An exceptional debut novel taking place in the Pacific Northwest. I couldn’t get enough of this atmospheric and suspenseful read. I found it incredibly unique how the discovery of Erin’s body paralleled a scene in one of Elijah’s books. The only flaw I found in this book was the rough POV transitions, but overall it was a solid debut! However, I still highly recommend reading this book!

What an incredible debut by Sarah Crouch! I absolutely loved Middletide which was about so much more than solving a mysterious death in a small community.

Elijah Leith left the small town of Point Orchards after high school to pursue his dream of being a novelist, but returns years later after failing to hit it big. He pours his energy into restoring his father's abandoned cabin and his relationship with high school sweetheart Nakita, but generally maintains a rather reclusive lifestyle. When beloved doctor Erin Landry is found dead, all signs point to an apparent suicide. As police uncover more clues, however, Elijah Leith is thrust into the spotlight as a prime suspect when it's discovered that Dr. Landry's death is an exact replica of a scene from Elijah's failed novel.

There is so much packed into this book and it's all done incredibly well. Aside from the small-town mystery, you'll find themes of romance, grief, forgiveness and second chances. It's a unique plot with some pretty great twists. I went into the book a little blindly and recommend doing the same.

The only slight issue I had was the non-linear timeline. It didn't feel like quite the right vehicle for telling this particular story mainly because the jumps in time were just a couple of years. It became hard to keep track of what time period we were in when it's 1994 vs. 1991. Personally, I would have preferred something more chronological, but it was still a great reading experience.

Thank you Atria Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

DNF @ 44% - Putting aside due to some triggering mentions of death that are hitting a little to close to home with current life happenings.

A plodding procedural set in an ethereal Pacific Northwest town. Truly, the setting is the best part of this novel; I figured out the twist at the 50% mark. Crouch writes atmosphere exceptionally well. The two main characters in this novel - a failed author returning to his hometown, and his high school girlfriend - are both insufferable in their own ways. It's not often that I find a manic panic pixie dream girl written by a female author, but here we are.

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for this ARC.

MIDDLETIDE by Sarah Crouch was an atmospheric literary suspense that had me quite engaged!

A woman is dead and it looks exactly like one that was written of in a book by Elijah Leith, who happens to be back in town, trying to rekindle a lost love as well as lost purpose.

I don't really want to say more about the story, but I was quite engaged from the beginning. It was a gorgeously told story in a setting that evokes a sense of mystique for me. I appreciated all the atmospheric descriptors, taking me away from my sweltering summer. I also enjoyed going through the character's journeys to find the motives behind various actions. Elijah was a complicated man with what felt like a coming-of-age after his father's death, looking for what was really important in life before getting derailed. I liked that the derailment included a suspicious death!

Thank you to @atriabooks & @netgalley for this digital ARC that published June 11th. I enjoyed the mystery, the characters, and the setting in this shorter book!

I am so thankful to be given my first ARC & it so happened to be Middletide! From the beginning, the cover and the synopsis of this book drew me in. Multiple timelines can be hard for me to follow in the beginning, but once I grasped it I was hooked on this book. I love how beautifully written the scenery was, as I am a big fan of the PNW in general, I loved Nakita & Elijah’s love story was woven into the story, but the mystery stood at the forefront, I was not expecting to love this one as much as I did, but I’m so glad I read it!

This was an interesting character driven novel. The characters were complex. Overall a well done debut novel. The ending felt a bit rushed and I think the courtroom scenes could have used more tension. The prose was beautiful and captured the enchanting Pacific Northwest.

What a debut!

Beautiful writing, enticing plot, small town feels! All things that I love!

This book fell a little short on the murder mystery plot though. While it's by no means awful, I feel like the reveal and reasoning was a little weak.

This author really has potential, and for a debut, I think this novel is mostly well done. I can't wait to see what she writes next!

Middletide was a surprising, thought-provoking book. While it could definitely be coined as a suspense/thriller, it often read more like a romance drama and self-discovery novel.

It begins with the mysterious death of a small town’s young and beautiful doctor, Erin, who recently experienced the devastating loss of her young daughter.
Elijah is the town’s recluse who lives alone in the Northern Pacific woods after his father’s death and a failed pursuit as a novelist brings him back to his childhood home.
The story follows two timelines: one that details the police investigation after Erin’s death and another that charts Elijah’s return to a lonely existence as he learns to live off the land and confront his past mistakes.

In this book, the beauty and provision of the land is starkly contrasted with the dark and painful aspects of humanity. It showed a similarity, though, in the toil it takes hands to reap a harvest and hearts to mend relationships. Just as a laborer of the land can produce growth or cause destruction, so pain has the potential to do either.
Giving it 4 stars- it was moody, mysterious, and a little out of the box!
Triggers include suicide, death of child, death of parents, death or spouse.

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I love a great character driven mystery and Sarah Crouch has definitely delivered with Middletide.

Things start slow in this tense book set around the discovery of a body hanging from a tree that then opens up secrets and questions in a small, isolated town. The story really picks up momentum in the second half though, and the characters are fully flushed out as the mystery unfolds.

Mystery fans are going to love this one and I think it is going to be a hit as a summer read.

