The Night It Ended
Author: Katie
Garner
On Sale June 27, 2023
Publisher:
MIRA
Paperback Original
ISBN 978-0778334453
Price: $18.99
Book
Summary:
Finding
the truth seems impossible when her own dark past has her seeing lies
everywhere she looks...
From the outside, criminal psychiatrist Dr. Madeline Pine's life appears
picture-perfect--she has a beautiful family, a successful mental health
practice and a growing reputation as an expert in female violence. But when
she's called to help investigate a mysterious death at a boarding school for troubled
girls, Madeline hesitates. She's been through tragic cases before, and the one
she was entangled in last year nearly destroyed her...
Yet she can't turn away when she hears about Charley Ridley. After the girl was
found shoeless and in pajamas at the bottom of an icy ravine on campus, the
police ruled it a tragic accident. But the private investigator hired by her
mother has his doubts. And if it were Madeline's daughter who died, she'd want
to know why.
Arriving at the secluded campus in upstate New York, Madeline's met by an
unhelpful skeleton staff and the four other students still on campus during
winter break. Each seems to hold a piece of the puzzle. And everyone has
secrets--Madeline included. But who would kill to protect them?
Intertwining the narrative with the transcript of an
anonymous interview, this stunning suspense debut from Katie Garner will take
you on a twisting path where nothing--and no one--is what it seems.
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Reviews
“Disarmingly sensory, with plot
twists that are sure to give readers whiplash, Garner has done a phenomenal job
of giving us just enough information to think we know where the story is going,
only to pull the rug out from under us—over and over again. A nail-bitingly
spectacular debut!” —Amanda Jayatissa, author of You're Invited
"The ending was pretty
shocking and definitely not what I was expecting" —Novel Gossip
"Standing ovation for the brilliant Katie Garner! Captivating,
ingenious, and absolutely audacious, this tour de force in structure and
storytelling kept me turning the pages as fast as I could. Yes, The
Night It Ended is a dark gothic murder investigation at a mysterious
school for troubled girls—but don’t judge, don’t assume, don’t try to
figure it out—just let Garner's masterful sleight of hand carry you away
through the gasp-worthy twists and turns. Do not miss this!" —Hank
Phillippi Ryan, USA Today bestselling author of The
House Guest
“A gorgeously atmospheric dark academic thriller set at a snowy boarding school
so vividly rendered you can practically feel the frost freezing your blood.
Garner centers female rage in the most delicious and page-turning of ways,
plunging readers into a world where women’s machinations, conspiracies, anger,
and even violence rule all. The Night It Ended is a twisty,
frantically-paced story you’ll be desperate to devour all the way to the
ice-cold ending.” —Ashley Winstead, author of The Last Housewife
“Set at an exclusive school for trouble teenaged girls, The Night It
Ended by Katie Garner is dark, twisted, and utterly compelling.
Impossible to put down, you won’t know who or what to believe and the creepy
location will have you looking over your shoulder more than once. One heck of a
debut with an ending that left me speechless.” —Hannah Mary McKinnon,
internationally bestselling author of Never Coming Home
“Disarmingly sensory, with plot twists that are sure to give readers whiplash,
Garner has done a phenomenal job of giving us just enough information to think
we know where the story is going, only to pull the rug out from under us—over
and over again. A nail-bitingly spectacular debut!” —Amanda Jayatissa, author
of You're Invited
“Wow. I loved this. Compulsively readable. I flew through it. Brilliant use of
the unreliable narrator. I enjoyed the police interviews interwoven with the
present-day mystery. It kept me on my toes. And that last plot twist…amazing. I
did not see it coming.” –Amber Garza, author of When I Was You
“Katie Garner's debut novel is a chilly, twisty ride—think dark academia meets
Gillian Flynn. The Night It Ended is both a brooding Gothic mystery
set at a boarding school for wayward girls and a jittery domestic thriller and
just when you think you've got a handle on the story, Garner pulls the rug out
from under you. I couldn't put it down.”—Halley Sutton, author of The
Lady Upstairs
Excerpt
Friday, December 16
I’m speeding home when the
phone rings, persistent and angry, demanding to be heard. I know I should
answer it, even though I want nothing more than to throw it out the window. I
could let the call slide into voice mail, delete it, never hear the voice on
the other side.
But I
can’t.
