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Book Review The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase

I’m delighted to be sharing my thoughts on The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase. This is a story you don’t want to miss!

Book cover for The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase.  A clock shows the time approaching midnight with pink peonies around the outside of the cover

The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase

  • Category : Crime & Mystery
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Michael Joseph (27 Jun. 2024)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0241633915
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0241633915
  • Goodreads | Amazon

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The Midnight Hour Summary

Notting Hill, London. One May evening, seventeen-year-old Maggie Parker’s mother walks out of their front door and doesn’t return . . .

With her little brother in tow, desperate to find her mother, Maggie is drawn into a labyrinthine world of antiques and shadowy figures. There she befriends someone else living on their wits. But can he help solve the mystery of her mother’s disappearance?

Twenty-one years later, in a Parisian apartment, Maggie’s phone rings and her hard-won grown-up life shatters. While in London, the new owner of the Parker’s old house is excavating the basement, unaware of what might lie beneath.

The Midnight Hour Review

This story … it seeped into every corner of my life!  I caught myself thinking about the characters and what could have happened or what might happen next, without consciously doing so.  Do you know what I mean?  You’re doing something totally unrelated and then realise you’re not focused on what you’re doing but thinking about the story!  So yes, The Midnight Hour gets under your skin (in a good way).

I LOVED the format, such a hook going back to 1998 with the days leading up to the event slowly unfolding.   And each time we move timelines we’re left on a cliff hanger.  The wait is excruciating and left me so intrigued.  So hard to stop reading!

I thought I’d finally got a grip on where the story was going and then ‘bam,’ something came along that puzzled me and made me think back to everything I thought I knew.  Perfect plotting!

It’s not just the crime that draws you in.  The subtle clues about family secrets and chasms that can never be crossed make you want to look far below the surface to see what’s really happening.  I had my suspicions about this but wasn’t confident it was where I should be looking.  There’s also the relationship between Maggie and Wolf (coming of age – beautifully written), Maggie and Kit, Wolf and Kit and Dee-Dee and Cora.  I’m glad we got to know Kit (as an adult) through his narrations.  Such a rich tapestry of emotions that are explored so well through all these relationships. 

Eve Chase’s writing style added another dimension for me.  For example, about one of the character’s:  “<snip>, a prism that changed everything, sending pitch-dark shadows and sparkles of light into unexpected places.”  This explains one character’s arrival into the Parker’s lives perfectly.  I found it easy to visualise scenes and the writing style helped me connect to each and every character.

The last chapter left me with so much hope (and in floods of tears).  I finally felt like I could take a breath.

The Midnight Hour took me on a roller-coaster of emotions. It really is an emotional read that is hard to put down.  I loved everything about it.

About the Author

Eve Chase writes page-turning mysteries set in beautiful places, thick with secrets. Her last novel, The Birdcage, won great acclaim and sales and The Glass House was a Sunday Times bestseller and Richard and Judy Book Club pick. The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde was longlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award and Black Rabbit Hall won the Saint-Maur en Poche prize in Paris for Best Foreign Fiction. Both were runaway Amazon bestsellers. The Midnight Hour is her fifth novel. Her novels have been translated into twenty languages. Married with three children, she lives in Oxford.

Say hello on Instagram and X @EvePollyChase and facebook.com/EveChaseAuthor.

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