This really is a wonderful Romeo and Juliet style live story. Will and Rosie would not seem like the perfect match. A slow burn, divided loyalties and an epic tragedy keep their relationship yo-yoing. Rosie’s trauma, Will’s strength and devotion leave the reader deeply involved in their relationship.
Spanning many years, this is a story I will not forget.
No speech marks, but when you are deeply entrenched in this wonderful story, feeling all the emotions, pain, happiness, horror and despair, the words flow through you, and punctuation becomes irrelevance.
an amazing debut. Well
Done Claire Daverley. I am a fan.

I really loved this book. The language, the characters, the universal experience of longing and hope and missed opportunities…it was magical. The only reason I can’t give it five stars is because I hate conversations without quotation marks, it really irritates me. I’m so pleased I stuck it out because this story is beautiful and worth it, but it’s not a stylistic choice I can support.

This was a beautiful, magical, lyrical dream of a novel that I adored from start to finish. Will and Rosie leapt off the page from their first meeting at the bonfire and burrowed into my heart so deeply that I dreaded finishing the book because I didn't want to leave them behind! Their love is beautifully explored and I *ached* each time they were torn apart by forces beyond their control. The longing! The moments where they're almost together! The late night cereal! I absolutely adored this book - it's going to be huge this summer.

An unassuming novel about love that has all the power and nostalgia you would expect for the subject matter. the writing is never sentimental, but raw and spare, and so much more engaging as a result. Highly recommended.

Rosie meets Will in sixth-form. He's tutoring her twin brother and a late night conversation around a bonfire begins a complex and deep friendship between the two opposites. Will is your stereotypical bad boy and Rosie is wholly focussed on her studies.

But in their final summer before they go their separate ways, a horrific incident leaves them emotionally bound to each other. Over the years, they drift in and out of each others lives and both deal with what happened in their own ways.

The premise of this book is almost cliche... but the execution is going to make this book a classic in its own right.

At first, I struggled with how it was written - the dialogue was basic and written in an untraditional way but I feel like this only added to the simplicity of the story in it's early pages. By the mid-point of the story, it was no longer a problem.

The characters are beautifully flawed, selfish and stubborn. The peaks and troughs are well thought out at there is sensitivity throughout.

I'd love to see this recognised with immediate success, but I equally feel this could be a book that grows steady in popularity. I would love to see Rosie and Will bought to the big screen to share their story. A definite must-read for fans of One Day!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book by Claire Daverley. It is a sweet, missed opportunities romance that has you willing the couple to be together and your heart breaking at all the points when it doesn’t work.

It’s a beautiful story and well written book but I found the lack of speech marks around the dialogue could be a bit confusing at times, particularly at the beginning before I had got used to the style of writing.

Overall an excellent read which fans of heartbreaking romance will enjoy

An authentic love story beautifully written. I didn't want Talking at Night to end, My only criticism would be that I wish the author had used punctuation for speech as I sometimes neede to reread to et things straight in my mind and I don't think this would have been detrimental to the seamless way in which the narrative flowed.

Thanks to Penguin/Michael Joseph and Netgalley for a review copy of this book. If I could give this more than a five star rating I would. It’s astonishing to think that it’s a debut novel, though her involvement in publishing before this is evident. Heart wrenching and beautifully written, with shades of Sally Rooney echoing through it, the novel just draws you in from the first page and makes it impossible to remove your eyes from the page. But you have to, if only to give your heart a break.
Rosie talks to Will for the first time at a bonfire in their final year of sixth form. She’s always known who he is. Everyone does. He’s the boy that girls can’t help but follow with their eyes and often so much else. And now, this year, he shares an advanced maths class with her twin brother, Josh, whose struggles with the class has meant that Will is now tutoring Josh. It’s through that connection she imagines that Will decides to talk to her as they sit next to each other at the bonfire. Because why else would he? Soon, though, it becomes clear as they talk and Will shares things with her that seem so personal, there is something more than a polite exchange going on. They each find an ease in each other’s company, and ease that translates more quickly than Rosie can imagine to an attraction, a chemistry that draws them together like magnets. They find they are creating moments, secret exchanges on the phone, and at the lighthouse as he runs, to make that intensive connection. Until tragedy strikes and their paths veer off course. Several times it seems as if they might be able to put it right, but the tragedy is possibly just be too big, too awful for it to happen.
The novel’s style follows the latest trend that avoids inverted commas/quotation marks around the dialogue which in my view can lead to confusion. But in this case the author makes it work, taking care not to be unclear about who is speaking. The resulting voice, the tone of the novel is intensive, the emotions heightened, so that the reader becomes completely engaged. Rosie, Will and Josh are tragic, compelling and fully realised characters, as are the parents and other people in the novel. We feel compassion for everyone, making it a really well rounded novel of loss, sorrow and finding the core self that can help overcome the most tragic circumstances.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story and the tension and suspense it gave. My heart broke for them both on multiple occasions. Very moving, heart wrenching and well written.

