The Midnight Hour was okay. I liked the vibe and there were some fun parts, but it didn’t totally grab me the whole way through. A few moments stood out, but overall it felt a little hit-or-miss. Not bad, just not amazing either.

Beautifully written, artfully suspenseful, and emotional eloquence!! This was my first Eve Chase book and it captivated me is such a way that I ache to revisit London and Paris again. Maggie and Kits story of survival and overcoming the odd even with a broke, messed up family. The midnight hour begs the question “what really makes us family”? And what lengths are we capable of going to, to protect the people we love. This is a coming of age story, a suspenseful mystery, and an epic love story all woven into a wonderfully presented book. The only downside I had for it was the odd break ups of the chapters since it was dual timeline and multiple POVs, sometimes the placement of the chapters got extremely confusing. But I do highly recommend this book!!

I have been a fan of Eve Chase since her first novel and since then I was hooked. To my mind few authors do modern gothic suspense better. So I was thrilled to receive this e-arc of her latest novel from @randomhouse and @netgalley.

A dual timeline narrative that swings back and forth from 1998 to 2019 in Notting Hill London, maintains a timeless quality that many modern books lack. At times I could imagine we were time traveling to a gaslit and foggy London if the turn of the century. Both a mystery and a romance, this novel has a lot of turning plots. A teenage girl and her young brother are suddenly abandoned by their glamorous super model mother. Afraid and confused they are befriended by a young man and his uncle who have an antique store that specializes in the quirky and unusual. Soon they are caught up in this world and there is romance blooming but lingering on the periphery is a shade character and where is their devoted mother? Soon all these elements will collide in an act that will cause them to scatter in the wind until a body is found 20 years later and they are all forced to confront the events of 1998.

I enjoyed this book. Chase has a wonderful gift for creating a suspenseful and foreboding atmosphere. I loved the chapters set in the past and sometimes wish the entire book had taken place there. I was enthralled in the story of these children caught in a situation for which they had no answers as they tried to fend for themselves. When the answers came they were not quite as exciting as I had hoped, but I did enjoy seeing the evolution of the characters 20 years later and how the events of the past had shaped them. My only real quibble was the ending. It dragged on and I kept thinking it was the end only for it to continue on. It dragged. Still, I love Eve Chase’s style of writing and highly recommend her to lovers of modern gothic suspense.

The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase is about a daughter trying to uncover her family's past, while learning to keep secrets of her own.
Maggie and Kit’s lives have been through a whirlwind of happenings. Their father's passing away, their mother's disappearance, and the rift between their mother and aunt. Through it all, the good is that they met Wolf, who becomes invaluable to them.
Their aunt Cora and mother Dee-Dee have secrets of their own that they have kept for decades, all while Maggie and Wolf find themselves keeping secrets just as long.
2 decades later, and it is all about to come to light. The plot and twist will keep you turning the pages.
Anyone who loves a good thriller that is hard to put down will love this book!
Thank you to The Random House Publishers Group – Ballantine for providing this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
#evepollychase #evechasebooks #themidnighthour #therandomhousepublishersgroupballantine #netgalley #ballantine

What a beautiful book! I loved reading about Maggie and her family. There were new twists every other page it seemed. I truly enjoyed the story being written in dual pov's as well as the
scription of the French and English locations. The little surprise on the end was so good and totally unexpected from me. All around this is a great book and will make you want to read this author again soon.
Thanks to Net Galley for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Wow! This was my first book to read by this author but definitely not my last! This book will leave you wanting for more and the characters and storyline stick with you long after you finish it. Do yourself a favor and pick up this page-turner!

Thank you so much Net Galley, Random Publishing House, and Goodreads for this ARC. It was great! This historical mystery flips between timelines, creating high suspense and twists and turns! I highly recommend!

Maggie Palmer is seventeen, living in Notting Hill with her celebrity mother and younger brother. Her father died several months prior and now her mother is trying to support the family. Maggie is accustomed to her mother going out at night, but she’s always home by midnight—until the night she doesn’t come home.

