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The Midnight Hour is the fourth novel I’ve read by Eve Chase, and it’s the best, I think, though all have been quite good. (Apparently the only book I haven’t read of hers is Black Rabbit Hall, her first. I’ve read The Birdcage, The Daughters of Foxcote Manor, and The Wildling Sisters.) All are stories of dark secrets bubbling up from the past to cause trouble in the present, and I must say I love that type of book. Kate Morton gives a blurb to this book, as I noticed after reading it, and she is a good author to do so, because if you like Morton’s books, you likely will enjoy Chase’s. (Morton’s books, however, except for her first, are all rated mild. Chase’s have been either moderate or on the low end of high.)
In The Midnight Hour, the dual timelines are in 2019 and 1998. Maggie, 17 years old in 1998, is the big sister to Kit, just 5. Their mother, Dee Dee, is a former model and recent widow who heads out one evening from their house in Notting Hill and doesn’t come back. Maggie isn’t too concerned for the first night, and not very much when a second comes around, but then when Dee Dee doesn’t come back for days, she gets worried.
She gets unexpected but then welcome help from a slightly older teen, Wolf, whom she meets in the neighborhood just after her mom leaves. Wolf is without parents himself at the moment and working for his uncle in his antique shop. Kit adores him, and Maggie falls hard for him. They spend a lot of time together as they wait for Dee Dee to return.
Meanwhile, a creepy stranger keeps popping up in their vicinity, talking to them off and on, and Maggie has some tough choices to make. Most important: protect Kit.
Twenty years later, Maggie is an author who keeps to herself and hasn’t talked to Wolf ever since that fateful time of their lives. But their past is about to be literally dug up when the current owner of that Notting Hill house starts building a basement. Everything from that time is brought back.
The mystery of what exactly happened and what may be unearthed is drawn out for a long time in the story, and there are a lot of issues going on that are hinted at. Maggie was young when most pieces of the puzzle occurred, so she doesn’t even have all the truths. The Midnight Hour is a mystery and a family drama, with a few parts romance. I thought Chase did a wonderful job writing dialogue and crafting it in ways that showed some of what was going on in the adults’ lives but were not necessarily clear to a child or teen. I admired how she put it all together.
The book is gripping and a bit haunting, with notes of complicated family love and finally hope.
Rated: High. Profanity includes 10 uses of strong language, 10 instances of moderate profanity, 16 uses of mild language, 35 instances of the name of Deity in vain, and 5 instances of British profanity. Several instances of brief sex scenes with some details (past kissing) and mentions of others. Some violence, with mentions of fights and one serious fistfight.
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*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
