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 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!



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historical-fiction medical mental-health ...more5 s Amy Bookseller62 16

2.5 Pretty boring unfortunately. The three timelines were pretty unnecessary, and/or the way they were used hurt the flow. The characters were one dimensional, I didn’t care for any of them. They could have been developed so much more. There was such scope for the subject matter but it all fell so flat. What a shame. 2024 proofs3 s1 comment Demelda Penkitty823 20

March 2020. Annie is alone in her house as the world shuts down, only the ghosts of her memories for company. But then she receives a phone call which plunges her deeper into the past.

1959. Annie and Rita are student nurses at Fairlie Hall mental hospital. Working long, gruelling hours, they soon learn that the only way to appease their terrifying matron is to follow the rules unthinkingly. But what is happening in the hospital's hidden side wards? And at what point does following the rules turn into complicity - and betrayal?

1983. Annie is reeling from the loss of her husband and struggling to face raising her daughter alone. Following a chance encounter, she offers a sick young man a bed for the night, a good deed that soon leads to another. Before long, she finds herself entering a new life of service - her home a haven for those who are cruelly shunned. But can we ever really atone?

I really enjoyed Jessica Moor's Young Women and so I was excited to receive an advanced copy of Hold Back The Night, after the initial excitement I popped it onto the stack and of course forgot all about it! Apologies to the publisher for my tardy reading and review.

That said once I picked it up I didn't want to put it down and I read it in two sittings. What a powerful, heart breaking and yet life affirming read!

Told in three parts and time lapsed throughout the book, which works so well and the way the author weaves the three timelines around and about each other is absolutely perfect. Hold Back The Night is most definitely a character driven novel but Jessica Moor writes characters so very well, utterly compelling to the point where you feel a real connection. An emotional and emotive read, I will admit I cried so have your tissues at the ready but the ending was just perfect, not sentimental but really fitted what had gone before. A hard hitting read I would highly recommend.

There are some difficult themes such as mental health, AIDS, homophobia, conversion therapy, death, covid etc so it may be worth checking triggers.

I am excited to see what comes next, whatever it is I will definitely be picking it up.2 s Clair Sharpe574 45

April 2020 - Annie, an elderly lady is living alone and receives a phone call to say that her friend Rita had died. Covid means she can't attend the funeral. Rita’s death makes her revisit her past.

In October 1959, Annie meets Rita for the first time. They are both beginning their jobs as mental health nurses in Fairlie Hall mental hospital. It’s a steep learning curve and we hear from Annie about the methods they use to treat patients and some of the conditions they treat.

In 1983, Annie has recently lost her husband in an accident and is raising her young daughter alone. One evening she comes across a sick man called Robbie and offers him and his friend Jim a bed for the night. Having seen a recent documentary about homosexual men who were suffering from an autoimmune disease. When he dies, her home becomes a sanctuary for men of all ages and backgrounds who are suffering from AIDS and are being shunned by society.

I really enjoyed the three timelines and hearing Annie’s story, one that links the experiences of gay men of the last 60 years. Drawn to a life of nursing from a young age, but then realising she couldn’t really stomach the blood, she found herself in mental health nursing. There she witnessed conversion therapy - homosexuality was illegal in the UK until 1967 and I get the impression she didn’t really understand what has happening. Later when she sees a young man in a waiting room of a hospital being ignored by the staff and then meets Robbie on the street, she decides she can help.

I was quite young when the AIDS crisis was at it’s height and didn’t knowingly meet a gay man until I went to University so a lot of what went on passed me by. But having recently watched the amazing drama, It’s a Sin which shows the devastation of the AIDS crisis on young men in particular, it was fascinating to read more about it.

I listened to the audio of this and would say it is one of the best audio books I've listened to, the narrator changing her voice to mimic Annie’s at different times of her life. Annie feels a lot of guilt for what happened, but I think she was a remarkable person for giving over her home and her life to help care for these men and simply treat them as human beings. There was a lot of heartbreak for her and also her young daughter who became friends with these men only to watch them die. A heart-breaking read but so important - we should never forget what happened and how these men were treated. 5 stars from me.2024 audio book-tours ...more3 s Sophie Ollin11

I really wanted to this novel, the setting and characters held so much promise, but unfortunately, it didn't quite deliver for me.