I jerk to
the side of the icy road to a chorus of blaring horns, dig the phone out from
the cavernous tote bag resting on the passenger seat beside me. The phone is
sleek and black, brand-new—opposite of the cracked, chunky white one I’m used
to shoving in my back pocket.
A sweet
little chime and the ringing ends.
1 new voice mail.
Quickly, I
glance in the side mirror. Car exhaust melts away into the morning winter sky.
Nothing is behind me, nothing but air. I exhale a deep sigh of relief, press
the phone to my ear.
“H-hi,
this message is for Dr. Madeline Pine—”
A siren
wails in the distance. The phone slips through my fingers, lands mutely in my
lap. A knot swells in my throat. I glance in the side mirror again, feel my
heart pound, each breath shrinking to tiny gasps. The sirens near. An emergency
vehicle speeds past.
It’s only
an ambulance.
My body
wilts. I take a deep breath. In.
Out. The knot in my throat loosens.
I hate the person I’ve become. I’ve never been this
nervous, this afraid, anxiety and fear clinging to my every move. I wish I
could escape—step into someone else’s life, if only for a moment.
Just twelve short months ago everything was
different. I was different. Any other December, I would’ve been home,
prepping for the holidays, shopping online for last-minute deals on things
none of us needed. My husband, Dave, would be staying too late at work, his
dinner wrapped in a blanket of aluminum foil, kept warm on the stove. My
teenage daughter, Izzi, would be upstairs in her room, scrolling noiselessly
through her phone, feet kicked up on the bed behind her.
The house would’ve hummed with the steady softness
of disjointed home life, but instead here I am, lurched to the side of the
road, the air frigid in the tiny cabin of my car, listening to a voice mail I
never thought I’d hear.
I replay the message:
“H-hi, this message is for Dr.
Madeline Pine. If you get this, I’m Matthew Reyes, a private investigator
working on behalf of a family. Listen, I was hoping you could please call me
back at this number, I—I’d really appreciate it. We have a sixteen-year-old
female who died on school property. The police believe it’s an accident, but
the mother hired me to be sure. The girl was found at the bottom of a hill. No
witnesses. I thought you might be able to help—given your expertise. Please
call me back. Thanks.”
I repeat
his words in my head. The girl was found at the bottom
of a hill—I can picture it, picture her.
She’s there, fallen sideways, her body splashed across the woodland floor. Moss
and stones, skin and blood, leaves and twigs. I don’t know her, but I don’t
have to. I already feel as if she were mine.
The man who left the voice mail, Matthew Reyes, has
a voice both gravelly and weary, and I know what he wants the moment he
mentions the school. Police often believe they can demand anything they want
and get it immediately—even psychological evaluations—but it takes time to gain
trust from strangers, and even more time to tease out the truth. Especially
from teenage girls.
I start weighing my options. I’m not sure I’m
capable of this, of anything. Especially after last year…especially after what
just happened in that too-hot office during this morning’s disastrous therapy
session.
My face flushes at the memory of the woman who’d
been sitting cross-legged in front of me. Her beautiful face. Her pink silk
shirt blurring out of focus. Her condescending tone—as though the therapy
sessions weren’t all for her benefit to begin with.
That’s what I have to remind myself. That’s what I
have to hold on to. They’re for her. Not me. I’m the one who’s
fine. I should be taking comfort in that, taking comfort in the fact that I
never have to see her beautiful face again, never have to be reminded of—
It’s over. I didn’t have a choice before. Now I do.
I have lots of choices. An avalanche of choices. My life before today was
preprogrammed for me. Not anymore. I fixed it.
Tears slip down my cheeks. I
bite them back, strangle the phone in my lap, squeeze it so tight I wonder
how it fails to snap in two. Choices.
Possibilities.
My mind whirls as I punch the gas, merge into
traffic, race home. I run inside, slam the door, bolt the lock. Gazing around
my gloom-infested house, I shrivel back as wind blows branches of a nearby
tree, scraping the side of the house like fingernails.
Peering at the bulging paper bag of prescriptions on
the kitchen island, my eyes prick with tears. My glasses fog. I take them off,
rub the lenses clean on my turtleneck.
After so many months, the pills should be working. I
should stop taking them altogether. Just throw them all in the toilet, flush
them down, watch them whirl around the porcelain bowl.
I think of words my daughter, Izzi, said to me: Mom,
please just stop.
