Monday Give Away

In keeping with the chill down the spine theme, I have another rain-lashed novel of slight spookiness to offer up: Cat Winter’s Yesternight.

Here’s the official blurb:

yesternight 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.

For a chance to win a copy of Yesternight, here’s your question:

If you had a past life, what do you think it would be?

The winner, chosen at random, will be announced on Wednesday.

29 Comments

  1. Betty Strohecker on October 17, 2016 at 9:53 am

    Sounds like a very intriguing book. I might be a governess in Regency England.

  2. Liz on October 17, 2016 at 10:13 am

    I most likely would have been a librarian.

  3. Daniele K on October 17, 2016 at 11:22 am

    I would love to say I was some aristocratic lady of the Manor, but I was probably someone’s maid. Thank you for the chance to win.

  4. Gail M Kraus on October 17, 2016 at 11:24 am

    I think I was a dog in a past life, however, I would have preferred to be royalty…hey, a girl can dream

  5. Jessie Clever on October 17, 2016 at 11:24 am

    If I could, I would love to have been some rich person’s dog and spoiled rotten. That would be the life! This sounds like an amazing book. Thank you!

  6. Calli Fox on October 17, 2016 at 11:26 am

    Oh! What a neat question. I think a nurse from World War II or a woman growing up on the prairie like Laura Ingalls Wilder.

  7. Julie Nieves on October 17, 2016 at 11:26 am

    I must have been a suffragette.

  8. Erika D on October 17, 2016 at 12:59 pm

    An explorer in the vein of Freya Stark

  9. Kayse on October 17, 2016 at 1:01 pm

    I’ve always rather imagined that I once was a 19th century schoolmarm who taught in a one-room schoolhouse on the prairie.

  10. Debbie Mitchell on October 17, 2016 at 1:19 pm

    If I had a past life I think it would have been during the Civil War with me living in the South.

  11. Ellen on October 17, 2016 at 1:20 pm

    Although I would like to think I was an Irish princess, more likely I was the scullery maid. Which would explain why I hate doing the dishes!

  12. Shannon on October 17, 2016 at 1:22 pm

    Elizabethan era – rich enough to want for nothing, but not so rich as to be noticed by anyone.

  13. Lauren Ashley on October 17, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    I like to think that in a past life I was an 18th century Bluestocking.

  14. Colleen w on October 17, 2016 at 3:45 pm

    I would be a poor but educated lady in 1890, who would find out that her great great uncle had died and left me and my widowed mother an inheritance so we travelled to France. Haha I’ve thought about this a lot!!

  15. Carla on October 17, 2016 at 3:46 pm

    An English explorer during the colonies times in Africa like Out of Africa or Ashford Affair

  16. Bekah on October 17, 2016 at 4:53 pm

    What an interesting question. I think maybe a dancer at the Moulin Rouge.

  17. Lor on October 17, 2016 at 5:15 pm

    At the risk of sounding a bit cuckoo, there was a time when I always dreamt of explosions and air raids. When I was younger, I was apparently afraid of fireworks and other explosive things. So I have this theory that I was alive during the WWII, perhaps as a nurse or something of the sort.

    As for what I would’ve liked to be? I would’ve loved to be flapper in 1920s Paris.

  18. Freya on October 17, 2016 at 5:44 pm

    I think I may have been an ensign in Prince Rupert’s cavalry. 🙂

  19. Christine on October 17, 2016 at 6:03 pm

    I like to think I would’ve been a historian/writer.

  20. Pat Dupuy on October 17, 2016 at 6:37 pm

    I’ve always been interested in military history so maybe I was a soldier once upon a time.

  21. Jennifer Taylor on October 17, 2016 at 6:40 pm

    I think that I may have been a nurse. Or at least some kind of caregiver.

  22. Laurice on October 17, 2016 at 8:11 pm

    A pioneer woman

  23. Maria on October 17, 2016 at 8:44 pm

    I think I would have been a teacher in a one room school house.

  24. LizC on October 18, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    This is going to sound oddly specific, but based on current interests, I’m going to say: Woman of good family but impoverished means who spent time as a personal secretary and/or biographer for a politician society grand dame (preferably someone like Isabella Steward Gardner).

  25. Jona on October 18, 2016 at 2:25 pm

    This book seems really interesting!! If I could be someone then I would like to a duchess.

  26. Tami on October 18, 2016 at 4:27 pm

    I would’ve been a seafaring explorer or maybe a merchant mariner..something to do with travelling the ocean.

  27. Megan on October 18, 2016 at 9:57 pm

    Definitely would have been a suffragette, picketing in front of the White House!

  28. Emily on October 18, 2016 at 11:03 pm

    Probably someone obstinate.

  29. JoanneM on October 19, 2016 at 11:09 am

    I have a strong sense of deja vu when I smell woodsmoke — I can hear the sound of horses’ hooves and see the green light of a dense forest. Hopefully, I’m on my way to the safety of my castle!

Leave a Comment