Night Shall Overtake Us - Gothic Fantasy Novel | Dark Adventure Book for Adults | Perfect for Halloween Reading & Gothic Literature Lovers

I loved this story about four friends, life and world war II. Each individuals life story was interesting and I loved the way the four were continually bound together through life and circumstances. The writer made it all flow so smoothly - an easy read, yet also very interesting with facts about a time that I know little about. I was very disappointed to see that this writer has not written other books in this vein. Great read for those who like a family saga type books.Great really enjoyed itExcellent read. You won't be disappointed.First read this in 1996 and the stories are still in my head. Rory herself has been a living character for me, and so has her friendsI just finished reading this book. Twice, within the past week. (I can't ever remember doing that before.) What a delight to read! Definitely one of the best novels I've read in a long time, a notch above much of what is out there. Kate Saunders creates vivid, believable characters that you will love and cheer and mourn despite their human flaws and weaknesses. The story line kept me captivated until the very last page, and Saunders has such a brilliant way with words, I wanted to flip back through and read scenes again and again. There wasn't a page I wanted to miss. It's filled with great dialogue, reflection, action, humor, and delightful (warning: graphic) scenes of love-making.I came online just to see what other books this author had written.Should it be made into a movie? Oh, I think it could be great on film, but it would have to be a mini-series. A 2-hour movie would not do it justice.I've read this book many times. This book takes you through a whole range of emotions. It's not just a romance, but also teaches you about the endurance of friendship.My first introduction to this novel was in an abridged form. My grandmother used to get Good Housekeeping when I was a teenager, and sometimes if I got bored at her house I'd read the condensed novels that were featured in the magazine. _Night Shall Overtake Us_ was the featured novel one month (the selected parts focused mostly on Jenny's story but contained tantalizing hints of the rest), and I resolved to read the entire novel someday. Thing is, I kept forgetting to do so. I stumbled across this by accident in the library the other day, and though it's got to be ten years after the fact, I couldn't resist.So now I've read the entire novel, and I can't shake the feeling I've still only gotten an abridgement. _Night_ purports to tell the story of four women and their loves and losses during WWI. I think the novel did a very good job of portraying the war. There's a huge ensemble cast of lovable and hateable characters, all of them vivid, and two-thirds of whom will die by novel's end. At first no one takes the war seriously, which I think is also realistic. Then reality sets in. I thought the parts dealing with the war were heartbreaking and well-done.Trouble is, in terms of the love stories, only Rory's is developed to my satisfaction. Rory did commit a rash and almost inexplicable act; however, she'd been portrayed as just the sort of woman who did rash things, so it was in-character for her. I also loved Rory's redemption and eventual happiness. But Francesca had huge and traumatic issues. I would love to have seen a more in-depth scene in which she began to heal. The way it's written, it sounds like the magic fairy of hormones just happened to wave her wand, and all was forgotten. Eleanor only had the POV a handful of times. Jenny was the second most-developed character, but her story also feels like an important scene was left on the cutting-room floor. I want to see more of how she grew to love her husband. It's clear at the end of the book that they have a deep love. I want to see how that happened.I don't know if an editor chopped this up, or what. I just know that it feels like a lot of scenes were left out, particularly toward the end of the novel. Everything is tied up in a neat little bow, but the ending is really only satisfying in Rory's case. Jenny's came close (and I love the man she ended up with), but I would have liked to see more. Francesca's plot was resolved *much* too quickly and not really believably.I just didn't love this book. The story was too convoluted. Too much going on. It was a disappointing readI wasn't entirely sure what genre this novel was meant to be in: serious historical fiction (as the excellent period detail, the literary references including the splendid Pope quote that forms the title and the seriousness of some of the World War I scenes would imply), romance (as most of the four heroines' relationships would imply) or (as some of the sex scenes implied) romance with a soft-porn edge. Whatever it is, it was certainly a good read in many ways. 