New Releases: The Longest Night by Andria Williams

We were fortunate enough to have received this book from the publishing house, via Netgalley. If you're not yet aware of NetGalley, be sure to check it out, as it's one of the most fantastic ways of getting free ebooks for your Kindle.

Some people say that this book is a reenactment of Revolutionary Road. Others might say that they were expecting a nuclear story, and all they got was the story of an affair that didn't even happen. All we can say is that we thoroughly enjoyed The Longest Night, and it has a high chance of being the best book we will have read in 2016.

The Longest Night centers on Paul and Nat Collier, a couple that has two little girls, Libby and Sam. Most of the action is set throughout 1960 and 1961 when Paul gets a new job at a nuclear station from Idaho Falls. Paul comes from a dysfunctional family composed of two alcoholic parents. He joined the army when he was about sixteen just because he needed some law and order in his life. Nat, on the other hand, comes from a rather open-minded family. In fact, her parents were some of the strangest characters ever to have been imagined. Although they might look like an unlikely couple, they genuinely love each other and make it work.

After arriving in Idaho Falls and taking charge of his new responsibilities, Paul discovers that the reactor he was working on has a high chance of exploding. Not only is he frightened of the possibility that his wife and little girls be exposed to the radiation but he has to confront his Master Sargeant and realize that the latter has no intention of solving the malfunctions of the reactor. One thing leads to the other, and Paul ends up stationed in Antarctica, leaving Nat all alone in Idaho Falls, with very few people she knows and practically no one she trusts. Nat soon befriends a local cowboy, Esrom, and things start changing at a whole new level. Is it a recipe for disaster? Should he have avoided leaving home? Should he have left the army?

The Longest Night is a gripping story that kept us at the edge of our beds. The writing style is downright beautiful, and the action is constructed in such a way that the reader manages to resonate with all the characters. It doesn't matter if they're good or bad. The bottom line is that, at some point, the reader could have been in their shoes. Andria Williams has researched the topic of the reactor that did blow up in Idaho Falls in the 1960s, and so the novel came out realistic. It might come off as romance to some people, but it didn't strike us as a common combination of real and fictitious explosiveness.

In life, things sometimes just happen. People get killed because of stupid accidents. People get cheated on, or they're under the impression they've been cheated on. People gossip and spread silly rumors that might be disastrous for the ones they're about. That's what we loved the most about Andria Williams's novel: it's as natural as life itself.

Image credits: Pixabay