Somehow, Hold Back the Night managed to present emotive events and experiences in such a way as to be completely devoid of emotion. As a queer person who works in mental health, both the horrendous treatment of gay people in psychiatric institutions and the impact of the AIDS epidemic, are incredibly close to my heart, and yet, reading about both elicited no emotion from me (and I'm someone who frequently cries at books).

I never fully got a sense of who the protagonist, Annie, was; what she felt about anything or anyone, what was going on for her beyond the roles she played for others. She came across to me as passive and almost as a bystander in her own story, so it was hard to feel invested in her as a character.

With more character development and an injection of emotion, I feel Hold Back the Night could be so much more engaging.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.1 Amy Louise403 19

Jessica Moor’s debut novel, Keeper, was one of those books that lingered in the memory long after I’d turned the final page. Looking back over my review (linked above), I stand by my assertion that, although not for the faint-hearted, it was an insightful debut that was unflinching in its examination of the lived realities of domestic violence and the societal conditions that, all too often, allow it to flourish.

Moor’s third novel, Hold Back the Night, covers very different ground but is no less considered. When we first meet Annie in 1959 she is a student nurse who, as a result of her hatred of blood, has opted for a residency at Fairlie Hall mental hospital. Taught to obey without question, what Annie does once she realises exactly what ‘conditions’ are being treated at Fairlie Hall – and how they are being treated – will haunt her and her fellow student nurse Rita for the rest of their lives.

The novel’s second strand picks up in 1983 when Annie, newly widowed and mother to a teenage daughter, takes in Robbie as a lodger. Robbie, it soon becomes apparent, has ‘it’: the illness the papers keep mentioning and that seems to frighten so many people. Before long, Annie’s house has become something of a haven for young men with AIDS – and the young men themselves have become something of a haven for Annie. But in a society rife with both stigma and misinformation, it isn’t long before Annie is forced to reconnect with the memories of those long-forgotten days at Fairlie Hall.

Finally, at the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020, an elderly Annie receives a call to say that Rita has passed away. The news prompts Annie to look back over her life: the choices she’s made, the regrets she’s had, and the people who have carried her through all of it.

Hold Back the Night is a more meditative read than Keeper but also a much tauter novel. Moor’s prose isn’t sparse but it’s what I’d call spare. Each sentence feels carefully crafted. Whilst there’s always enough description to give you a sense of what’s going on, detail is never extraneous and Moor is unafraid of letting her prose rest upon moments of detail. A pile of shirts, a request for a pen, the feel of a child in the arms: these things gain weight and significance that linger and carry through Annie’s life.

Annie herself is an interesting character but not always wholly able. When we first meet her Annie is filled with good intentions but somewhat distanced from the realities of nursing. She wants to help people but without having to deal with any of the mess – either emotional or clinical – that comes with caring for real human beings. As she ages, Annie becomes more aware that care and love go hand-in-hand and, although her edges never entirely soften, she begins to realise that some of the choices she made were, although deemed ‘correct’ by the authorities at the time, not always wise or compassionate ones.

I had the pleasure of listening to the audiobook version of the novel and the narrator, Elizabeth Bower, does a wonderful job of conveying Annie at the three different stages on her life. She also really brings the other characters – however fleeting their appearances – to life on the page.

Given the sometimes harrowing subject matter, calling Hold Back the Night a beautiful novel feels somewhat inaccurate. Readers should be aware going in that the novel portrays the realities of mental health treatment in the 1950s, including the use of electroshock and conversion therapies. It also vividly depicts the homophobia of both the 50s and the 80s as well as the stigma, hysteria, and misinformation surrounding AIDS and, later, Covid.

But despite this it is, I think, a beautiful novel about finding connection amidst even the most challenging of circumstances. Of finding joy within darkness. And of finding forgiveness within yourself for the choices you have made and regretted. Unflinching but moving, Hold Back the Night is a novel to savour and one that is guaranteed to linger long after you turn the final page.

NB: This review also appears on my blog at https://theshelfofunreadbooks.wordpre... as part of the blog tour for the book. My thanks go to the publishers for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review. Books By Your Bedside618 19

Thanks to NetGalley and Manilla Press for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.

