by her best friend Flora who invites her to stay at a chapel she and her partner are renovating in the Brecon Beacons. While staying there Astrid learns about the unsettling history of the chapel and what lies beneath the nearby reservoir.
Gradually, Astrid notices strange goings-on in the chapel: handprints on her paintings, shadowy figures in the gloaming, and voice whispering in the night. All the while things become tense between Astrid and Flora as sour memories flare up and deep wounds are laid bare.
Whether it is the past, the otherworldly, or the truth – they all haunt this menacing and claustrophobic novel.
“Night Babies is a perfect psychological folk horror, where the internal landscape of its protagonist and the external landscape of the Brecon Beacons join together to become an uncanny piece of art. This is a story that carefully unravels its subjects, in which old sins cast long shadows and something dark is always lurking just beneath the surface.”
Laura Elliott, author of Awakened
“A considered, clever, creeping ghost story, with dark depths and dangerous undercurrents. Lucie McKnight Hardy is one of the best writers of the uncanny around.”
Alison Littlewood, author of A Cold Season
“Lucie McKnight Hardy is the Queen of Dread.”
Priya Sharma, author of Ormeshadow
“Night Babies is a wonderful novel; dark, disturbing, devastating. Lucie McKnight Hardy at the height of her uncanny powers. ”
Amanda Mason, author of The Hiding Place
“Night Babies had me in its dark clutches from the very beginning. A beautifully written and cleverly constructed literary ghost story, exploring truth and perception in the eeriest of manners.”
Rachelle Attalla, author of Thirsty Animals
“A modern classic of the folk horror genre.”
Johnny Mains, editor of Celtic Weird
