When Bailey meets Mitchell Murphy, she is convinced he is the man of her dreams, except for one small problem. He has nyctophobia, a fear of the night and locks down his house like a fortress every evening before dark. Bailey accepts this new way of life along with the restrictions associated with only venturing out in the daylight.

Mitch begins counselling with the psychologist, Dr Elsie Craig in an attempt to lead a more normal life and Bailey discovers that there are a number of incidents in Mitch’s childhood where his family believe something dark and malevolent has tried to take Mitch’s life at night.

Dr Elsie Craig and Bailey work toward understanding what is phobia and what is real, and in the process, put their own lives at risk.

Fear of the Night

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Fear of the Night – the idea

he idea for Fear of the Night came about when I thought about the ingrained fear I have always had of the night or the dark. I like to have a night life on in the bathroom, and hate total darkness. I would never be caught outside in the dark without a light on, and even then, I will be glancing around with heart thumping, wondering if there is anything out there about to devour me.

Where does this fear come from?

I’m not aware of any childhood events that would cause me to be this way and I certainly haven’t grown out of it as an adult, though when my children were young, I pretended to be brave. It was only my arachnophobia that I wasn’t able to hide. Luckily, my fear of spiders didn’t rub off on them too much.

Are we all a little afraid of the night and the dark?

Perhaps it is the old films we sneakily watched when we were children, hiding behind the couch so the parents didn’t realise we were out of bed. I remember being terrified of old Dracula movies in particular, and one of my children was terrified of the movie, The Blob.

If there really was something out there, hiding in the dark and waiting for us to venture by, what would it look like? Would it have a tangible shape or be a mysterious ghost like spectre? What would it want from us?

Perhaps, we are born with this fear as it would be difficult for us to defend ourselves from predators when we can’t really see around any detail around us. Instinct tells us to be afraid, and I am all for, listening to what my instincts tell me.

These are the ideas behind the writing of Fear of the Night.


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