Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

At the beginning of this story we read of the deaths of two people. We don’t know who they are, but as we go through the story we find out who the bodies are, why they’re there, and how their life’s made these events happen.

We meet Sylvie and Tess, who are best friends, and they’ve had this friendship since school. Sylvie is a barrister and district judge, hoping to further her career. But it seems as though a perfect storm happens and her life slowly crumbles around her. And it all seems to connect to the secrets of her past.

I quite enjoyed this book, and really liked Sylvie as a character, and thought her very relatable. I wasn’t so keen on Tess. The writing was great and the story flowed really easily. I managed to read this in just a couple of sittings. I always enjoy this authors work and look forward to the next one.

An excellent read! A great opener describes two victims found dead impailed on the spikes of some railings, blood spilled on the ground. I was gripped all the way through. You are taken through a range of different feelings towards the characters with some shocks along the way when some of their flaws are exposed. I found myself questionning motives and second guessing who was actually genuine or lieing through their teeth. I really enjoyed this book with the author proving to be a reliable great read in the mystery and thriller genre for me.

Dark, atmospheric, and chock full of characters that make you question their every move. Harriet Tyce is a master psychological storyteller.
Sylvie And Tess have been friends wife they were in school. Their friendship is toxic and full of lies and secrets. It’s Hogmanay (New Years) in Edinburg as the book starts and there are two bodies impaled on the cast iron railings surrounding a fancy house and as the story unfolds we find out what led to them being there, as well as who they are. The storyline is told in flashes back and forth in time as well as from a few POV.
Sylvie is a successful barrister with plans to move up to be a crown court judge but a trying case in the youth court in which she is a part time judge could ruin her chances.
Tess, meanwhile, is battling a brain tumor which is causing seizures, so she decides to have a vow renewal to celebrate her marriage in case she doesn’t survive it. In planning the celebration, Tess wants Sylvie to get in touch with someone else they went to school with that was at their original wedding to try to make amends, but it’s not as easy as that because of their history.
Theirs plenty of suspense and the unreliability of the characters adds to the thrill of the read and the authors previous work in the legal field really helped to add depth to the story. She continues to be a go-to author for me.
Thanks to Headline and NetGalley for this eArc in exchange for my review.

The scene is set; a lavish party is underway on New Years Eve in Edinburgh, just as the clock strikes twelve two people plummet from the roof and are impaled on the railings below, was this just a tragic accident or is there more to this than someone is divulging? Tess and Sylvie have been friends since school, Sylvie is a successful barrister who has her heart set on becoming a high court judge and is in a fairly new relationship with a chef called Gareth, Tess is married to Marcus who is a QC, but recently their marriage has broken down, so when she is told that she's got a terminal illness she enlists Sylvie's help in getting Marcus to come home and begins to talk about renewing their wedding vows, surrounded by their loved ones, but Tess is also determined to put things right regarding an incident that happened during the girls past, and as much as Sylvie wants to help her friend she knows raking up the past could have a detrimental effect on her own future.

This story begins with the death of two people on New Years Eve, it then rewinds back to the events leading up to that fateful night, told from Sylvie's perspective and jumping back and forth between their school years and the present day we learn about an incident that happened when the girls were teenagers, which resonates with a court case that Sylvie is currently working on, and something she would much rather leave in the past. This is a tale of toxic relationships, lies and deceit, none of the main characters are particularly endearing and I found both Tess and Sylvie to be quite self centred. This is a story packed with tension and suspense, which I was immediately invested in and eager to learn the outcome, devouring it in 24 hours and finishing it at midnight (spooky!!). This is the first I've read by this hugely talented author and I can't wait to read the other two books I have by her on my kindle.

I'd like to thank Headline/Wildfire and Netgalley for the approval, I will post my review on Goodreads now and Amazon on publication day.

The story starts with a lavish party in Scotland, at Hogmanay and two guests falling from the roof. Both guests are impaled on the railings outside and die within minutes. The reason they both fell to their deaths isn’t revealed.

The story moves to Sylvie and her best friend Tess, who have been friends since school. Sylvie is a successful barrister with an amazing career ahead. Sylvie’s plans are derailed when a false accusation is made against her. The story then flips back and forth between this time and that during the friends’ teenage years. They share a secret from their past which they swore to never talk about again. However, this secret rears its head and Tess is determined to clear her conscience, regardless of the impact it will have on Sylvie and her future career.

