A DROP OF NIGHT
“Relentless . . . As things get more and more (and more!) intense, readers will turn the pages at an exceedingly rapid pace. Settle in for some definite excitement here, and make sure you can stay up all night to get to the end.”
— Locus Magazine
About A Drop of Night
Seventeen-year-old Anouk has finally caught the break she’s been looking for—she’s been selected out of hundreds of other candidates to fly to France and help with the excavation of a vast, underground palace buried a hundred feet below the suburbs of Paris. Built in the 1780’s to hide an aristocratic family and a mad duke during the French Revolution, the palace has lain hidden and forgotten ever since. Anouk, along with several other gifted teenagers, will be the first to set foot in it in over two centuries.
Or so they thought.
But nothing is as it seems, and the teens—bitter, iron-hearted Anouk, gentle Will, bubbly Lilly, and crazy Jules—soon find themselves embroiled in a game far more sinister, and dangerous, than they could possibly have imagined. An evil spanning centuries is waiting for them in the depths.
A genre-bending thriller from Stefan Bachmann for fans of The Maze Runner and Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods.
Praise for A Drop of Night
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
“Fantastically drawn . . . readers looking for a scare for scare’s sake will revel in the grotesqueness and cheer when Anouk and company take down their captors for a satisfying end.”
Kirkus
“Bizarre and hugely suspenseful . . . Bachmann keeps the pages turning with this thriller . . . The peculiar circumstances add to the strange atmosphere and also to the suspense, lending the book an appealing, otherworldly quality.”
Publishers Weekly
“Bachmann’s writing is as polished as in his earlier books—the violence is fittingly gruesome, the decadent and mazelike palace is gorgeously described, and Anouk has an engagingly snarky narrative voice.”
School Library Journal
“Smooth writing, an engaging plot, and only wisps of romance place this work’s focus squarely on two headstrong and rebellious girls . . . For readers who like strong characters in a unique setting and prefer their horror with a streak of science fiction.”
Booklist
“Anouk’s and Aurélie’s stories skillfully mirror each other and are engaging . . . it is certain to please those who demand constant action blended with their historical fiction.”
YA Books Central
“A fast-paced thrill-ride . . . Chilling . . . The suspense begins from the first page. I Know What You Did Last Summer meets Frankenstein.”
Kenny Brechner, PW Shelf Talker
“[D]ark and compelling, Stefan Bachman’s A Drop of Night is macabre to the core. This story makes highly imaginative use of the French Revolution as a backdrop for a story of pervasive evil in an underground palace that is deliciously atmospheric.”