Stop.
I don’t know the person I’ve become, too empty, too
full, all at once. I need to change. I want to be different. Every day, I think
of ways I can be. It can still happen. I’m free now. I have choices now,
possibilities. Maybe it’s never too late to change everything. Maybe I just
need to escape.
Besides, wiggle room is all it takes for a snake to
get out of its skin.
The phone rings again. I snuff the urge to hurl it
across the room before glancing at the screen. It’s the same number as before.
The same number as the voice mail. I hold my breath and answer.
“Hello?”
“Hello—is this Dr. Madeline Pine?”
“Um—yes. It is.” My heart thuds. “Who’s this?”
A sigh of relief, deep and
heavy, into the phone. “This is private investigator Matthew Reyes. Thank you
so much for answering, Dr. Pine. I—I know it’s a chaotic time of year and
you’re probably busy with family but…would you be able to make a trip up to
Iron Hill?”
“I—I don’t
know where that is.”
“It’s
about two hours north of Poughkeepsie. Upstate New York.”
“Right,
okay.” Far. Very far. Too far for my ailing car to make it. I know I
should just buy a new one, but I can’t. My husband Dave always said the color
perfectly matched my eyes. Now I can’t even remember the last time we looked at
each other.
“So, are you busy this weekend?” Reyes asks, then
pauses. “I mean, you’re sure you don’t mind ditching your family right before
the holidays?”
“When you put it that way, it sounds horrible.” Awkward
laugh. “But, um, my husband and daughter aren’t home now, anyway—they’ve
gone away to visit my in-laws.”
“You have no idea how grateful I’d be if you could
make it,” he says, sounding hopeful. I don’t know what he looks like, but I can
imagine him smiling. “I mean, I’ve been calling around to different
psychologists all day, and—well, it should only be for a couple of days. You’d
definitely be back by Christmas, the latest.”
I wince, feel a surge of sorrow. I’m too embarrassed
to admit that Dave and Izzi have no intention of spending the holidays with me
this year. It’s what I deserve after what I did.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “please refresh my memory. Have
we ever met? You said you’re a private investigator hired by the victim’s—er,
the deceased’s—family?”
“Yes, I mean, we haven’t met,
but I read about the work you did on the Strum case last year. I believe one of
the victims was around the same age as our current victim. And I pulled up your
book online—Dark Side: A Psychological Portrait of the Criminal
Female Mind. You specialize in women. Just
so happens the case is at an all-girls boarding school.”
My stomach clenches. Focus. Deep breath. I
shift my gaze to the calendar hanging in the kitchen. I don’t even know why I
bother to keep one anymore. I have the same schedule now, week in, week out.
Before, the month of December would’ve been filled with holiday office parties,
Izzi’s end-of-year school activities, Dave’s plans for winter break, which I’d
always beg him to change.
I glance up. Friday, December 16. This morning’s
therapy session slashes across my mind again. I see her face. Blank, empty. Her
lips begin to curl around a word. I see myself in the reflection of her eyes.
I’m close. Closer. I swallow hard.
“The, um, the students don’t go home for the
holidays?” I ask, slumping down to the floor.
“Winter break is Saturday, the tenth to New Year’s.
A few students stayed behind.” Reyes pauses. “The students who either couldn’t
travel for various reasons or chose not to go home.”
I lean the back of my head against the wall.
Reyes continues. “The school is asking me to wrap up
my investigation before students and staff return January 2.”
“Okay…”
He senses my discomfort, keeps talking. “Please. Please
say yes. You mentioned you have a daughter. How would you feel if it were
her?” he asks. “If she was found dead, you’d want closure, right? To be sure
everything was done by the book and no stone was left unturned.”
My stomach flips. “Of course I would.”
“So, please. Please say you’ll help.”
I think of my daughter, Izzi,
the lengths I’d go to if she was found at the bottom of a hill. Even if it was
an accident, I’d want to know why. I’d want to know how she got there.
If she was
alone. Afraid. Or if someone else was responsible. I’d want to know. I’d find
them, I’d—
“I don’t
know if I can do this,” I confess.
I shut my
eyes, see her face again, legs crossed, sitting prim in that
too-hot office, the heat blasting, the furniture too big for the tiny space. I
tug at the neck of my sweater, suddenly tight, see my reflection in her
eyes—close, so close.