The story cleverly works its way back to the party in Scotland, and the climax, when the truth is shockingly revealed and two of the characters fall horrifically to their deaths.

I thoroughly enjoyed Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce but was disappointed with her second books. With It ends at Midnight, she has again set the bar high for an enthralling legal thriller. A rollercoaster of a book, which keeps you guessing until the end.

A gripping and addictive read, I devoured this book. It was my first time reading a book by Harriet but I'll definitely be watching out for her in the future and have already bought both Blood Orange and The Lies You Told.

Having read Harriet’s previous two books, and loved them I had high hopes of this one. It bumbled along until around 61% and then I couldn’t put it down I just had to finish it, I think it’s a sign of a great book. But after finishing it I’m not sure it was, I didn’t really care who it was at the end on the railings, I had an incline of the twists.it was an ok Ish read, and I’m glad I read it, but I’d say it’s not as good as her previous two, but it won’t stop me reading her next. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read the ARC.

A lavish party on New Year's Eve in Edinburgh seems like a great night but for 2 people the night ends with their deaths. And so this thriller begins
Sylvie is well on her way to becoming a Crown Court judge and has a flourishing romance with Gareth when her best friend from school, Tess, tells her she's been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Something serious happened in the past with the 2 girls and Tess wants to make amends to a girl called Linda before it's too late.
Could what happened in the past scupper Sylvie's future plans for her employment.
The story is told from present day to the past and done in a way that its not confusing to the reader
I found this novel fast paced, I was invested in the storyline and had to keep reading to find out what was going to happen next, and believe me there is certainly a lot happening. I was hooked
Many thanks to Netgalley and Headline/wildfire for the opportunity to read this advanced copy, I am nit obliged to leave a review

I absolutely loved @harriet_tyce's first novel 'Blood Orange' a couple of years ago and was happy to receive an e-ARC of her third novel from @NetGalley and @headlinebooks. 'It Ends At Midnight' centres around Sylvie, a barrister who has dreams of being a circuit judge. She has been friends with Tess since their teens and they carry around guilt, shame and it hangs about them in a toxic and somewhat disingenuous friendship.

The book moves between their current life in London, Sylvie working ambitiously on a case and being maliciously framed by the opposition, and Tess, navigating a recent diagnosis of a brain tumour. The book moves to Edinburgh with their past celebration at Hogmanay and the present, where a fox is licking the blood of two people impaled upon railings at a lavish party in Edinburgh. As always with Tyce, her writing is shocking in parts and a carefully constructed web of secrets, lies, guilt and repentance is presented.

This is a page-turner, one where you will question who is telling the truth and the pace of it, quite dizzying at times, really has you holding your breath for the next twist. Published on 14th April, this is a psychological thriller you'll not want to miss.

It Ends At Midnight By Harriet Tyce
New Years eve and two bodies plunge to the earth and so our story begins. I've been following this author since the fabulous Blood Orange, but I wasn't a fan of this book.
We follow Sylvie, our narrator and her best friend Tess as we bounce, to, past and present, following the said friendship and how it has developed over many years.
I found the book fairly boring up to about halfway, then the book takes a rather dark turn and starts to get interesting. However, if you have been paying attention, you should work out what the twist that you know is coming is going to be.
The book is well written but just a little too pedestrian for my tastes.
I didn't connect with either of the two main characters. I found them both rather shallow and fairly dull.
When we did reach the end, I felt rather deflated and was left with a feeling of what was the point of the story it didn't hold my interest and I couldn't care in the slightest about any of them or the two bodies that plunged to their deaths..
No doubt this will appeal to a lot of readers. Unfortunately, not for me, it's an OK read.
However, with all that being said, I have enjoyed the first two books by the author and will continue to support her work.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publishing house for allowing me to read the ARC.

I never repeat the blurb. Absolutely fabulous and has spurred me on to read Tyce's two previous books. A few plot twists were really very easy to guess but there were still a few surprises, although one issue resolved itself a tad too quickly at the end. Great read.

Harriet always delivers a great thriller - and this was no different! I actually read this in one sitting, as it was such an engrossing plot. You couldn't help but feel a NEED to know what happens next and where the story is going.

I'm definitely all for the storyline of a toxic friendships and how they evolve over time as a concept. The build up was fantastic and I really enjoyed seeing how things unfolded.

