The Midnight House

By Amanda Geard

The Midnight House, by Amanda Geard, published 2022

NO SPOILERS! You can read on without fear….

At 14 hours and 5 minutes long, you’ll know if you’ve read my previous ramblings that this book fulfils one of my favourite things in life: value for money, or in Audible terms, value for credits. Of course, that only proves to be true if the story is good, and The Midnight House didn’t look or sound promising to me. The cover and the title are a bit dark and doomful looking. I don’t think I’d heard of Amanda Geard, either.

Then I heard from one of the ladies of Between the Covers Book Club that she’d needed to print out the family tree from the inside cover in order to get to grips with the characters and the timeline, and another said she was struggling too. This little insight didn’t fill me with joyful anticipation that I would enjoy this book, as being a listener, I can get lost if timelines dot around too randomly.

Anyway, a few days ago, I downloaded the book and started listening. I did refer to the family tree picture a couple of times (why don’t they include it with the Audible version? Is it because they think we choose to listen because would be unable to read it?) but soon got to grips with the 2019-1940-1950s zig-zagging through the chapters.

I enjoyed the way the characters evolved without dragging them out in lengthy awkward descriptions. What descriptions there were, were written beautifully and without superfluous ‘creative writing course’ bells and whistles to lengthen it.

The story wound through time, from the background of the original family to Kerry in 2019, from Dublin to wartime London and current day Kerry with the young journalist, Ellie’s ignominious return to her hometown to her mother’s house. To keep her occupied and to try and inspire her return to her curious, motivated norm, Ellie’s mother plotted with a friend to pique her inquisitive daughter’s interest in an 80-year-old mystery at the big house, which also happens to be home to the Lord and his heir, the handsome doctor. The mystery centres around the daughter of the house, Lady Charlotte Rathbone and her disappearance back in 1940.

It touched a bit on Irish politics and World War II, but it wasn’t overtly political or historical. Sadly I don’t feel like it taught me much about either.

It follows a well-trodden path in terms of the story: troubled girl meets troubled man and they save each other through a series of carefully orchestrated events, but it’s a formula that has served authors and readers alike very well for an awfully long time. It must work as we go back for more each time. There are a few little twists and turns which, although fairly obvious, raised it above a lot of its peers for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the tried and trusted plot line and the whizzing around through the eight decades that could make it difficult to follow if you’re not paying attention.

Some of the characters were maybe added in for bulk, and weren’t really necessary, but they didn’t detract from it either. I didn’t feel really connected to the characters, but then again, I felt enough for them to want them to succeed, which, in the finest of traditions, of course they did.

The book, being set in Ireland, required the narrator to speak with various accents and voices, which to my admittedly untrained ear sounded better as the book went on. Either I got used to them, or she was getting better at them.

I gave this book 7/10 as it was good enough to hold my attention and I was invested in the outcome. It didn’t score more highly because it was a bit ‘chewing gum for the brain’ in that it adhered quite strongly to a tried and tested plotline formula and there wasn’t a unique part of it at all.

In total, the book club score was 8.7/10 as we all enjoyed it very much.

Our next book is The Dry by Jane Harper

It has good reviews and scores 4.5/5 stars on Amazon

At the last meeting, I put out an ‘expression of interest sheet to test the water over setting up a couple of new sub-groups: a further book club to be run at a time suitable to the members of that group, a TV and Film group to be run along a similar formula to a book club where we watch a film or series or standalone drama, then meet up at a group member’s house to discuss the plot, the characters and the actors and directors even, if that’s where the discussion takes us.  Please let me know if you fancy joining either of those. Thank you!

Wishing you the best of books – Sarah S x

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.

Charles W. Eliot