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 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 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, 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 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. Anne2,248 1,138

Hold Back The Night is a short novel that delivers so much, it is beautifully formed, filled with colourful and exquisitely created characters who will tear at your heart. The author deals with some of the darkest, most troublesome issues in our recent history. She does it with style and compassion, and creates so many questions to ask, with debates to be had. It is the perfect book for discussion.

This is Annie's life story, told in three eras. Whilst the novel begins in 2020 at the start of the Covid pandemic when Annie is in her later years, it is the earlier times that really shape the woman that Annie will be.

In the late 1950s Annie and her friend Rita are student nurses at Fairlie Hall mental hospital. Annie always knew that she wanted to make people feel better, but her hatred of blood meant that general nursing was not for her. Fairlie with its community of patients suffering from a variety of mental disorders will suit her. However, it isn't really how she'd imagined it to be. Their Matron is a stern, cold woman and Annie and Rita soon realise that they must do exactly as they are ordered.

In the mid 1980s Annie is recently widowed. She and her teenage daughter have used the money received after her husband's industrial accident to buy a bigger house. When Annie meets Robbie and Jim on the street near a nightclub, she realises that Robbie is seriously ill. His landlady has evicted her and it seems the right thing for Annie to offer him a bed, after all, she could do with the cash, a lodger will be no trouble at all.

Jessica Moor explores the issues around conversion therapy, carried out at Fairlie Hall in the guise as a treatment for the patient's mental illness. Homosexuality was still illegal in those days, and these treatments were both horrifying and undignified, for the patients and for Annie and Rita. In the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic was just beginning, along with the illogical thinking of most medics; the hysteria created by the media; the lack of information, the wealth of misinformation, yet Annie continues to take in these pitiful men who have nowhere else to go.

In 2020 we find the beginning of the Covid era, again the bombardment of misinformation, the terror spread by the media and the division of communities rears its ugly head.

Annie is a complex character. She's not the stereotypical nursing sort, at times it feels as though she does things, sometimes extraordinary things, without really thinking about why. She has an innermost feeling that she must do it, she must help, but she does it in a quiet way, sometimes worrying about herself and her daughter, often not really knowing if what she is doing is right.

The biggest beauty of this novel are the friendships created. Whilst Annie and Rita are not always close throughout the years, it is Rita's death that creates Annie's most vivid memories, and it is joyful to read. Her relationship with Jim; Robbie's partner, and Paul, Rita's widower are so strong and have formed Annie so much.

This is a novel to savour. The issues raised add such a depth to the story and are both moving and anger inducing at the same time. Highly recommended. 2 s Veronika JordanAuthor 2 books36

There is a scene that takes place in 1959, where Annie and Ruth are asked to assist with a patient who is having electric therapy (or electric shock treatment as we know it today). Along with one of the interns they have to hold her down, while she is ‘shocked’. I had to stop reading. My mother had this treatment in the 50s. I never knew they had to be held down. She later had a leucotomy and this also occurs at Fairlee Hall, where the girls are training to be ‘mental nurses’.

In the side wards, patients are receiving treatment to make them ‘normal’. This, we discover later on, was a means of treating homosexuals with emetics and images of young men, all designed to deter them. The alternative was prison as it was still illegal to be actively gay in the UK until 1967. Alan Turing was chemically castrated in 1952 for homosexual acts, again as an alternative to prison.

As student nurses, Annie and Ruth have to do as they are told, but at what point do they question the rules and ask themselves if what they are doing is wrong. Are they complicit in something morally questionable? Many years ago I worked in a nursing home where dementia patients were forced to use the toilet with two HCAs holding them down and removing their clothing. I was very upset about it. Nowadays, it would be considered an assault.

In 1983, Annie is widowed and is a single mother to 13-year-old Rosie. One day she meets a young man named Robbie and his older friend Jim, and gives them a home when no-one else will, because this is the AIDs crisis, and homosexual men are shunned by society, people terrified of ‘catching’ it. And Annie needs the rent money from all her spare rooms. But soon her home becomes a haven for those dying of AIDs, and mostly they do. Sometimes their own parents have shunned them as well as society.

It’s 2020 and it’s the time of the pandemic. The country has been locked down. I usually hate stories that take place during the pandemic, but it’s necessary here to draw parallels with the AIDs crisis in the 80s. How they were dealt with and how much has changed.