This would have been a 4* but a moment in which Sylvie witnesses and instantly misinterprets left me feeling really uncomfortable, and struggling to read on. For my personal taste, I didn't feel it needed to be quite so graphic or extreme, but I totally understand this will be different person to person. Either way, I'd really recommend looking up the trigger warnings before you read if you aren't too fussed about spoilers.

But overall I'd highly recommend. While not ALL the twists were huge surprises, there were definitely a couple I didn't see coming at all as the seriously smart writing Harriet''s known for came into play.

This is the first time I have read Harriet Tyce, this is a dark, atmospheric and well written psychological thriller set in London and Edinburgh revolving around a longstanding toxic friendship between 2 women, Sylvie Monroe and Tess, that goes back to their school days, involving secrets, lies and deception from their past. It is hogmanay in Edinburgh as the novel opens, and there are two bodies are impaled on the cast iron railings, bleeding to death, their identities not revealed. We will learn of the circumstances behind these events, and the who, how and why of the macabre deaths in this story that goes back and forth in time. The ambitious barrister, Sylvie, has just tasted a sweet court victory, she is determined to become a Crown Court judge, she is a part time judge in the youth court which she hopes will help her application.

However, her life begins to become derailed when she meets Tess, whose marriage to QC Marcus is in trouble, for drinks. As she becomes drunk, Tess reveals she has what appears to be a terminal brain tumour, discovered after she had experienced some frightening seizures. A shell shocked Sylvie can't believe it, Tess is her closest, oldest and only friend, she cannot bear the thought of losing her. Tess wants her help, to tell Marcus what is happening to her so that he will return to her, to help her arrange a renewal of vows ceremony intending to replicate her original wedding, and to get in touch with a person from their past who was wronged by them to put things right. There is nothing Sylvie will not do for Tess, but her last request is a nightmare that she is unwilling to revisit, particularly as it will threaten her professional career and the future she has dreamed of. However, Tess refused to be denied and matters are exacerbated as Sylvie presides over a trial that brings back echoes of her disturbing past.

Tyce is a talented and gripping storyteller, her portrayal of a unreliable narrator and a toxic friendship is beautifully done and there is plenty of suspense and tension that keeps the reader glued to the pages right up to the concluding finale. For those who have read a lot of psychological thrillers, some of the twists will not come as a surprise, but this did not stop me enjoying this, although there are the occasional jarring moments in the narrative. One of the highlights for me were the level of legal details provided in the court trial, due to Tyce's background in the profession. I am delighted to have discovered this author, and look forward to reading whatever she writes next. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

Harriet Tyce’s books always seem to leave me somewhat conflicted. The same can be said about ‘It Ends At Midnight‘. For the most part, I enjoyed it but there are niggles.

‘It Ends At Midnight‘ begins with a tragedy. Two guests at a lavish party fall from a roof and find themselves impaled on cast iron railings. Ouch. The question is who are these two people and how did they end up there. I do rather enjoy it when a book kicks off like this. When you know where it will end but you’ve no idea how things got to that point and you’re given the opportunity to figure it out for yourself along the way.

To find out how we got there, we obviously have to go back. Not just to the months leading up to this party, but even further into the past. Sylvie and Tess have been friends since they were teenagers. But something happened back then and the guilt has plagued them for years. Tess has recently been diagnosed with an illness that could be terminal and she desperately wants to make things right. That involves finding someone from their past to reconnect with. Sylvie is reluctant. She’s making big strides in her career and she’s worried she might lose everything.

Here is what caused a niggle. Unfortunately I need to keep it vague so I don’t spoil anything. This past event is a rather big deal. It has made a massive impact on someone’s life. As the book description mentions, Sylvie and Tess have carried around guilt about their involvement for years. Yet somehow, Sylvia can’t remember that person’s name. I found that to be completely implausible. Surely that would be engraved into your brain. It’s not like forgetting where you put your keys!

While I’m at it, have another niggle. Putting aside the question whether or not Sylvie is a reliable narrator, why is it that a successful character like herself needs to be so desperately unlikable? Quite frankly, the entire cast of characters didn’t exactly warm my heart. The friendship between Sylvie and Tess is incredibly toxic, both in the past as in the present, and they both would have been better off without the other in their lives. Often they brought me to the point of thinking I’d quite happily shove both of them off a roof myself.

