The Night Guest - Couverture souple

[A] glittering debut . . . The Night Guest's precise and elegant prose has been praised . . . but what really stands out is its portrayal of one life lived, told with a fullness that is reminiscent of another masterful antipodean novel - Emily Perkins's The Forrests. What is most tenderly depicted is Ruth's backward reflection on her life choices - her marriage, unfulfilled romances, her role as wife and mother. This forms the heart of the book, outside the thriller-ish plot, and it is rendered with extraordinary maturity for such a young writer. (Arifa Akbar, Independent)

McFarlane exploits the vulnerably blurry boundaries of memory here to create a subtle and beguiling crescendo of suspense. Facts shift like the dunes beyond the back door. A limpid, beautiful novel. (Victoria Moore, Daily Mail)

A sensitive exploration of the workings of time and memory, by turns joyful and sad, and sustained throughout by clear and delicate prose . . . Ruth's viewpoint delivers tremendous insight and empathy . . . The Night Guest is a wonderfully evoked portrait of old age that disturbs and elevates in equal measure. The symbolic tiger, frightening, untameable, but awe-inspiring, is an important aspect of its power. (Rachel Hore, Independent on Sunday)

Like a Hitchcock film, this psychological study of manipulation is poetically tense. This is a seriously creepy read . . . A wonderfully devious novel that will leave you feeling slightly unnerved. (Marie Claire)

The Night Guest is as moving as it is unsettling and suspenseful, thanks to the way Fiona McFarlane sensitively portrays elderly widow Ruth's struggles to cope on her own. (Good Housekeeping)

I absolutely loved it, one of the best books, never mind debuts, I've read in a very long time. Astonishingly brilliant, I read it a month ago and it's still with me. (Evie Wyld)

An extraordinary book in which the heroine, Ruth, not yet aware that isolation is a dangerous luxury, exchanges the world's turmoil for silence, in the hope that the essence of things will reveal a small part of its mystery. It is deeply disturbing, and exquisitely written - full of joy and melancholy - and I willingly accept that I will be haunted by its beauty and its truths for a long time to come. The story is told with a certain inevitability, yet at the same time, it surprises, confounds, and torments. It can't be! I kept thinking, when all the while, I knew, of course, that it was just what I feared - a rapturous, fearsome fable of grief and love. (Susanna Moore)

The Night Guest is such an accomplished and polished debut. There's a delicacy and poignancy to the writing, combined with almost unbearable suspense. I love books in which I have no idea what's going to happen next! (Kate Atkinson)

A gripping new thriller that plays on the fears of old age and isolation. (Stylist)

Sometimes a debut novel burns brighter than the rest, and offers up the promise of literary greatness. The Night Guest is one of these books. Through impeccable narrative control and deft manipulation of the reader's experience, McFarlane opens Ruth's mind to us, leads us into this foreign world, and makes us feel Ruth's terrifying, infuriating disorientation. In doing so, she achieves that great object of fiction - empathy, compassion for a different human life. The Night Guest is an important and exciting first novel by an Australian writer of rare talent. Or, as we might say down under: "a bloody good read." (James McNamara, Los Angeles Review of Books)

In an isolated house on the New South Wales coast, Ruth - a widow whose sons work abroad - lives alone. Until one day a stranger bowls up, announcing that she's been sent by the authorities to be Ruth's carer.

At first, Ruth is happy to have the company. Frida is efficient and helpful, and willing to listen to Ruth's stories about her childhood in Fiji and the man she fell for there. But why does Ruth hear a tiger prowling through the house at night? How far can Ruth trust this enigmatic woman? And how far can she trust herself?

This hypnotic tale soars above its own suspense to tell us, with exceptional grace and beauty, about ageing, love, dependence, fear and power, and about the mysterious workings of the mind. Here is a dazzling new writer, reminding us how powerfully fiction can speak to our innermost secrets.