Hold Back the Night

by Jessica Moor

From the Observer debut novelist of the year, comes a blistering, heart-wrenching new novel of complicity and atonement, delving into one nurse's experience of the little-known history of conversion therapy and the heart-breaking betrayal of the AIDS crisis.

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?

The powerful and captivating new novel from the celebrated author of KEEPER and YOUNG WOMEN, HOLD BACK THE NIGHT is Jessica Moor's most powerful and commercial book to date. A darkly compelling character-led novel, drawing on themes of complicity and betrayal, it is bursting with talking points and absolutely perfect for reading groups.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook, Historical

256 pages, Hardcover

First published May 9, 2024

About the author

Jessica Moor studied English at Cambridge before completing a Creative Writing MA at Manchester University. Prior to this she spent a year working in the violence against women and girls sector and this experience inspired her first novel, Keeper.

Reviews

[Suz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stories around the AIDS epidemic and those lovely people who care for the suffering hold a place in my heart. I lost a relative in 1985 to this disease, before you could stay well with treatment. The illness was hidden, it was apparently cancer that took my uncle’s life. Cutlery segregated, symptoms hidden, sexuality pushed aside and ignored.

Thought provoking in another way also, as I come from a family of nurses, I worked in a nursing home while in high school. I’ve spent a lot of time with unwell people, it’s a natural way, something I am comfortable with.

Spanning three timelines, firstly it is 1959 where two young nurses are learning their craft under a strict Matron and her iron fist. The girls learn sharp hospital corners and basic nursing –they are also coerced into ‘conversion’ therapy, ‘treating’ men with shock therapy, and more, to change their sexual preference. This was confronting. ‘Mental’ nursing was referred to many times. The context of this treatment is quite visceral, so triggers may need to be adhered to.

1983, Annie now a widow and more mature, finds herself nursing a dying man in the last throws of AIDS with nowhere to go, a completely rash but firm decision which will change many lives, including young and impressionable daughter Rosie. Interactions between her neighbours, the relatives left behind, their lovers, even the undertakers were tense. Much bigotry which Annie handled with ease. This stage was wonderfully told, I was in their world, sensing the love, the loss, the desperation, and the despair. Annie perhaps making her own amends in her own way, considering her role in therapy many moons ago. She creates a haven. I loved this part.

2020 brings Covid, cleverly this intertwines with the physical distancing of the gay man’s perception and physical distancing, the differing times showing the same intolerances and ignorance. Annie is alone and spends her time reminiscing, we see she has not lost her spunk at all, assuring Rosie she is ok and no DOES NOT need to come and live with her!

I’m so glad I picked up this special book, I flew through it. The characters were constructed well, the stuffiness and ignorance of the 1950’s, the acceptance and care of the select few in the 1980’s, and the lack of compassion again, in the Covid epidemic. I don’t love reading fiction that discusses Covid, but this was a different experience. An empathetic and provoking read which I recommend.

[The Book Review Café · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 like 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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[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my god, what a fantastic book. There’s one main character, Annie. The book follows her from 1950 when she’s a student nurse in a mental hospital, to the early to mid-80s in the horrible early days of AIDS, then to 2020 where she’s 80 years old and trying to get through the Covid crisis and all the lockdowns. I loved this one so much. Heartbreaking.

[Amy Bookseller · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Gwynne Capiraso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a good read that combined all my special interests. I don’t always love books that take place over multiple time periods because I’m always more invested in one plotline, but this one did a really good job at making you want to read each chapter so you could get closer to finding out the whole story. It definitely wasn’t a mystery, but quite a lot of information was withheld and fed to you over the course of the book in a way that kept it super interesting. I couldn’t put it down. Narrator Annie is about 80 years old (if my math is correct) and when the book takes place, it’s 2020 and she’s living alone during lockdown. She’s just found out that her oldest friend, Rita, has died (not a spoiler, it’s literally on the first page). The book takes you back to 1959, when Annie and Rita worked together as young nurses in a mental ward helping men suffering from PTSD from WWII. It jumps between 2020, 1959, and the mid 1980s, when Annie is retired from nursing and is raising her teenage daughter in London after her husband has died. She stumbles upon a gay couple outside of a nightclub (Heaven!), and, on a whim, decides to take them in because one of them is very sick with what we later find out to be AIDS. Somehow, Annie’s house becomes an inn of sorts for young men with AIDS and she reflects on the last time she nursed….with Rita, who knew better than Annie did that much of the nursing they were doing was more a violent conversion therapy of gay men in the 50s. Those parts were tough to read but it was horribly fascinating to learn that this was what much of mental nursing actually was during that time period. I won’t reveal too much, but the link between the 50s, the 80s, and the 2020s reveals itself to be both shocking and heartbreaking and lovely all tied up in one. Read this! (I literally haven’t read any bad books lately so I feel like this is always my recommendation.

