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The Twilight Hour
The Twilight Hour
Dec 5, 2025 12:52 AM

Author:Nicci Gerrard

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.

Reviews

A cracking thriller

—— Daily Telegraph

Time and Time Again triumphs and it’s the best I’ve read of Elton’s many bestsellers

—— The Times

A gripping, unpredictable read

—— Sunday Mirror

This book, so beautifully written, so inspiriting for all its pessimism, is the new novel I have loved best this year. We have not his equal

—— David Sexton , Spectator

Impressive... Beguiling... He is a true original

—— Observer

Elegiac... Compelling... A pleasure to read

—— Times Literary Supplement

Have Michel Houellebecq and Martin Amis ever met? Despite a stylistic gulf…they might be spiritual cousins… In this Goncourt-winning novel, as amiably mischievous as the enfant terrible ever gets, his satirical burlesques of the Parisian art world and of tourist kitsch in La France Profonde comes closer to his cross-Channel twin than ever

—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent Radar

A wry, clever, ruthlessly self-lacerating novel

—— David Evans , Independent on Sunday

Joyce's poignant tale of Harold and Queenie will stay with us for a long time to come.

—— Stylist

If you loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry you'll be thrilled with this sequel.

—— Fabulous magazine

A hot read

—— Good Housekeeping

a lesson in gentle restraint

—— Sunday Times

Must read: a funny emotional story

—— marie claire

Good though The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is, this is better ....with an even more engaging central character, it will be a hard-hearted reader who can finish it without tears.

—— John Harding , Daily Mail

An extraordinarily touching portrait - all dangers of sentimentality are banished by a final twist that makes you realise that what you've been reading is even sadder, and far tougher, than it seemed.

—— Readers Digest

The author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry hits a darker but no less compelling note ... However, the book is not without its own pleasurable uplift: a spiritual wind beneath its wings … perhaps it adds necessary ballast to the sparkling balloon of Harold's journey – and it will certainly find a grateful readership.

—— The Guardian

[With] gently comic moments and [the] pitch-perfect black humour that Joyce writes so well ... It is not necessary to read Harold’s story before reading Queenie’s to enjoy this bittersweet novel which is a pleasure in its own right. However, reading both will only serve to double that pleasure.

—— The Independent

This tender, funny tragic novel guides you to a point of emotion rarely found in modern fiction and the wonderful ending is truly uplifting.

—— Bel Mooney , Daily Mail

Joyce accomplishes the rare feat of endowing her continuing narrative with as much pathos and warmth, wisdom and poignancy as her debut. Harold was beloved by millions; Queenie will be, too.

—— Booklist

A fantastic book about an extraordinary life.

—— Holzwickeder Nachrichten, Germany

Once again Rachel Joyce writes so gripping and moving that you take the charaters to your heart immediately.

—— Buch aktuell, Germany

With an enchanting, poetic language Rachel Joyce writes about the fundamental questions of life and death.

—— 52buecher, Germany

Like Harold Fry, Queenie is delightful and dark. Death, duty and regret shadow nearly every page, but the darkness is not unrelenting; there is humor, and there is light.

—— Minneapolis Star Tribune

This lovely book is full of joy. Much more than the story of a woman’s enduring love for an ordinary, flawed man, it’s an ode to messy, imperfect, glorious, unsung humanity ... Her love song is for us. Thank you, Rachel Joyce.

—— Washington Post

[A] deeply affecting novel…Culminating in a shattering revelation, her tale is funny, sad, hopeful: She’s bound for death, but full of life.

—— People Magazine

A moving, lyrical read about life, love and saying goodbye. this is a companion story to the similarly entrancing The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, but could be read alone.

—— Cathy Rentzenbrink , Prima
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