Start gifting
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Limited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks when you make the switch!
Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Make the switch
Gift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingThe Night Battles
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreHistorian Joan Severance has returned to the Sicily of her childhood, ostensibly to do research in the archives of the remote fortress town of Valparuta. In truth, her academic career lies in ruin behind her after being relieved of her teaching duties at Brown University for assaulting a student. Unable to approach her own long-buried history of loss and displacement, Joan takes refuge in the cool library rooms of the old town.
But Valparuta, Joan discovers, is haunted too. Unseen hands vandalize its homes and streets; the archivist, Cosimo Chiesa, suffers invisible blows. As Joan’s disturbed, hyper-intuitive mind falls increasingly under Valparuta’s spell, the embattled Chiesa begins a subtle campaign of seduction and tutelage whose purpose—at once shocking and inevitable—will force Joan to confront her unacknowledged past.
M. F. Bloxam has lived in Sicily and the United States and is currently residing on New Hampshire’s coastline. She is the author of prizewinning short fiction and creative nonfiction. A background in anthropology and museum work informs her writing.
Carrington MacDuffie is a recording artist, writer, and voice actor who has narrated over 100 audiobooks and received numerous AudioFile Earphones awards and six Audie finalists. Her original audiobook of poetry and music, Many Things Invisible, was nominated for an Audie in two categories.
Reviews
“Bloxam delivers fine Sicilian literary horror in the vein of Tom Piccirilli and Sara Gran…Bloxam’s ornate prose is the perfect complement to her complex heroine and the creepy goings-on in this eerie and satisfying debut novel.”
“Carrington MacDuffie artfully portrays the antagonistic Joan and a cast of enigmatic Sicilians…The evocative writing and the dreamlike nature of the story, set mostly amid the quiet of the archives and the crumbling splendor of Joan’s hotel, make for perfect audio.”
“Bloxam, in a highly original debut novel, slowly and skillfully deploys a violent alternate reality. And she renders the eerie happenings in such careful and elegant prose that the novel’s style becomes as much an enticement as its substance.”
“The Night Battles takes many unexpected twists and turns, and what drives it forward is both the sense of mystery that Bloxam has given to the town of Valparuta and the silent longing for some kind of emotional depth that she has given to her protagonist. In short, The Night Battles is a work of beauty, a curious cross between Umberto Eco and Neil Gaiman—mysterious, moody, and highly engaging.”
Expand reviews