The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley #BookReview

Midsummer, the Dorset coast

In the shadows of an ancient wood, guests gather for the opening weekend of The Manor: a beautiful new countryside retreat.

But under the burning midsummer sun, darkness stirs. Old friends and enemies circulate among the guests. And the candles have barely been lit for a solstice supper when the body is found.

It all began with a secret, fifteen years ago. Now the past has crashed the party. And it’ll end in murder at…

This novel starts at the day of the opening of The Manor, a luxury retreat at the Dorset coast. Francesca Meadows still has everything in hand then and even a few locals crashing the woods doesn’t faze her. Soon enough it does become clear that some locals hold a grudge against her and even in the hotel there’s a guest who seems not to have come to be pampered but has a hidden agenda.

There is a lot of jumping around in time and POV’s, not only between past (15 years ago) and present but the present was also further split into before and after the solstice meaning the time leading up to the dead body and setting The Manor ablaze and the investigation afterwards. I could only smile when Francesca’s carefully planned evening spirals into utter chaos and nothing is left of her perfect image. I still had to speculate who the dead body was though. I had a pretty good idea – although it was another mystery altogether how a body would end up there – but the author carefully hid the identity till the end. 

The atmosphere became even more eerie whenever the woods and the birds were mentioned. The creepy, gothic vibe was very well done, so if you’re a fan of this kind of spooky and dark atmosphere it won’t disappoint. I’m not the biggest fan in general of the supernatural vibe but the town’s myths were purposefully used and it put me appropriately on edge.

I did have to suspend quite a bit of belief that neither Francesca or her brothers recognize people from the past and it had me shaking my head more than once. If I ignore that then I did love some people from the past popping up again in the present and the revelation of their identity. 

The Midnight Feast definitely wasn’t lacking twists and turns. The biggest surprise for me was the identity of a second body because I had someone else in mind but that person turned up – a new surprise – alive and kicking as well in the end.  

The Midnight Feast is a gothic whodunnit that kept the cogs in my head whirring. I wasn’t thrilled to the max at the start but the further into it the stronger the sense of foreboding became and the Midnight Feast event did live up to my expectations. Overall it was quite an unnerving read.

I received a free ecopy of this novel from the publisher via Netgalley. This is still my honest opinion.