Anyway, back to the cast iron railing kebabs. It didn’t take me all that long to have a good idea about one of the victims but the other one remained a question mark for most of the story. Most everything else seemed a bit too predictable to me, though. There’s a heck of a lot of manipulation going on but ultimately I guess it’s about finding answers and peace of mind. Although, even with her possibly terminal diagnosis, I was never really sure why Tess was so desperate to revisit that period of her life.

Despite those niggles, I actually quite enjoyed this book. Could possibly have done without the graphic sex scenes, especially the one with “accidental back door entry” that read like a fantasy novel. In hindsight, I understand why those scenes were important but part of me couldn’t help but wonder if there couldn’t have been another way to get across the dubious behaviour of a character.

‘It Ends At Midnight‘ is a well-plotted psychological thriller. The tension builds with every page, and the pace and the snappy chapters make this quite the page-turner. Personally I felt the ending fell rather flat but that’s probably just me. Honestly, I know it may not really sound like it but I did actually have an entertaining time with this one. It’s extremely addictive and I think fans of the genre and of Harriet Tyce’s books will be glued to the pages.

This had my heart racing towards the end.
Sylvie is a lawyer looking to become a judge. In a relationship with Gareth everything seems to be going well. Tess is her best friend from school. One evening over drinks Tess tells Sylvie she is ill. She wants to put right something that happened that happened many years ago, something Sylvie had tried to keep buried in the past.
And so to the showdown on Hogmany where it all spills out.
These two have a very toxic relationship both in their younger years and in the present.
The characters are so unlikeable and don't get me started on how much alcohol Sylvie consumes, never a good idea.
The writing is superb as you don't know who is telling the truth. Very dark and had me gripped right to the end.
Another winner from Harriet.
Thanks to Netgalley and Headline for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Told in both past and present times, this story was easy to follow and is written very well. The intrigue kept me turning the pages, each chapter building up the suspense leaving me wanting to read more each time. I liked that I didn’t know who to trust in the story, and that I kept changing my mind about this too! I liked the flashbacks that were written in the story of the characters teenage years too and also of the investigators and the fireman’s views.
A very enjoyable read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is a good book. I liked how the characters are really unreliable. It is written in a really good way too. I wasn't as gripped as I had hoped to have been. But it was still good.

It Ends at Midnight, Harriet Tyce's third psychological thriller, focuses on high-flying lawyer Sylvie, whose ultimate goal is to become a judge. However, her life is derailed when she is framed for something she didn't do, and she becomes obsessed with old friend Tess, who has recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Both women share a secret in their past, but when Tess threatens to come clean so she can die with a clear conscience, Sylvie is terrified that her life will be ruined.

This fits into a sub-genre of thrillers that I'm starting to think of as Ambitious Women Meet Bad Ends, and while one book with this kind of plot wouldn't be a problem, I'm becoming increasingly frustrated at encountering it so often. Sometimes it seems that women in psychological thrillers are just not allowed to be successful at anything. SPOILERS FOLLOW.

As it turns out in It Ends at Midnight, although we are initially led to believe that Tess is lying about almost everything, Sylvie is the one who was principally culpable in their teenage actions, and Tess is actually the collateral damage. Ultimately, Sylvie meets a fate that seems out of proportion to her actions, and indeed almost gleefully cruel; she is impaled on a set of railings after falling from a rooftop and bleeds to death. Women, that's what comes of reaching too high.

SPOILERS END. This is a well-written and engrossing thriller, but it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. 3.5 stars.

This seriously kept me guessing right to the end, and even when I thought I had that worked out I was wrong which is exactly what I want in a thriller! I loved the flashbacks to years Gone by, and how each chapter added another layer of intrigue and storyline. The characters were all well developed, even if they weren’t all likeable they did all make sense. Really well done thriller!

At the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, a body is discovered impaled on railings after a horrific fall from the roof of a house where a party is taking place. Was it a fall? Were they pushed? Who is the victim? The story jumps back in time to follow the story of two friends with a complicated and frankly quite toxic friendship, as one tries to make a name for herself as a judge, while the other wants to set right past misdeeds.

My trouble with this book was that I didn't like the characters very much at all, and the more I learned of how they had behaved in the past, the less I liked them. I don't think it's necessary to like every character in a book, but there has to be an element of caring what happens to them to make the story engaging, and I just found I didn't care at all.

There were a lot of twists in the plot and I did want to read on and find out what had happened, but in the end I found it all quite unsatisfying. It wasn't bad, but I'd expected more and so I was a bit disappointed by it all.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in return for an honest review.