THE ISLAND AT THE EDGE OF NIGHT

In 1932, a girl must survive a boarding school that holds a dark secret.

Faye Fitzgerald has no memory of the incident that prompted Aunt Christina to send her away. She’d rather go back to her younger, happier days at Forest House, exploring nature with her father, a shell-shocked Great War veteran, before his mental health deteriorated. Her new school is on isolated, rocky Auk Island in Scotland, where Dr. Lighter and his wife, Nurse Violet, aim to reform the moral character of their wicked charges through silence, labor, and suspicious blue pills. That the Lighters are villainous is no surprise, but their scheme’s sinister goals raise deadly stakes for Faye and her new allies, such as bold, anagram-loving Boudicca Braithwaite, sent from America by her stepfather after her mother’s death. Her other key source of support turns out to be a charming surprise—and a good partner in outmaneuvering their captors. An early, conveniently coincidental aspect of the story gives way to a claustrophobic struggle for survival that features compelling obstacles. White-presenting Faye is unusually small for her age and has one hazel eye and one green one. Her odd, fae-like characteristics pair well with her affinity for nature, which is accentuated by the immersive descriptions of Auk Island and skirts the ambiguous edge of fabulism. Thematically, Faye’s sense of an interconnected natural world contrasts with the Lighter family’s binary take: “Hunt or be hunted!”

A moody mystery that unfolds in a lovingly rendered setting.