One night stretches into a week, with Maggie reluctant to notify her mother’s friends, her agent or the police because she doesn’t want to deal with the publicity that would result. Her estranged aunt has been calling, but with her aunt and mother’s strained relationship, Maggie doesn’t confide in her either.

During this time, Maggie meets a young man called Wolf who intrigues both her and her younger brother. They soon become a part of each others lives and Wolf begins to look out for them while their mother is absent.

A strange man has been lurking about and Maggie has a bad feeling about him. He makes his way into the house one day when Wolf is there and things escalate to a frightening level. Wolf takes Maggie and her brother to stay with her aunt and Wolf goes to a friend’s house while things settle down.

This event is a pivotal moment in the story, which prompts the discovery of Maggie’s mother and uncovers a few family secrets. Even though the story was a bit slow moving in the beginning, it really became exciting once all the family mysteries began to be revealed.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine for allowing me to read an advance copy. I am happy to recommend this to readers and offer my honest review.

3.5 stars rounded up.

I liked this book. I found myself enjoying the characters and their stories. I liked the dual timelines and settings. I typically read thrillers and mysteries with a few romance novels here and there. I thought this was a fun combination of the two. It was definitely a slow burn, which wasn't my favorite, but overall I enjoyed reading it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine Books for an ARC of this novel.

A family drama with a thread of mystery, told from two perspectives — a sister and her younger brother — across the 1990s and present day. The story moves between Notting Hill, the English countryside and Paris. The pace was a little slow for me at times, but it picked up as the plot unfolded. There’s a mix of mystery, family dynamics and a touch of romance, and I especially enjoyed the alternating points of view and time frames.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I read everything by this author and enjoy everything she writes. The author has such a talent for integral details and beautiful atmospheric settings. I loved this story told in dual timelines. Each period exciting with great characters. The author has all the perfect elements for a compelling story with mystery, romance and drama.
With gratitude I thank the publisher, Net Galley and the author. I look forward to her next work.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine for the free copy of The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase in exchange for my honest review.

This was my first read by Eve Chase, and I was drawn in by the unique blend of family drama, mystery, and atmospheric London setting. The dual timelines and layered secrets kept me intrigued from start to finish, and I’m excited to explore more of Chase’s work in the future.

This one was just OK.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for my gifted copy of The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase.

Overall, this one was just okay. There were definitely things I enjoyed—starting with the audiobook. It’s dual narrated by Genevieve Gaunt and Bert Seymour, and this was my first time listening to either of them. Both did a great job.

I also thought the mystery elements were intriguing enough to keep me reading (or listening) through to the end. There were moments where I was curious to see how everything would come together.

Where it fell flat for me was with the characters. I just didn’t feel invested in any of them. The pacing also felt slow in parts, and I kept waiting for more to happen. Things did pick up toward the end, but it wasn’t quite enough to win me over completely.

Interestingly, when I looked back at my review for The Birdcage—another Eve Chase novel I’ve read—I realized I had a similar experience: same 3-star rating and the same struggle to connect with the characters.

So while I didn’t dislike The Midnight Hour, I think it’s fair to say Eve Chase’s writing style might just not be the best fit for me.

Eve Chase can do no wrong in my mind. I have absolutely adored and devoured all of her books. This was so beautifully written and what a wonderful atmospheric setting of N0tting Hill. There was some suspense, romance, family drama, friendships. I highly recommend giving this one a read.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing group Ballentine for the digital arc in exchange for my honest review.

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.

BLUF: I'm not sure where or why I lost interest - but the weirdly askew adjectives and the excessive use of the verbose verbage and illustrious alliterations didn't help. (Yes, that was tongue in cheek)

Overall: 3
Plot: 3.5*
Suspense: 2

Mom's Review:
I can't put my finger on it, but there's something about this entire novel that feels forced and pretentious. Perhaps that's on purpose, but it doesn't feel quite right. Adjectives are ...off. And sometimes off-putting, particularly with respect to very obscure movie or book references the average reader would probably have no clue about.

"The London sky was turning a pretty, polluted orange." (Polluted is never pretty. Hard stop.)

"reassuring territorial clunk" (I'm not sure a sound has ever been both reassuring AND territorial.)