Annie is now in her eighties. She lives alone. She talks to Rosie every day on the phone. Rosie thinks she should come to stay with her, that she is too vulnerable on her own. She also talks to Jim, who of all her lodgers, has survived AIDs, though he will always be HIV positive.

The book is not written in that order though. We start with a phone call in 2020, and then move around the timelines as the story progresses. It’s a very powerful novel that questions whether following the rules is always the right thing to do, even when we know it’s wrong, and can we atone by trying to right the wrongs. Even though the 1959 parts were hard for me to read, I really enjoyed the book (if that’s the right word).

Many thanks to @Tr4cyF3nt0n for inviting me to be part of the #CompulsiveReaders #blogtour and to NetGalley for an ARC. Kath2,675

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. Rich Wilson67 2

this is a brilliantly unique & heartbreaking story.

In this book we meet Annie who is an elderly widow living alone as COVID is sweeping the world & forcing her to lockdown alone. She receives a devastating call to tell her that Rita, her oldest friend, has died. Her grief forces her to revisit the memories of her life with Rita at two very different times of their lives.

1959 - Rita & Annie first meet when they’re employed at Fairlie Hall Mental Hospital. Their friendship blossoms whilst their lives are plunged into gruelling working hours with patients who have complex problems & a matron who even intimidated me as a reader. Annie soon finds herself working alongside a Doctor who is trialing Conversion Therapy, an inhuman & degrading practise.

1983 - Annie has been recently widowed & struggling with a purpose in life. The AIDS epidemic is affecting so many men & Annie wants to make a difference. She takes in young men who’re being socially excluded & who need a bed and care during such a frightening time. This timeline inparticular leaks such warmth, kindness, human decency, solidarity and heartbreak.

I was not prepared for the emotional journey we’re taken on during this book. We follow Annie at 3 very different times of her life which is one of things I felt so clever about the story. At times we’re following such different stories which kept it so engaging and interesting.

The timeline Fairlie Hall Mental Hospital felt really mysterious with something sinister hiding in the hallways & behind locked doors. We’re following a young woman who is finding her way in womanhood and in her new chosen career. There’s a hardness to the Dr & the Matron & they ‘care’ about the patients in very different ways to the young ladies. The start of their blossoming friendship was light relief & beautiful to read.

The 80’s timeline broke my heart. The loss of men. The stigma which left them shunned from society. But what I took away the most was the generosity, the love, support & the human decency that Annie and her daughter show. It’s beautiful & an important story to tell.

It’s a very character driven book & we get to know Annie at 3 very different stages in her life which is super interesting. The 3 different time periods are well-rounded yet the complex issues make it engaging & emotive. The skills involved in the writing a book of this nature are a huge credit to Jessica and her talent. I loved this book & I’m so glad I read it. KathVBtn566 23

Hold Back the Night is a beautifully rich sumptuous story, following nurse Annie’s life through three key stages of her life and three recent historic events.

It covers her 20s in 1959 when she was a nurse in a mental health facility and meets her best friend Rita. They start off working on cavernous wards full of dementia patients, 50 or 60 in a room , some of whom have been there since childhood and become dreadfully institutionalised. It reminded me of Maggie O’Farrell ‘The vanishing act of Esme Lennox’.

Annie and Rita are specially selected to help with treating men for their homosexuality, in a time when it was considered utterly deviant to be gay .

The story moves to the early 80s where widowed Annie is living with her teenage daughter Rosie. A chance encounter in a hospital waiting room makes her see how badly society still treats gay men, particularly if they may have AIDs. Annie starts offering shelter to young men with HIV when they have nowhere else to go.

Finally we see Annie as an 80 year old in the early days of Covid, being careful to take her prescribed walk but staying isolated and safe. She finds out that Rita has died and it’s clear that the two have drifted over the decades although we don’t know why.

The three timelines are intertwined and we jump between the 50s to 2020 and back again, learning more about Annie and her life choices as we go. At times Annie blindly follows instructions, trusting that society is making the right decisions or trusting her husband to make the right choices but at other times she ploughs her own furrow, as she chooses to support and house the gay men despite her neighbours’ objections. It’s a tale of how past actions can play out in ways that you might never anticipate, taking you in unexpected directions and decisions.

