The Twilight Hour

Secrets and memories collide in The Twilight Hour, the new novel from bestselling author Nicci Gerrard. 
 
'Be with me now, at the twilight hour. When the light fails.' 
 'I'm here.' 
 'Tell me.' 
 'What shall I tell you?' 
 'Tell me about us, when we were young. What was it like? What was I like then?' 
 
Eleanor Lee has lived a fiercely independent existence for over ninety years, but now it's time to tidy her life away - books, photographs, paintings, letters - a lifetime of possessions all neatly boxed up for the last time. But amongst them there are some things that must be kept hidden. And, nearing blindness, Eleanor needs help to uncover them before her children and grandchildren do. 
 
Peter, a young man with a broken heart who feels as lost as Eleanor's past, is employed to help with this task. And together they uncover traces of another life - words and photographs telling a story of forbidden love, betrayal, passion, grief and self-sacrifice, which Eleanor must visit one last time. 
 
By speaking her memories out loud, and releasing the secrets of her past, Eleanor can finally lay them to rest. To honour them at last, and protect those who must never know. 
 
Praise for Nicci Gerrard: 
 
'Beguiling, poignant, wonderful' Sunday Express 
 
'Acutely observed and beautifully written' Woman and Home 
 
'Subtle, poignant and tremendously skilful' Observer 
 
Nicci Gerrard writes for the Observer and is the co-author, with Sean French, of the bestselling Nicci French thrillers. She lives in Suffolk with her husband and four children. Her novels Things We Knew Were True, Solace, The Moment You Were Gone, The Winter House and Missing Persons are all published by Penguin and received rave reviews.

Nicci Gerrard is a writer and campaigner, a celebrated novelist and recipient of the 2016 Orwell Prize for Journalism 'Exposing Britain's Social Evils'. This work grew out of her father's death from dementia in 2014 and her belief that the disease, its impact on individuals, families and wider society, needs light thrown upon it in order to improve the experience and support of those affected. 
 
Nicci Gerrard is also co-founder of John's Campaign, named after her father, which has campaigned to give carers of those with dementia the same rights as parents of children to accompany them in hospital. Recognised by NHS policy makers, by charities, by nurses and doctors and carers, almost every hospital across the U.K. has now signed up.

Eleanor Lee is fiercely independent. She has lived alone well into her nineties, despite her now near-total blindness. Now, finally, she has been persuaded by her children to move into a home. She employs Peter, a recent graduate nursing a broken heart, to spend the summer sorting through her attic - papers, photographs, books and letters - ahead of the move. These fragments of her own history unleash in Eleanor a long-concealed story of forbidden love, betrayal, passion, grief and self-sacrifice; and in their unlikely friendship, something is unlocked in Peter's heart, too.

Missing Persons

Nicci Gerrard writes for the Observer and is the co-author, with Sean French, of the bestselling Nicci French thrillers. She lives in Suffolk with her husband and four children. Her novels Things We Knew Were True, Solace, The Moment You Were Gone and The Winter House are all published by Penguin and received rave reviews.

When Jonny went missing everything changed. 
 
His mother's heart is full of terror and sadness instead of joy. 
 
His father's study overflows with newspaper cuttings and profiles on missing people instead of the academic texts that were there before. 
 
His sister, once carefree, now carries the weight of the world on her shoulders. 
 
His bedroom at home remains untouched and ready for his return. 
 
A place is set for him at the table on Christmas day each year. 
 
His birthday is always celebrated; his unopened gifts gather dust. 
 
The hands on the clock continue to turn and yet Jonny hasn't returned. 
 
Where is he?

The Winter House

The moving, life-affirming and poignant story of friendship, love and loss, for fans of Victoria Hislop and Joanna Trollope. 
 
One phone call can change everything . . . 
 
Marnie's life is turned upside down when a sudden phone call summons her back to the Scottish Highlands, and to the past she has tried to escape. 
 
Ralph, Marnie and Oliver were once so close, but it's been years since they were all together. 
 
But now Ralph is ill, and so they all meet again to spend the precious days that he has left with each other. 
 
And as they reminisce, Marnie is taken back to the summer years ago when everything changed between them and heartbreak and desire broke up their group. 
 
Will Ralph have the chance to say what needs to be said before it's too late? 
 
And can they put the devastating events of twenty years ago to rest and rekindle the intimacy they once shared? 
____________ 
 
'This book made me feel so many emotions!' 5***** Reader Review 
 
'Such fabulous writing kept me reading eagerly to the end and even shedding a few tears' 5***** Reader Review 
 
'I absolutely loved this story and didn't want it to end' 5***** Reader Review

Nicci Gerrard writes for the Observer and is the co-author, with Sean French, of the bestselling Nicci French thrillers. She lives in Suffolk with her husband and four children. Her novels Things We Knew Were True, Solace and The Moment You Were Gone are all published by Penguin and received rave reviews.

When Marnie receives a phone call that summons her to the side of a once-beloved friend, she is wrenched from her orderly London life and sent back into a past from which she has fled but never escaped. 
 
Ralph, Marnie and Oliver once knew each other well and are still inextricably bound by ties of love and betrayal. Now they meet again in Ralph's secluded cottage in the Scottish highlands, to spend the precious days that Ralph has left with each other. 
 
As they reminisce, Marnie is taken back to the summer years ago when everything changed between them and heartbreak and desire broke up their little group. Will Ralph have the chance to say what needs to be said before it's too late? And can they put the devastating events of twenty years ago to rest and rekindle the intimacy they once shared?