A short (5 words) yet highly graphic depiction of miscarriage which was absolutely 100% unnecessary. For the more sensitive souls out there who have experienced traumatic miscarriages, it would be very, very triggering.

Marketed as "women's" fiction, it rather felt as anything but. The entire story is about the abject failure of women to be honest with those closest to them, essentially their entire lives; and while the main female character has a revelation about this insidious nature of her family's secrets, she does absolutely nothing to stop the generational damage. Instead, she not only perpetuates it but is an absolute hypocrite in her response to a variety of situations.

The mystery/plot was surprising a dud for me. The wind up was pretty good, but the big reveal felt like an utter letdown. Extremely unsatisfying, even after pivoting with the not so surprising "twist". I closed the story and genuinely questioned whether I even wanted to finish the story. (Spoiler alert, I did and continued to be underwhelmed). I'm not sure this is one I would suggest to my fellow friends and readers.

Regardless, I'd absolutely be willing to try another of Eve Chase's books.

Despite this not being one of favorite reads, I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to meet a new author, Eve Chase, and to Ballantine Books, and NetGalley for providing said opportunity.

All opinions are my own.

The setting for this makes the story even more compelling, incorporating an unnamed but quite familiar movie to those paying any attention, that really helps cement the time and place. I thought these were fascinating characters, and the storytelling, with information revealed at exactly the right time, was well done.

This novel starts in 2019, when Maggie is in Paris gets a call from someone she hasn’t spoken to in 20 years, telling her that the house where she lived as a teenager is under construction and so a skeleton from her past (literally) may be dug up. Then we flash back to 1998, where 17 year old Maggie’s mom disappears leaving her to take care of her 6 year old brother Kit. The chapters set in the past are interspersed with ones in 2019 from both Maggie and Kit’s perspective. So there are multiple strands of mystery - what happened to Maggie’s mom, who is buried at the house, how did it happen, and will the body be discovered.

I seriously couldn’t put this one down, the kind of mystery that is not super scary but nonetheless leaves you turning pages feverishly with your heart in your throat. But it’s not just a mystery but also a family drama and a character novel. I have read and loved all four of Eve Chase’s previous books, all of which have dual timelines and mysteries hanging over them. Her first three had the earlier timelines set farther in the past, leading me to compare her to another favorite of mine, Kate Morton, and recommend her to Morton fans. But this one as with her last one sets the earlier timeline in the 90s so less historical fiction and more Lisa Jewell though a bit more literary. Highly recommend!

4.25 stars

Not a bad premise for a book, but I keep hoping for another Black Rabbit Hall and instead Eve Chase keeps giving us more of these trashy soap opera plots. That they’re of course better written than any given soap opera doesn’t really help much, though it is certainly worth noting that the writing itself isn’t the problem here.

There’s a lot of small world pettiness to this that I didn’t love, too much in common with schlocky domestic thrillers and not enough nuance in the characters to make them at least interesting even if they aren’t especially likable. In a way it’s a similar problem to what has happened with Tana French’s recent work.

Mostly I just felt like I didn’t care how this turned out for any of them, and I only wanted to hear about their location specific experiences. I didn’t get much of that, or much sense of place at all.

It’s too bad, because Chase has skill as a writer, but this isn’t the first time I’ve been disappointed by her storytelling and characters.

Eve Chase’s The Midnight Hour is a beautifully written and hauntingly atmospheric tale of loss, secrets, and the unrelenting bond between mother and daughter. When Dee Delancey—a devoted mother, grieving widow, and former model—disappears without a trace, her absence shatters the quiet rhythm of her family’s life.

As days pass with no sign of her, Dee’s daughter refuses to believe she’s truly gone. Her determination to uncover the truth sets off a chain reaction of revelations, exposing long-buried secrets that many had hoped would remain hidden. Chase masterfully builds suspense while crafting emotionally resonant characters, giving depth to both the mystery and the relationships at its core.

With a strong plot and slow-burning tension, The Midnight Hour is as much about unraveling the past as it is about coping with the present. Rich in atmosphere and layered with intrigue, it’s a gripping story that explores the cracks beneath a seemingly perfect life—and the truths that surface when everything falls apart.