Hold Back the Night is a mature look at one woman’s life and how her choices have shaped her& others, definitely worth a read.1 Kayleigh (BookwormEscapes)441 52

AD/PR - 4.5* - Hold Back The Night follows Annie in 1959, 1983 and 2020. In 1959 she is a student nurse at a mental hospital where conversion therapy is carried out. In 1983 she ends up offering a place of solace for men during the AIDS epidemic. In 2020 she’s alone during lockdown and revisiting her past. It’s a deeply emotional, heartbreaking, life-affirming story that hits you that much harder knowing the events that anchor the narrative are real.

Hold Back The Night is such a powerful read as we follow one woman’s life over 60 years. As a student nurse, Annie is a naive young woman who wants to follow the rules and can’t see what’s happening in front of her. She becomes complicit in the horrors of conversion therapy and commits an act of betrayal. I feel Annie taking in young men dying of AIDS in 1983 is her way of atoning for that time. You see how much she’s changed and is more of her own person. I loved the bonds she developed with the men and how she cared for them. The Annie in 2020 has lived a full life and is able to look back with the benefit of hindsight at her choices.

I really felt I lived the years with Annie. I was brought to tears of rage and horror at the barbarity of conversion therapy. Ashamed that humanity ever allowed this to happen. When Jim and Robbie become the first of many men to find refuge and safety at Annie’s, I took them and the others to my heart. Again I cried for them and the injustice of it all, at how they were treated by society and medical professionals. Hold Back The Night is the story of one woman and also the story of our recent history. It’s one that must be told. For all those who couldn’t speak for themselves then.

Fans of character driven stories full of emotion and heart will love this. I also fully rec the audiobook! Judefire33252 6

My review –

Thank you to Tracey Fenton for organising the blog tour, and for Zaffre Books for a copy of Hold Back The Night.

I thought Hold Back The Night was a very clever novel set over three time periods of one persons life, Annie. It starts off during lockdown in 2020, Annie is elderly and lives alone after her husband has died and her grown up daughter lives away, and during the isolation starts to ruminate about her life.

We also follow Annie as a young nurse in 1939, when she enrols as a Mental Health nurse at Farleigh Hall, and old sprawling mansion full of mostly men. During this time she is introduced to conversion therapy, used a s a ‘cure’ for homosexuality, she partakes in these sessions. She also befriends the only other young female nurse there, Rita.

And the third timeline is set during the 1980s and the AIDS crisis, and Annie and her teenage daughter start taking in young men who are extremely ill and have been shunned by hospitals and society in the ignorance of the early days of the AIDS crisis.

What follows is a storyline that is gripping and one that i enjoyed. Its a deep dive into Annie’s life and her actions ( or lack of ) that have shaped her life and her choices. I felt she was fighting to atone for her days as a mental health nurse, and the people that she hurt during that time. The author cleverly weaves all the time lines together and the way she has written about Annie is very cleverly done. I’m not sure I d the young Annie, she was cold, austere and unemotional, but as we travel through the years she does, all of us grow up, emotionally and personally, and the oldest Annie was my preferred, because of this.

Hold Back The Night is a touching and sad read in parts and I did find some of the writing very heart-wrenching, but that’s hardly surprising given the subject matter. But it was a very good read and I sailed through the pages in a couple of days.

If you want to learn a bit about history and have a emotional novel, then Hold Back The Night is for you. A solid 4 star rating.

Katie Clark9

This is an unflinching novel about stigma and cruelty, accountability and the debate about whether following orders is as morally wrong as instigating horrific and barbaric actions.

The protagonist, Annie, is complex and 3-dimensional and the author explores her role as a nurse delivering conversion treatment in the 1950s; her attempts to help men during the AIDs pandemic in the 1980s; and her life as an elderly woman during the COVID pandemic. Jessica Moor doesn’t shy away from some of the atrocities that Annie was involved in, and she explores questions of redemption and accountability; truth and lies; and what makes people do the things they do,
with subtly and nuance.

I felt for Annie throughout as she was so compellingly written, but Moor did such a good job of showing the different facets of personality. She doesn’t lecture nor preach but rather presents characters as they are and lets the reader form their own conclusions.

The other characters in all the timelines, and particularly those which occur across timelines are similarly well rounded, richly developed and nuanced. Very often, stories which cover important subject matters do so in a way which feels more non-fiction or a treatise on the matter and Hold Back the Night does not feel this. Moor doesn’t shy away from presenting the true atrocities of events in the 50s, 80s and today but nor does she spell out character and motivation; the narrative unfolds life and the parallels between the events in each storyline are never overdone. It’s an extraordinarily skilful novel and another stunning work by Jessica Moor.

