Yesternight: A Novel

From the author of The Uninvited comes a haunting historical novel with a compelling mystery at its core.  A young child psychologist steps off a train, her destination a foggy seaside town. There, she begins a journey causing her to question everything she believes about life, death, memories, and reincarnation.In 1925, Alice Lind steps off a train in the rain-soaked coastal hamlet of Gordon Bay, Oregon. There, she expects to do nothing more difficult than administer IQ tests to a group of rural schoolchildren. A trained psychologist, Alice believes mysteries of the mind can be unlocked scientifically, but now her views are about to be challenged by one curious child.Seven-year-old Janie O’Daire is a mathematical genius, which is surprising. But what is disturbing are the stories she tells: that her name was once Violet, she grew up in Kansas decades earlier, and she drowned at age nineteen. Alice delves into these stories, at first believing they’re no more than the product of the girl’s vast imagination.  But, slowly, Alice comes to the realization that Janie might indeed be telling a strange truth. Alice knows the investigation may endanger her already shaky professional reputation, and as a woman in a field dominated by men she has no room for mistakes. But she is unprepared for the ways it will illuminate terrifying mysteries within her own past, and in the process, irrevocably change her life.

From School Library Journal

This work of historical fiction set in the 1920s centers on Alice Lind, who became a school psychologist to understand her own childhood nightmares and sporadic violent behavior. When Alice is sent to the wild coast of Oregon to help young Janie, a seven-year-old who believes she was once an adult woman who drowned, Alice's own past haunts her, and she becomes convinced that reincarnation is real. There are too many coincidences for her to accept that Janie is just a genius mathematician. A brief dalliance with Janie's divorced father complicates matters—is Alice really a "loose" woman with no morals, like her ex-boyfriends say? Or is she a professional woman ahead of her time? Teens who have read Winters's Morris Award finalist In the Shadow of Blackbirds will find the hints of the paranormal in this novel familiar. At times, Alice seems more like a teenager in modern times than an adult woman in the 1920s, but her investigation into the two incidents of possible reincarnation will fascinate readers. The Oregon, Nebraska, and Kansas rural settings are enthralling, as are the problems Alice encounters as a psychologist in a male-dominated field. VERDICT Perfect for teens wanting mystery, historical fiction, and a touch of the unexplainable.—Sarah Hill, Lake Land College, Mattoon IL

About the Author

Cat Winters' debut novel, In the Shadow of Blackbirds, was released to widespread critical acclaim. The novel has been named a finalist for the 2014 Morris Award, a School Library Journal Best Book of 2013, and a Booklist 2013 Top 10 Horror Fiction for Youth. Winters lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and two children.Xe Sands has more than a decade of experience bringing stories to life through narration, performance, and visual art, including recordings of the Nightwalkersseries from Jaquelyn Frank. She has received several honors, including AudioFileEarphones Awards and a coveted Audie Award, and she was named Favorite Debut Romance Narrator of 2011 in the Romance Audiobooks poll.

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