The Midnight Feast book review

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley
on June 18, 2024
Pages: 354
Goodreads

Secrets. Lies. Murder. Let the festivities begin...
It’s the opening night of The Manor, and no expense, small or large, has been spared. The infinity pool sparkles; crystal pouches for guests’ healing have been placed in the Seaside Cottages and Woodland Hutches; the “Manor Mule” cocktail (grapefruit, ginger, vodka, and a dash of CBD oil) is being poured with a heavy hand. Everyone is wearing linen.
But under the burning midsummer sun, darkness stirs. Old friends and enemies circulate among the guests. Just outside the Manor’s immaculately kept grounds, an ancient forest bristles with secrets. And the Sunday morning of opening weekend, the local police are called. Something’s not right with the guests. There’s been a fire. A body’s been discovered.
THE FOUNDER * THE HUSBAND * THE MYSTERY GUEST * THE KITCHEN HELP
It all began with a secret, fifteen years ago. Now the past has crashed the party. And it’ll end in murder at… The Midnight Feast.

I am usually a huge fan of Lucy Foley and her writing style but The Midnight Feast just didn’t hit for me adn I’m not sure I can articulate why. There was just something missing throughout this book, I didn’t particularly care about the characters or the mystery and I just struggled I think to power through. I genuinely thought tI was going to end up DNF’ing at 120 pages, and I kind of wish I had.

The story follows Francesca as she opens up The Manor to the public in the heart of the Dorset seaside. But as in all thriller/mystery books things are definitely not what they seem. There is a lot to unpack with fake names, a mysterious group of vigilantes and angry locals all centred around a solstice event. I just wasn’t bothered by anything that was happening in the story, the diary pages felt convoluted and out of place. There was nothing about them that really fitted in with the story and although there was missing punctuation and slang there was really nothing that distinguishes it from the rest of the POVs.

When I say I don’t care about any of the characters I have no thoughts whatsoever other than the fact that they were all insufferable. Francesca with the weird hippy happy go lucky attitude in which you never actually learnt anything about her. Bella with her absolutely drip dry personality with nothing else going for her. Owen who spends the entire book talking about how brilliant Francesca is and how she’s his entire life. Eddie was a struggle who spent the book either talking about how sexually inexperienced he is or how ashamed he is of working at The Manor. It was just a mess and it made The Midnight Feast a hard book to read.

I have no real idea what the point of the plot was, there was so much going on and none of it really felt cohesive or had any real direction. The birds element was an odd addition to the story and I don’t think it added anything to the actual plot. It just made things even more confusing and I really didn’t enjoy the lore around it. It wasn’t realistic to me in the slightest and I just really struggled to understand what the impact was supposed to be.

Basically The Midnight Feast had no real plot, really poor characters and so much going on that none of it really made any sense. It definitely wasn’t my favourite book from Lucy Foley and I would be interested to see what else she brings out.