[Carolyn Field · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read. Tackling three appalling times in history by cleverly switching between time lines. I wanted Annie to be more reflective of her time in the 50’s and how it lead to her work in the 80’s.

[Veronika Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Clair Atkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Judefire33 · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 like 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 liked the young Annie, she was cold, austere and unemotional, but as we travel through the years she does, like 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.

[T-Jhitts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four and a half stars. An easy to read book - despite it hopping between 3 eras it was not difficult to follow and told a good thought provoking story.
The book opens with an elderly woman struggling to understand and live through the Covid lockdown, as she spends more time on her own she hears of the death of her long time friend, Rita, and she begins to reflect on episodes of her life.
Two student nurses, Annie and Rita begin their training at a mental hospital in the 1950s and encounter some bizarre and inhumane treatment of patients, they are encouraged to follow and not question instructions from the lead doctor and matron. Both struggle with what they experience as they encounter gay men who are being “ treated for their abnormal sexual desires” with “conversion therapy “ rather than go to prison.
Jump 30 odd years to the 1980s London. Neither woman is nursing, and Annie is recently widowed and grieving and has a daughter. She offers a bed for a night to an ill, young man and thus begins her new journey as one after another rejected young men is brought to her home, ostensibly to die from AIDS . This gives the reader a poignant insight Into the ignorance and cruelty of the AIDS crisis. New relationships are founded, old friendships rekindled and heartbreak is the constant companion.
At Rita’s socially distanced funeral we see new developments and relationships that have have survived struggles across the years but are now moving forward. Annie struggling still to come to terms with her work and actions through the conversation therapy times reflects on her life and faces questions from old acquaintances and friends.
I’d class this book as post Covid literature- any mass trauma results in new genres the last probably being post 911. The lockdowns and experiences during the pandemic has resulted in most people reflecting and this was interesting in how the gay culture features through the 3 eras in this book. The similarities between attitudes in the AIDS epidemic and that of Covid cannot be ignored.

[andshe.reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is such a brilliant, heartbreaking story set over three time periods, late 1950s, early 60s, 1980s, and 2020. We meet Annie, our main character, and go on her journey from being a student nurse in mental health. Where she discovers conversion therapy, I got the feeling she didn't really understand, especially at first what was going on. To then, her time spent raising her daughter after a tragic accident took her husband, a time when HIV was taking many lives of gay men. To 2020, where Annie is alone as covid shuts down the world, and she's left with the ghosts of her past for company.

The author cleverly links the three timelines and weaves them around each other. Introducing the different side characters as we go. The emotions the story invokes make it easy to develop a connection with the characters and to feel a great deal of understanding and empathy.

Such a well written, emotive book that I couldn't put down, and I'm so glad I've read it.

Triggers such as death, AIDS, homophonic and mental health are to be aware of.

Thank you to Bonnier Books for a copy of this amazing book.

[Tilly Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actual rating 4.5.

Having just read The Great Believers last month, I was then spurred on to read about the AIDS crisis from a different perspective, and decided it was about time I picked this one up. Again, as you can imagine, it’s a devastating read, but it feels important to learn about a time in our recent history so we don’t make the same mistakes again.

This is a multiple timeline novel that follows Annie, a nurse who once worked at a “mental health hospital” (I use quote marks because being gay isn’t a bloody mental health illness 😤) which was exploring conversion therapy for gay men, and later tries to atone for this in the 1980s by taking in men with the AIDS virus who may not be cared for elsewhere. I found Annie quite a difficult character to grapple with, because she showed too much enthusiasm for the conversion therapy and not enough remorse even in the 80s, still worrying about touching the young men in case it was somehow contagious. The character I truly loved here was Rita, who seemed far stronger in her values and far less judgmental. I also loved many of the wonderful men who came into Annie’s home, especially lovely Jim.

It’s certainly not an easy read, and I learned a lot again, but I found having Annie as the narrator rather than that perspective from the men made it a little less emotional than The Great Believers. Another eye-opening and important read that I would recommend everyone read!

[Amy Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 likeable. 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.

[Liz Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in 3 timelines the book tells of the terribly sad aids outbreak in the 80s, the treatment of homosexuals in mental institutions in the 60s and then the current situation as it was during the covid pandemic.

