The Night Guest

The debut of a remarkable Australian talent, The Night Guest is a mesmerising novel about trust, love, dependence, and the fear that the things you know best can become the things you're least certain about.

One morning Ruth wakes thinking a tiger has been in her seaside house. Later that day a formidable woman called Frida arrives, looking as if she's blown in from the sea, but in fact she's come to care for Ruth. Frida and the tiger: both are here to stay, and neither is what they seem. Which of them can Ruth trust? And, as memories of her childhood in Fiji press upon her with increasing urgency, can she even trust herself?

The Night Guest introduces a writer who comes to us fully formed, working wonders with language, renewing our faith in the power of fiction to tap the mysterious workings of our minds, and keeping us spellbound.
'The Night Guest is an extraordinary novel. At once a tender thriller and an exquisitely constructed meditation on time and memory, it is propelled by sentence after sentence of masterful prose. With The Night Guest, Fiona MacFarlane announces herself as a writer to be read, admired, and read again.' Kevin Powers author of The Yellow Bird
'An enrapturing debut novel that toys with magical realism while delivering a fresh fable.'Kirkus Review
'impressive debut ... (with) broad appeal to literary readers and bookclubs.' Australian Bookseller & Publisher
'Rich and suspenseful . . . McFarlane gives a flourish to even the smallest observations . . . This book is at once a beautifully imagined portrait of isolation and an unsettling psychological thriller.' Publishers Weekly