The Moment You Were Gone

An enchanting story of friendship and secrets

Nicci Gerrard writes of ordinary people and gets &mdash; under their skins  and she'll get under yours too

Nicci Gerrard writes for the Observer and is the co-author, with Sean French, of the bestselling Nicci French thrillers. She lives in Suffolk with her husband and four children. Her novels Things We Knew Were True and Solace are both published by Penguin and received rave reviews.

Gaby and Connor seem to have a loving marriage &mdash; one that is built on knowing every last intricate detail about one another, or so Gaby has always believed. When their son Ethan sets off for university, discovering for the first time, the raw and uncontrollable intensity of falling in love, Gaby and Connor will be alone again &mdash; a chance to rediscover their relationship, just the two of them. 
 
But there is one person missing from Gaby&rsquo;s life. One person who she cannot forgot &ndash; Nancy, her best friend since childhood. As teenagers they shared their deepest secrets, fears and dreams for the future. As adults they discovered love &ndash; Gaby with Connor and Nancy with Gaby&rsquo;s adored brother, Stefan. The foursome became inseparable. 
 
Then one day, Nancy upped and left. 
 
Now, almost twenty years later, with Ethan away from home, Gaby finds herself idly watching television when a sharp stab of recognition hits her &ndash; the face she recognizes on the screen belongs to Nancy. Suddenly, the friend she thought she&rsquo;d lost for good is within her reach. But does Nancy want to be found? 
 
The search for her long lost friend forces Gaby not only to revisit her past, but could also shatter the course of her future . . .

Solace

A moving story of love, despair, courage and hope in the style of Maggie O'Farrell and Alice Sebold.

Nicci Gerrard is a feature writer on the Observer, and the co-author, with Sean French, of the best-selling Nicci French thrillers. She lives in Suffolk with her husband and four children.  This is her second novel.

Irene has a husband, Adrian, three small children and - though she 
doesn't know it - a marriage that is going wrong. When she discovers 
that Adrian is having an affair, the family is blown apart. 
 
Solace is a story of contrasts. While Adrian finds new love and excitement, Irene spirals into exhaustion, self-destruction and a kind of madness. 
 
With their marriage in shreds and Adrian whisking their daughters on a trip of a lifetime ti Australia with his new lover, Irene finally reaches rock bottom. She decides to leave the unbearable silence of her home for a trip by herself to visit her brother Jem in France. 
 
And as Irene soon realises, being along can mean discovering freedom, elation and even in the darkest of times, finding your solace.

Nicci Gerrard

Immensely powerful . . . an incisive and compelling read. Gerrard, a crime novelist and former journalist, visits the "fresh hell" of hospitals across the UK, and interviews sufferers and those whose lives have been indelibly shaped by the diagnosis of a loved one . . . As well as being part-memoir and part-reportage, What Dementia Teaches Us About Love is also a great part philosophical inquiry into the nature of self and what it is to be human.

Essential reading about love, life and care

An extraordinarily luminous book, at once terribly sad and frightening but also somehow hopeful and energising.

Nobody has written on dementia as well as Nicci Gerrard in this new book. Kind, knowing and infinitely useful

Gerrard ranges widely and wisely, raising questions about what it is to be human and facing truths too deep for tears

Blake Morrison, poet and author of And When Did You Last See Your Father?

This is a tender, lyrical, profound, urgent book . . . Gerrard has penned a treatise on what it is to be human

Evocative and powerful, shining a light on a world which is often hidden and misunderstood

Jane Cummings, Chief Nursing Officer for England

Gerrard writes beautifully, encyclopaedically and with humanity

senior fellow at the Institute for Government and the King’s Fund, honorary fellow of Royal College of Physicians, author of Five Giants

Nicci Gerrard exudes understanding of the breadth, scale and complexity of the dementias and the challenges they pose for society. Yet she communicates simply, personally and practically as if speaking individually to each of us

Professor of Neuropsychology, Dementia Research Centre, University College London

Nicci Gerrard writes with power, insight, empathy and extraordinary beauty about the world of dementia . . . and demonstrates how we can address the fear, despair and ignorance that has accompanied its spread

Immensely powerful . . . shot through with insights. Gerrard's book is an elegant yet devastating interrogation into this fatal loss of self, and is part-reportage, part-philosophical inquiry, but, above all, intensely personal.

A profound and powerful exploration of how society interprets and deals with a health challenge that will only deepen over the coming decades

Nicci Gerrard

Praise for What Dementia Teaches Us About Love

Immensely powerful . . . an incisive and compelling read. Gerrard, a crime novelist and former journalist, visits the "fresh hell" of hospitals across the UK, and interviews sufferers and those whose lives ha ...

Essential reading about love, life and care

An extraordinarily luminous book, at once terribly sad and frightening but also somehow hopeful and energising.

Immensely powerful . . . an incisive and compelling read. Gerrard, a crime novelist and former journalist, visits the "fresh hell" of hospitals across the UK, and interviews sufferers and those whose lives ha ...

Essential reading about love, life and care

An extraordinarily luminous book, at once terribly sad and frightening but also somehow hopeful and energising.

Immensely powerful . . . an incisive and compelling read. Gerrard, a crime novelist and former journalist, visits the "fresh hell" of hospitals across the UK, and interviews sufferers and those whose lives ha ...

Essential reading about love, life and care

An extraordinarily luminous book, at once terribly sad and frightening but also somehow hopeful and energising.

Books by Nicci Gerrard

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