STORY SUMMARY
Clare Burke is one year younger than her sister Anne. She and Anne were raised in NYC, the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, which is where Clare lives now about 20 years after Anne married Frederik Rasmussen, a glass artist. Frederik is a controlling as well as physically and mentally abusive husband. He is also physically abusive to their two children Grit and Gilly.
Clare works for an organization that deals with the study of urban birds. She is a nature blogger as well. Her boyfriend Paul is a park ranger who also loves birding and nature.
When Grit and Gilly were just preschoolers, Clare went out to Montauk on Long Island to visit Anne one winter day with Valentine cards and gifts for her niece and nephew whom she had never met because Frederik never allowed Anne to stay in touch with Clare. When Frederik gets home, he begins to strangle Anne and Clare moves in to protect her sister and the children by striking Frederik in the head with a log from the fireplace. She calls 911 to report him but he manages to push her into a wall and demands the police come as he claims Clare tried to murder him. Her sister sides with Frederik and Clare goes off to prison for 2 years on an assault charge. Anne and her family move to Denmark and they are not allowed to ever see Clare or talk to her.
Then one day...about 20 years after Clare gets out of prison, she receives a letter from Grit who is now in college at Emerson in Boston and is 21 yrs old. Anne per Frederik's demands, has "disowned" Grit. Gilly, when he was just 15, walked into a bog in Denmark and was never seen again. He did this while Anne and Grit were there but Anne was unsuccessful in pulling him out. Grit has some major wounds in her heart from her childhood years.
Clare and Grit long for a relationship together so Grit stays in Clare's apartment (Which is the brownstone where she and Anne grew up) and they get to know each other. They both will have to dig into the family's past in order to build a new one.
They have to face the wounds that were inflicted on them both by Anne and Frederik. And in their new connection to one another, they find a place of healing.
But...one evening, Clare begins to suspect that Anne is back in NYC. Clues begin to appear and then one night.....they are reunited! And then Grit learns the story of what Anne did before she left Denmark.
Will their relationship be repaired??
MY THOUGHTS
This was a really good drama story. There's a tiny bit of mystery to the plot in regards to how Anne navigates her way to NYC. There's also the puzzle as to why the book is titled "Little Night" which is initially what drew me to take this book out of the library.
The character development and setting were very well written.
I've been to many of the places in Manhattan that the author describes and it was fun to read about them in a fictional setting.
I liked how the relationship unfolded between Clare and Grit and I also loved how Clare and Paul reconnected after years apart. There was something sappy about the romance part of this book.
There was one quote that really jumped out at me and it sums up the book so well:
"The truth of a person is in her secrets." (pg 109, Little Night by Luanne Rice c. 2012)
This was a family who learned early on in life how to keep secrets.
The main themes in this story are: domestic violence; secrets; sister-sister relationship; mother-daughter relationship; childhood trauma; family ties; anger; emotional healing; nature and the healing benefits of it.
I did a little research into this book and there was an interview on the author's website about her own experience with domestic violence (Hers was psychological and emotional not physical and she never had children) and how nature is healing. Although I personally have not experiened domestic violence in my marriage, I am a survivor of childhood s*xual abuse as well as some emotional abuse from a long ago boyfriend that might have turned into physical abuse if I hadn't gotten out of that relationship in time. This book is a powerful look at how domestic violence affects the entire family, not just the spouse/partner.
I did find quite a few editing errors.
In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older.
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 9.
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