Such a beautiful boy meets girl love story. It perfectly captures the all consuming emotions of falling in love as a teenager, I felt like Will and Rosie were friends I’d had at high school and I just wanted to know if they ended up together!

Rosie and Will are two people with a fate entwined in a way that is both beautiful and tragic.
Feelings they share should be celebrated. However, the shared tragedy in their life keeps them apart.
I don't want to give much away about the reason these two find themselves unable to be together, even though everything points towards this being their fate. However, how they navigate early adulthood and those middle-aged years, connected, then not, and reconnected, shows how fate's destination is not always by following a straight path.
What a stunning read!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House, for an ARC.

3.5 star

This is a great debut novel and I’m excited to read more by this author.
I read reviews from others that this felt similar to a Sally Rooney novel and while I agree this definitely explored tragedy and life events far deeper.
The story is about two teenagers who meet and follows their life while they can’t stay apart. It’s dark but real, realistic but frustrating at times too. It’s not a Romcom but is about deep love tied in tragedy.
The only negative (and it’s not really a negative) is that I felt like I should have been rooting for them at times and but I found myself not wanting to root for them anymore, it was like having a best friend that you wanted the best for and to snap out of bad habits. But I think that shows the real side to life and love.

Talking at Night is a beautifully written tender read above messy, real love. Perfect for fans of Sally Rooney.
4.5 stars.

A great read. Thank you to the publisher for the ARC, via NetGalley. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Loved the cover and title too.

What a great book! So deftly written with beautiful turns of phrase. All of the emotions; from the rush of first love to the confusion of adolescence, the pain of loss and the weariness of adulthood distilled into the bitter-sweet story of Rosie and Will and Josh. They kept me up late at night, reading their lives into the wee hours. An amazing debut from Claire Daverley. Ten out of ten!

I love love loved this book. It is both heartbreakingly beautiful, whilst also making you laugh, cry and everything in between. I found myself really wishing for Will and Rosie to come together and to see what was right in front of them and to recognise that it is never too late for fate to find its way. This was a beautiful book that I would recomend everyone to read, it starts off as bad boy /good girl but manages to delve deeper to unite the main characters and spin you into their story so much that you want to yell at them to do the right thing but they keep on making choices that drive them apart and take their lives in different directions but this is what ultimately makes Will & rosie's story the greatest it can be. I would give this more than five stars if I could.

Once I started reading I couldn’t stop, it was a brilliant read. Liked the different aspects taken by both the families and how the outcomes happens.

I read this book very quickly, unable to put it down until I discovered the ending. It's well written and the characters really come alive and stay with you. There were some loose ends I wanted tied up a little more at times, but that just made it more 'real' I suppose, more believable. The story of what happens to two young lovers who are from different families with different values, torn apart by a sudden tragedy is not a new one, but it's gripping and one that a lot of readers will enjoy I think. I was racing at the end to finish it and find out what happened!

This was such a beautiful book and so beautifully written. An amazing book that had me hooked from the start.

Cancel the papers, the shopping , the housework - in fact cancel everything when it comes to reading this story! The world outside did not exist whilst I was reading this simple but emotional rollercoaster tale of girl meets boy! Beautifully told, I was completely riveted right until the last page! Rosie meets Will at a school beach party. She and twin brother Josh are 17 whilst Will is a year older but in their same school year having missed a year. He has a reputation of being the bad boy but helps Josh with his maths as Josh is desperate to get into Cambridge and he and Will forge a close bond. In steps Rosie and life is never quite the same for the three of them! The story pulsates with emotions - their lives turned upside down with so many twists and turns it’s quite exhausting but oh so worth the read! I absolutely loved it!