Outside in the Night

‘Beyond the ditch, trees, their bare branches swaying in the wind. Deeper still, darkness.’ Across thirteen stories, Gina Challen explores lives lived on the margins of the South Downs, where beauty and hardship sit uneasily side by side. Her characters are coming of age or growing old, falling in and out of love, caring for others, searching for family, security or simply somewhere to belong. Told in a vivid range of voices and unfolding through the changing seasons, these stories probe the choices people make when their options are narrowing. Livelihoods falter, relationships fracture and private desires collide with duty, prejudice and fear. Some characters deceive others; some deceive themselves. Few are wholly innocent, and not all are easy to like. Yet even at their darkest, Challen’s stories remain alert to resilience, tenderness and the possibility of change. Rooted in the chalk hills, villages and coast of southern England, Outside in the Night is a compassionate yet unsentimental collection about people trying to find their place in an uncertain world.