No. Stop. I suck up a big breath, blow it all out.
“I don’t know if you’re aware, but after that case
last year—” My voice cracks.
“The Strum case?” A note of curiosity in Reyes’s
question.
“Yeah. Since then, things have been difficult. I
ended up taking some time off—”
“I—I wasn’t aware. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. It just—it makes cases like this
difficult.”
“Oh—”
“But before I say yes or no, can you give me an
overview? What, exactly, I’ll be doing when I get there? I want to be sure I
know what I’m stepping into.”
Reyes lets out a breath. “Yeah—yes, of course,” he
says, a hint of desperation in his voice. “Well, it happened at a private,
all-girls boarding school called Shadow Hunt Hall. They have a very small
student body on a very large campus. It’s densely wooded and incredibly isolated.
It’s one of those ‘back-to-nature, no technology on campus’ sort of places. The
girls are mostly… I guess the best word for it is—troubled?”
“Isn’t that the best kind of girl?”
“Uh, here,” he says, ignoring my attempt at a joke.
“I’ll send you some info.”
I glance at
the screen, see he’s texted a link to the school’s website. I tap it open,
swipe down the page. The school is ancient. Giant and stone, with iron gates
and actual turrets, like a possessed fairy-tale castle. The curriculum looks
interesting.
Definitely
nontraditional. It’s all music and arts and dance. I skim the mission
statement:
We believe in a holistic, individual approach to
learning and rehabilitation, focusing on a curriculum centered on nature,
group trust, and a healthy mind-body connection.
Code words for no junk food or internet.
Reyes waits patiently on the other end as I peruse
the site. I click on the Tuition & Financial Aid page and flinch. A single
term is more than twice the down payment we put on the house.
“You there? Dr. Pine?”
I lick my lips. “I’m here.”
He pauses. “I’m having trouble getting any of the
students to even talk to me,” he admits. “That’s why I need you.”
I think of Izzi, chewing on her fingernails,
avoiding eye contact when I ask how her day went. Ever since she started high
school it’s been all one-word answers—good, fine—before she’d bound
upstairs, not to be seen again until dinner.
So I can’t imagine how the girls at this boarding
school would react to a male private investigator showing up out of nowhere,
prodding them with questions right after their classmate died. No doubt they’d
recoil, want nothing to do with him.
“Okay… I’ll
help you,” I whisper.
Excerpted from
The Night It Ended. Copyright © 2023 by Katie Garner. Published by MIRA,
an imprint of HarperCollins.
What I thought about The Night It Ended
Criminal psychiatrist Dr. Madeline Pine is asked to consult with a detective regarding the death of a student at a remote girl's school. There are many questions about what happened to Charley, and the detective turns to Madeline, an expert in female criminals and a published author regarding a famous murder case.
I'm not going to say much more about the plot because I wouldn't want to spoil anything. This was a visceral read for me, with the first 85% of this book having me scratching my head and just feeling something wasn't right. The school is creepy, the headmistress is creepy, the custodians are creepy, and the girls are definitely keeping secrets. There's so much weirdness going on, I didn't know what to focus on. I kept hoping that at some point it will all make sense. Oh, and the good Dr? She just might be the most strange in this potpourri of strangeness.
I was really worried there wasn't going to be a payoff. But there was! It just happens in the final pages of the book, when the twisty truths are revealed. I have to say I wasn't expecting it, and it explained most of what had me shaking my head during most of the book. That was satisfying and I did enjoy how the author cleverly put this story together.
So overall, an entertaining mystery/thriller with a surprising payoff at the very end. I'm giving this 4 stars because I wished the pace of the beginning had been more brisk and I think there were some missed opportunities for a bigger surprise factor at the end, but I was glad I stayed with it until the end.
About the Author
Author Bio:
Katie
Garner was born in New York and grew up in New Jersey. She has a degree in Art
History from Ramapo College and is certified to teach high school Art. She
hoards paperbacks, coffee mugs, and dog toys and can be seen holding at least
one of those things most of the time.
Katie
lives in a New Jersey river town with her husband, baby boy, and shih-poo where
she writes books about women and their dark, secret selves. The Night It
Ended is her debut novel.
Social
Links:
Author
site: https://www.katiegarnerauthor.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kgarnerauthor
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/katiewritesmystery/
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62679690-the-night-it-ended