Whilst we know through history and media what happened it is still shocking to read it in this context. I thought the author wove the timeframes together well and created believable characters. The story was inevitably going to be really sad and the shocking treatment of gay men in institutions was horrific to read.

I would say that at points the story got a little bogged down with the relationship between Annie and Rita ( the nurses) but overall it was a low 4 star book.

[Amy Beashel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full review to follow.

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the 3 timelines of this book (1950’s psychiatry medicine, 80’s AIDS crisis & 2020 Covid lockdown) though I wasn’t a fan of it shifting between first and third person. Overall an evocative and thought provoking read.

[Rich ✧ ✭ ✧ · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Books By Your Bedside · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 like 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 like 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, like 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 like 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.

[Greenreadsbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 like 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 like books with different timelines, social history, interesting relationships, and buried secrets.

[Kayleigh (BookwormEscapes) · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 like 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 like 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!

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 like non-fiction or a treatise on the matter and Hold Back the Night does not feel like 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 like 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.

[Julie Atherton · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Sophie Ollin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like 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.

[Audrey Haylins · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Hannah Symonds · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Sara Woodcock · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like 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.

[em · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Claire Flanagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

[Karen Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hold Back the Night is not a particularly long novel but is so richly crafted that this moving, decades-spanning book captivated me throughout and I read it in a day. It follows Annie at three key times in her life, in 2020, 1983 and 1959, The chapters set in 2020 are the only parts of the book told in the first person, and as Annie receives the news that her friend has died, she inevitably looks back on her past and how it shaped her.
In 1959, she arrives at Fairlie Hall mental hospital, where she soon befriends her fellow student nurse, Rita. Despite having always felt an urge to ' smooth things out – to make clean what is dirty and to sew up what gapes open ', an unsettling encounter as a youngster has left her with a fear of blood. She decides to work with mental patients rather than in general nursing but the geriatric, frequently uninhibited patients and the stern, reproachful Matron proves to be a shock and both young women are quickly overwhelmed. However, they are also called upon to assist with two younger male patients, and the timid, compliant Annie becomes a part of what we can now acknowledge was a desperately cruel and misguided period of medical and social history. At this time, homosexuality was still illegal and conversion therapies were either offered as an alternative to prison, or men who felt shunned and ashamed opted for these extreme, dehumanising and undignified treatments.
In 1983, Annie has recently been widowed and left to raise her daughter, Rosie alone. Rosie is in hospital, recovering from a sudden illness which required surgery and in the waiting room, Annie can't fail to notice the vast chasm between her interactions with the nurses and that of a painfully thin young man. Later that night, she overhears a group of men discussing their clearly ill friend, Robbie and almost without thinking, offers him a room in her house. She needs a lodger and he needs somewhere to stay, so it makes sense – but of course, with the benefit of hindsight, we are already aware just how devastating the AIDS crisis will become. Robbie's lover, Jim becomes friends with Annie and over time, brings several more mostly young men in need of shelter to her door. Some die soon after arriving, others are with her and Rosie for longer. The terror of this new illness is compounded by a lack of knowledge, misinformation and cruelly homophobic media scaremongering; it's not surprising then that her neighbours, concerned for their moral and physical lives, are horrified.
Although often heartbreaking and simmering with understandable rage, Jessica Moor also infuses Hold Back the Night with warmth and humour, particularly in the chapters set in the 1980s. The men who come to live with her – Robbie, Vidur, Mackie, Keith, Graham, Davey, David, Lee – aren't just names and their individual essences are conveyed beautifully. By 2020, the tables have ironically turned and in the midst of the pandemic, it's the elderly and therefore more vulnerable Annie who has become a figure to either protect or avoid. The comparisons between societal attitudes are fascinating; how quickly fearful communities become divided as we revert to suspicion and self-preservation.
The development of Annie's character through the book is exceptional. The novel doesn't have a linear structure but as the narrative takes us back and forth between the decades, each section is a distinctive, engrossing part of Annie's poignant life story. Her relationships with Rita, Jim and Rosie, as well as others, give us an insight into how her actions impacted the lives of those she knew, as well as herself. The young Annie is woefully naïve and later, the act of opening her home to so many stricken men is perhaps borne more from a need for atonement than through altruism, especially when the impact on her daughter is considered. She is portrayed authentically as a nuanced figure and therefore not everyone is able to forgive her..
Hold Back the Night is a powerful, affecting novel; it is heartrending and angry, and yet ultimately a hopeful story of love and redemption. I loved every word and very highly recommend it.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.