Debut mystery - interesting premise. I think I would have rated this higher if the main characters did not seem so flat. Loved the setting - Elijah, the author seemed a bit unbelievable to me and perhaps I am judging too harshly. I also question the author's decision to use a fictional Native American tribe for the story, although they were portrayed respectfully

Dr. Erin Landry is found hanging from a tree on failed writer Elijah Leith's property. It looks like suicide, but closer inspection shows that it's murder and parallels Elijah’s novel. He had returned to his childhood home to restore it and rekindle an old relationship, but the town is turning against him as the real killer is set on framing him for murder.

The story has a past timeline of the 1970s that skips to 1988 when Elijah returns to the area, and 1994 when the doctor is found. This essentially sets up two different storylines for the novel, but they eventually meet up in 1994, giving us a different perspective than what police have. Elijah was ashamed of his failure in California, so he generally isolated and worked on reestablishing his parents' homestead. The doctor once found was clearly killed, setting up an investigation that circles Elijah even before the similarities are discovered. Someone deliberately puts Elijah’s novel into police hands, and they find Erin's journal as well. It really doesn't look good for Elijah at all going into the final third of the book.

The past timeline really gives Elijah’s backstory and history with Nakita Mills. Their on-again and off-again relationship spans from their teenage self to the present, working through grief, misunderstanding, and differences in needs. This is a book about owning the past and coming to terms with it, then moving forward as best as you can.

There were lots of issues with the believability of the court room proceedings but I didn’t really care. This book was an enjoyable read and the ending was satisfying, even if a little farfetched.
I enjoyed the descriptions of nature and the homesteading. The beginning is a bit slow, but I enjoyed the resolution. It was a solidly good book for those who enjoy domestic thrillers and police procedurals. I’ll be on the look out for more work by this author.
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC.

The prologue of Middletide hooked me right away. Unfortunately, the rest of the book did not live up to the promise of the first chapter. I did enjoy the author’s writing style, but I found the premise of the book to be implausible and somewhat predictable.

I really struggled with this book. Despite the fact that it was well written I struggled with the multiple time lines and the multiple points of view. It felt more like I was reading a book for high school credit and that I would need to take notes in order to follow along. The ending, while implausible, was the best part of the book and I could see where the author had been going with the storyline but I wish it hadn't taken so long to really draw in my interest.

I was so excited to receive an arc of this book based on the synopsis and gorgeous cover. Middletide is pitched as a small town mystery revolving around the death of a beloved young doctor. While the atmosphere was insular and claustrophobic (in the way I love in a mystery) and the nature descriptions beautiful, unfortunately the rest of this novel really fell flat for me.

Every single character was one dimensional and made stupid decision after stupid decision. None of these characters, including the doctor, had apparently ever heard of therapy or having a discussion like every other adult living in the real world. All characters were absolutely insufferable and horribly self centered, making the story borderline unreadable.

The writing style overall was mostly fine, though at times it was fairly clinical and boring, which was an unwelcome contrast from the previous ethereal nature writing and made the slow burn mystery drag far more than it should have.

The plot was…unfortunate. The reasoning behind the suspected murder, later confirmed to be suicide was honestly far fetched and absolutely ridiculous. Erin blaming someone for her daughter’s death instead of going to therapy or blaming herself for her poor vehicle maintenance was absurd. Additionally, while shoddy police work can definitely be prevalent in small towns, the LE/court portions of the book were poorly researched and laughably bad. The process through which Elijah obtained a lawyer was truly ridiculous and nearly made me DNF.

Finally, I was baffled by the decision to create a fictional indigenous people instead of researching one that already exists in the area. The name for the indigenous people was Squalomah, which seems suspiciously close to a slur commonly directed at indigenous peoples. The fact that one of the members was a Christian pastor was a strange choice. After that reveal, the whole book began to feel like a Christian pandering attempt, including the epilogue, in which Nakita renounces her cultural beliefs as a myth at her wedding during a bible reading.

Middletide follows Elijah Leith through alternating timelines. He grew up in Point Orchard, a small town in Puget Sound. He left after high school graduation to move to San Francisco and become a writer. After his father passed and his book failed to sell, he came back home. He is trying to acclimate back to his old life, when the town’s doctor is found dead on Elijah’s property. Questions are raised, because the details of her death are similar to Elijah’s book.

This book sucked me in quite quickly. I found myself wanting to pick it up more than I had time for, and it definitely kept my interest. While I did find the ending predictable, the atmosphere and character development was enough to overshadow that. Would definitely recommend!

This was a great debut! Don’t let the three stars fool you. I did enjoy it. I didn’t know it was a mystery going into it. It was a unique plot and I didn’t guess the ending. So that’s a win for me!

This book is just going to get a 3 from me sadly. I was really, highly anticipating It and maybe that’s part of the problem! When it’s getting compared to where the crawdads sing, i loved that book, I’m going to have some high expectations. The beginning is really bland and hard to become invested in either storyline or any of the characters. The novel jumps back and forth between two different timelines and neither one, i really cared that much about. Maybe i just wasn’t the target audience and that’s okay!

Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this in exchange for my honest opinion.

I was absolutely crushed to not love this one after seeing so many promising reviews on Bookstagram.

“Middletide” started out with a bang for me, with the discovery of the doctor’s body. But it fizzled out by 15%. After multiple attempts at restarting this one, I have to conclude that it was not for me.