I know I’ll be thinking of this story for a long time, and the questions it raises about human behaviour and why we do and justify the awful things so many of us do. Jaffareadstoo2,715


Lock-down in 2020 brings its own brand of isolation and indecision and left with just her thoughts Annie is taken back in time firstly to 1959 when she and her friend Rita were student nurses at Fairlie Hall Mental Hospital. With an incompassionate matron who ruled with a rod of iron, Annie and Rita were given tasks which they neither knew nor understood. Moving forward in time we meet Annie in the 1980s when another unknown epidemic was wiping out a specific population and with a house far too big for Annie and her daughter, Annie offers a place of refuge to those who were being shunned in society and considered unworthy of human kindness.

Stark, often brutal its depiction of life, this emotive novel took me right back to my own student nurse days and more particularly to nursing in the 1980s when no-one, unless you were actually there, could understand the fear and ignorance which surrounded this particular time in medical history. I had such an emotional connection to Annie, often seeing myself in her when I too would obey instructions with little knowledge of the far reaching consequences. Although different times calls for different measures this cleverly controlled novel links together three very specific eras and gives them a common thread, that of a disease out of control, the ignorance which surrounded medical treatments and in particular mental illness, and of the isolation borne of fear.

Hold Back the Night is a difficult book to 'enjoy' as the subject matter is a tough read but it's all sensitively handled and very well written and is definitely a story which will stay with me for a while. Greenreadsbooks 175 10

Hold back the night is set in 1959, 1983, and 2020 and is written from the point of view of Annie. In 1959, Annie was a student nurse on placement at Fairlie Hall, a mental hospital, and shares a flat with the ebullient Rita. We meet Annie and Rita at the very start of their careers and learn about their very different personalities. The author portrays Annie as being rather reserved and closeted and Rita as more worldly. I love medical history, and it was fascinating reading about the often barbaric nature of psychiatric medicine. The events that unfold at Fairlie Hall have a lasting impact on Annie and Rita's futures, and we learn that Annie has a huge secret from the time hanging over her. The 1980s chapters provide an insight into the heart of the AIDS pandemic and the harshness of life for day men in the time. Annie feels a lost soul throughout much of the book, but she keeps going with a quiet stoicism. The theme of atonement becomes more obvious throughout the book. The writing was sensitive and insightful with some haunting descriptions. The pandemic theme continues when Annie is living alone during the Covid pandemic in 2020, and the threads of the story come together. I really enjoyed Hold Back The Night - the writing was eloquent, and the author is adept at creating a sense of place. I loved the descriptions and the characters, and I felt that there was a lot left unsaid that encouraged the reader to contemplate the hidden depths of the story. It is highly recommended if you books with different timelines, social history, interesting relationships, and buried secrets. Audrey Haylins436 17

Hold Back the Night is a powerful and emotion-charged story of one woman’s sixty-year journey from complicity and betrayal to atonement and ultimately redemption. It’s a riveting read, exposing shameful truths from the past that most people today will be ignorant of.

Annie’s story is told over three timelines, starting with Covid lockdown in 2020, when news of the death of a friend, sends her mind spiraling back to the past — to 1959, when she worked as a junior nurse in a mental institution. And to the early 1980s, when as a young widow and single mum, she provided lodgings and care to young men dying of AIDS.

Through Annie, Jessica Moor writes unflinchingly about the barbaric practice of conversion therapy, which was inflicted on gay men to ‘cure’ them of their ‘condition’, and of the abandonment of the same group two decades later at the start of the AIDS pandemic.

I loved Annie’s character arc, which sees her start off as a naïve and compliant 19 year-old, following orders and assisting in the conversion treatments. Although complicit, she does have a sympathetic side and tries to make life easier for the men. But, it’s not until many years later that she faces up to her guilt.

Offering up her home to AIDS victims begins as a mutual convenience: Annie needs lodgers, and they need a refuge. But she goes above and beyond the obligations of a landlady. Whether this is Annie subconsciously seeking atonement or just her compassionate nature isn’t clear, but I found it wonderful to see her act so selflessly and find a new purpose in life.