'Night shall Overtake Us' is the story of four girls who meet at boarding school in the early years of the 20th century, and form a vow of eternal friendship. After school, their lives go in very different directions. Red-haired Irish Rory, who has grown up fostered by a noble Irish family after the death of her mother, reared with three 'foster brothers' moves to London, becomes a leading figure in women's suffrage, and also a bright star in London's Bohemia, after her artist foster brother Tertius and his brother Fingal, the partner of a gallery owner specializing in modern art, introduce her to this world. She also begins an affair with a working class socialist, to the fury of her oldest fosterbrother Lucius (always called, annoyingly, Muttonhead), who has loved her from childhood, as indeed has Tertius. Jenny, the most sensible and academic of the four friends, and the poorest, goes to work as a governess, but soon sees the possibility for a change in her fortunes when she captivates a wealthy laird, Alistair. But can she make her liking for him turn to love? Eleanor, the plainest and most intense of the friends, falls for Wicked Lord Laurence (Lorenzo) Hastings, despite his warnings that he will never make her happy; an accident means that she decides to devote her whole life to this masochistic passion. And Francesca, the sweetest and most gentle of the four, appears to find perfect happiness with her sweetheart Stevie Carr-Lyon - but are they really so happy, and what are the demons from the past tormenting Francesca? With the advent of World War I the friends' lives change dramatically. Rory and Jenny become nurses and discover the satisfaction of work and independence, while Eleanor and Francesca remain in London fretting over Lorenzo and Stevie at the Front. As the War progresses and the death toll mounts, the women's lives undergo more changes, including a terrible betrayal by one of the four of the vow of eternal friendship and loyalty...Saunders is a superb storyteller and has done her historical research extremely well. One gets a vivid sense of English life both pre-World War I, and during the terrible First World War. Many of her characters were very appealing (though I felt calling a hero 'Muttonhead' was a serious blunder, and couldn't quite see the point of Francesca, who played a relatively minor role and always seemed to be either about to faint or in tears, until the final section; many of the older ladies, like Mrs Braddon or the vampish Monica Temple were also depicted in a wildly over the top way). And Saunders has a very good knack with plot, making one desperate to read on and find out what happens to the characters, particularly in my case Rory, Jenny, Alistair, Lorenzo and the artist Tertius. However, I would stop at three stars in reviewing the book (despite enjoying some aspects of it a lot) because I found a lot of the writing quite melodramatic, particularly some of the dialogue, and because I thought the endless sex scenes, recounted in Rabelasian or even Sadeian detail, and full of moaning and roaring, wildly over the top, and actually not on the whole that erotic (the one involving Muttonhead should certainly be nominated for the Guardian Bad Sex Writing Award). I felt that though Saunders had a lot of good ideas, her desire to write a 'bestselling romantic novel' led ultimately to a rather unconvincing style and at times some downright silliness. Rory, for example, seemed to fall in love with every man she encountered with equal passion and extravagance. And if Jenny was both so sensible, and so loving, would she really have felt (quite early in the novel) that in getting engaged to Alistair she'd ruined her life? Wouldn't she rather have made a real effort to try to love him? I also felt that Lorenzo's wickedness should have been more explained - we never found out quite enough about WHY he got so savage, and his traumatic childhood -and was uncertain whether or not we were meant to regard Eleanor as brave or merely masochistic.A really good light read, and full of interest, but I was left, rather as I was with 'Wild Young Bohemians', feeling that if Saunders had taken more time and thought more about her characters and their interaction it could have been a much better book. Four stars for content, but probably only about two for style.I was really looking forward to this book, a great saga which takes the reader through many years of four young women. But ultimately, I was left feeling a little disappointed. I thought that the writing dragged a bit, pages and pages spent on one evening made for dreary reading, too much irrelevant detail that added nothing to the story. I think with more rigorous editing it would have been a better book.I did finish it but after the first 200 pages I did skim read parts of it, life's too short to trawl through every word of something like this.Chanced upon this book and so glad I did - a story based around 4 girls, friends at school all from differing backgrounds. As they grow and mature so do their stories culminating in the horror that was WW1 - just loved it, it felt as though I knew every character personally- can't wait to dip into more Kate Saunders stories.I have had this book 4 times and each copy was read so often and shared with friends the pages fell out.This book made me cry again, it is so moving and powerful. Cannot wait to read it again, without the pages falling out.I have already recommended it to people and they have enjoyed itA great read - interesting characters whose lives all interweave during the 1st World war. You want to know what happens to them so it's hard to put down. Not one of those books that you can guess who ends up with whom after the first few chapters.