The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase

 

                                               

Hardback:   385 pages

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Suspense, Family Mystery, 

Publisher: Michael Joseph 2024

Source:  Tywyn Library

First Sentences: Any danger has surely passed. Cycling into the unfolding Paris morning, Maggie can breathe easily again.

Review Quote: ‘Mesmerising - a book you want to race back to’ - Lisa Jewell, author of None of This is True

My Opinion: 

This is the third title by this author that I have read and she is now a favourite author whose books I will always look out for.

In this dual timeline novel set in London and Paris during 1998 and 2019 Maggie and her much younger sibling Kit find themselves home alone when their mother does not return home one evening. Difficult to say more without spoilers but the story of what happened in 198 in Notting Hill unfolds whilst in the 2019 chapters, twenty years later secrets are coming to light.

A well crafted story of family secrets and intrigue with a satisfying ending after all the mysteries. Will appeal to readers that enjoy plenty of drama in the novels they choose to read.

Previous Reviews :   The Glasshouse  The Birdcage

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads: 

A glittering family. A Notting Hill house. Step into their secrets...

Notting Hill, 1998. Dee Delancey—loving mother, grieving widow, sometime model—heads out for the evening, blowing a kiss before vanishing down the crescent. She doesn't come home that night. Nor the one after...

Her reclusive teenage daughter Maggie refuses to accept she's gone—no one loses both parents in two years, do they? Forced to keep house and mother her maddening little brother Kit, Maggie shuns the help of Dee's chaotic small circle of friends, fearing the news reaching the tabloids and the authorities.

But she finds an unexpected ally in Wolf, an older boy with boxer's fists from the far end of Portobello, an unknown world of dark labyrinthine shops, dusty antiques, human warmth, and misrule, far from the big white villas. A place she feels safe.

But the clock is ticking. And a stranger is lurking. As dangerous forces close in, Maggie faces an impossible choice—she must protect her brother, whatever the consequences.

Twenty years later, when the mysterious new owner of the Delancey family's old house starts digging out a basement, secrets cannot stay buried for much longer...

Author Profile:         

  

Courtesy of  Author's Official Website

The following is what Eve has to say about herself on her Author's Official Website.

I work in a writing shed in my Oxford townhouse garden, with Harry, my golden retriever, dozing at my feet. All my Eve Chase books have hatched in this shed, among the piles of books, coffee cups and notebooks, and, rather less literary, but no less essential, my gardening tools. (If I hit a sticky plot point, I’ll start weeding.) 

I’ve always been a huge reader - treasured library card in hand - and started writing short stories as a child, going on to study English Literature at Manchester University, where I set up a creative writing magazine and first got published as a journalist. Many years in women’s glossies and national newspaper magazines followed, working as an editor, feature writer and celebrity interviewer, meeting many wonderful, interesting people along the way, and travelling all over the world. 

As a reader, I’ve always loved storytelling that immediately sweeps you in and locks you there with seductive, lush settings, unfolding secrets and characters that are alive on the page - as a writer, I try to do this too.

Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Instagram Profile  Author's Official Website  Eve Chase - Facebook Profile

Twitter - EvePollyChase   Amazon Author Page  Eve Chase - Goodreads Author Profile