Redemption finally comes in the closing chapters, when Annie gets the chance to make peace with the actions of her younger self. This was full-on, lump-in-the-throat stuff and a fitting end to what was an engaging and eye-opening read.

If you’ve read and been moved by Ruth Coker Burks’ heart-wrenching memoir, All the Young Men, then Hold Back the Night is for you.2 s Hannah Symonds1,671 26

This follows the story of Annie and Rita and zips back from the past to the present. It all starts in 1959 where Annie and Rita meet and become friends as they work together as student nurses. Work is tough and being on guard of the matron is soon tougher but something is not right at the mental hospital that they work at, can Annie and Rita work out what is going on in the side wards. Is this the right way of nursing for either of them. Fast forward a few years and Annie has suffered a loss, but when she realises she can still nurse, she decides to go for it. Present day arrives with Annie suffering with her demons and her memories of the past, can she ever get over what she saw back then? I love a unique story and I always find reading about hospitals back in the day fascinating. This one was just as good and very interesting how the story unfolded. I felt as though I learnt a great deal about how mental hospitals were back then and it was an eye opening experience. Jessica has clearly done a great deal of research and you can really tell. It was a good honest and raw story that I would recommend. Nicola Smith999 37

Hold Back the Night is set over three time periods: the late 1950s, the early 1980s and in 2020, the latter taking place during the first Covid lockdown. Annie steps forward in each timeline as the main character. She's living alone in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic whilst thinking back to the AIDS crisis in the 80s and how she took in men who were sick and had nowhere else to go, and to her time as a naïve young nurse working in a mental hospital in 1959 and how what she witnessed and dealt with there informed her later actions. Each thread ties into the others beautifully and heartbreakingly.

This is the third of Jessica Moor's books that I have read and I've found each to be hard-hitting in a kind of understated way - I feel they creep up on me, pulling me in and making me care about the characters and consider what it is to be human, every so often delivering a plot point that really packs a punch. In many ways I had anticipated Annie would turn out to be a crusader in the 80s strand, when really she just quietly got on with it, and this quiet determination very much reflected her character in general. Even so, this is a powerful and shocking story which illustrates prejudice and intolerance, and a woman eventually atoning for her complicity, coming full circle by the end of the book.

Hold Back the Night is written with thoughtfulness and sensitivity and Moor is a talented writer, tackling difficult and important subjects so very well. em352 65

TW: homophobia, torture, conversion therapy, death.

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.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for kindly providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. #HoldBackTheNight #NetGalley. All opinions are my own.5-stars favs-of-2024 historical-fiction Julie Atherton70 13

I really enjoyed this book. It’s the story of Annie and Rita who are both nurses in a psychiatric hospital in the late fifties. Here we witness some practices that are quite upsetting but definitely happened in this time . Patients being subject to conversion therapy as well as other barbaric practices. We then follow Annie in the eighties when AIDS was at its highest, she opens her house to the sick because they were so ostracised in the public domain. Lastly it’s 2020 and covid is everywhere and she is isolating and reminiscing about the past . It’s such a good story showing prejudices and there’s a lot to discuss . I loved the characters especially Annie and how she tried to do the right thing. I think this would be a good book club choice , so much to think about and learn from. Louise2,771 52

This book is brutal at times.
The conversion therapy and aids crisis are forefront of the story, with covid in the back ground.
Annie is the star of it all, from young trainee nurse thrown in at the deep end, to independent old lady, I couldn't help but her, and forgive any mistakes.
At times you could cry for some of these characters.
Packs an emotional punch.
Hannah408

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. Claire Flanagan94 3

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 Sheila53

2.5* Honestmamreader414 16 Read

Review to come 9th of may Sara Woodcock55

I really this author’s writing style and having enjoyed Young Women I was really keen to read this one. Hold Back the Night is an emotional read, exploring difficult topics including conversion therapy during the 60s, the AIDS pandemic in the 80s and the recent COVID pandemic in 2020. I was struck by the parallels of paranoia and social isolation between the two pandemics, having to cope with fear and uncertainty without the support of your loved ones. I found this to be an engaging, emotional and informative read - I couldn’t put it down.

I definitely recommend checking Hold Back the Night out. It really is a very, very good book. Sara Petizzi136 13

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