Outstanding new novel from Lucy Foley. This is a great book. The past catches up with the present in spectacular fashion. Set in Dorset where I spent my summers I absolutely loved this one.

From the very beginning this book reminded me of Sarah Pearse's Retreat. The setting, the atmosphere, the secrets - they all seemed so familiar. It took me half the book to get rid of this feeling and start enjoying the novel. The plot is unfolding at a good pace, the tension is there, even if there were no shocking revelations (to me at least). This is an entertaining read.

Read if you like;
-Locked room thrillers
-Dual Timelines
-Teenage friendship
-Luxury
-Folklore

After reading The Paris Apartment I knew I had to give this a read! I definitely need to go back and read her previous books!

The Midnight Feast is told in multiple POVs, initially I wasn’t sure what relevance someone of them held. However, as we progressed they all started to make sense.

The chapters are a good length which keeps you invested! With some chapters in diary entries - which I LOVE slowly the revelations are slowly drop fed through the story!

The pacing initially was a little slow for my liking with not a lot happening as I would have liked. However, the author certainly picked up the pace and shocked us!

The manor with its luxury setting, definitely have off paranormal vibes, which I want totally loving at first. However, as we processed those folklore tales really set the scene!

I loved the way one of the things that the story shows us is that no matter the amount of crystals and mediation that if you are a bad person inside nothing is going to dress it up!

Another highly entertaining read by Lucy Foley!
It's a story of murder, mayhem, secrets, revenge, and mysterious birds!

Francesca is wealthy and without a worry in the world. She is launching her new retreat and is married to a gorgeous man, but she has secrets in her past that are about to come back to haunt her. There are many people who want to harm Francesca, but who hates her the most?
What is happening in the woods? Is the folklore that the locals whisper about true?

It all began with a secret fifteen years ago. Now, the past has crashed the party. And it will end in murder at… The Midnight Feast.

I love the quote that this is Agatha Christie for the Instagram age!

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

God I loved this look! Devoured it in a couple of days - total unputdownable page turner. Really satisfying twists along the way and characters that you love to love and love to hate in equal measure. Also feels quite relatable for young people who like a bit of high end luxury.

Found the Paris apartment a bit of a trudge and didn’t enjoy as much as the hunting party or the guest list but this was a definite return to form and can already imagine it as a 3 parter or a movie.

Will definitely be recommended to all my lovers of a modern mystery thriller.

Amazing book.
I’ve always enjoyed Lucy Foley books and this one didn’t disappoint.
Gripping book from the start, took me less than a day to read because I couldn’t put it down.
I enjoyed the multiple POV’s.

A creepy thriller with lots of twists

Thank you for the ARC copy

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the characters within it. I found that I read it super quickly, with the easy to read style by Lucy Foley. I look forward to reading more of Foley's books in the future!

A superb, fast paced read. At the much hyped opening of The Manor all is not as perfect as it seems, it has a past and there are many secrets bubbling beneath the surface. I loved how each chapter is devoted to a main character and how the storyline moves between before and after Midsummer night, it all adds to the mystery and intrigue.

A perfect beach, binge read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read The Midnight Feast.

Wow, what a page turner! As with all of Lucy's previous books this is gripping, imaginative, twisty and turny and a fantastically good read. Told in a dual timeline, both present day and 15 years ago, we slowly learn the secrets of a fateful night deep in the woods, surrounded by local folklore. A must read!

Thank you NetGalley for this advance reader copy in exchange for my free and honest review. Lucy Foley does it again with another thriller that ticks off all the boxes of an amazing novel. Fantastic, relatable characters, detailed and believable storyline, events that pull you in and make you feel the emotions of those in the story, and suspense filled twists and turns you never see coming. Kudos to a fabulous author!

EXCERPT: I have a darkness within me, a violent darkness that I have kept at bay for so long: an inky bottomless well of it like crude oil buried deep, deep beneath the ground. I close my eyes and inhale the smell of burning wood and feathers from the beach and I smile.

ABOUT 'THE MIDNIGHT FEAST': Secrets. Lies. Murder. Let the festivities begin...

Midsummer, the Dorset coast

In the shadows of an ancient wood, guests gather for the opening weekend of The Manor: a beautiful new countryside retreat.

But under the burning midsummer sun, darkness stirs. Old friends and enemies circulate among the guests. And the candles have barely been lit for a solstice supper when the body is found.

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.

MY THOUGHTS: I wanted to like The Midnight Feast more than I did. I did love the final 20% which I just raced through but I felt vaguely irritated by the rest of the book.

The story is told from five points of view: Francesca - the owner of the Manor; Owen - her architect husband; Bella - the guest in Woodlands Hutch #11; Eddie - a local, the dishwasher and aspiring bartender; and Detective Walker - SIO on the case. The storyline unravels over two timelines, 2010 when the characters were teenagers, and the current day.

Eddie was definitely my favorite character. He was likeable, honest and unpretentious. He has a dysfunctional family background and is torn between his allegiance to the locals and his own aspirations.

Detective Walker comes a close second. Although, I'm not really sure how Detective Walker got called in on this case. It wasn't a cold case, which is his forte.

I liked the (basic) plot - it had good bones.

I really disliked the bacchanalian excesses - it just killed this read for me. Also, I'm not sure why the characters took so long to recognise one another.

I could not understand why Sparrow kept returning to Frankie's house when it is perfectly clear that Frankie is a manipulative bully, and her brothers are sexual predators. Why would she even think of going back?

The black feathers were a nice, slightly creepy touch, but much more could have been made of this aspect. I wanted more creepy. Subtle creepy. Spine tingling creepy. There was definitely the scope for it. I liked the nod to Daphne du Maurier's The Birds, which I read again recently.

Although I did love the final 20%, especially that final paragraph, overall I was left feeling vaguely disgruntled.

I usually love Lucy Foley's books and I am not quite sure what went wrong here but The Midnight Feast was only just an okay read for me. Will that stop me reading more from this author? - that's a definite NO. I'll be at the front of the line for her next offering.

⭐⭐⭐

#NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: I came to writing through a love of reading — I previously worked with books as a fiction editor, a literary agent’s assistant, a bookseller and a literary scout!

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Harper Collins UK, Harper Fiction via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Lucy Foley has quickly become a hot topic in thriller fiction. With weaving plotlines dotted with awful people, she deftly delivers a gripping story.
The Midnight Feast has all her usual eerieness, thrills and murder.

Francesca Meadows inherits her grandparents’ manor in rural West of England and transforms it into an exclusive hotel where well-to-do guests have to submit a mini-biography before they can stay. The locals are largely unhappy about the increasing encroachment into their land, giving rise to tensions in the community. Thus the scene is set for this well-plotted thriller with lots of characters and assisted by the mysterious atmosphere of the surrounding woodland. I personally found that the frequent timeline jumps and really short scenes gave it a ‘hoppy’ quality, meaning I couldn’t really get into it. Otherwise, it’s well-written and a good thriller for lovers of the genre.

A moustache twirling mystery set in a fancy pants hotel opposite some dark, witchy woods? How intriguing!

While this wasn't my cup of tea - too many time jumps and narrator switches- I can see mystery lovers enjoying this. There's definitely a good mystery to unravel here.

This is the newest release from Lucy Foley. Of the books I have read previously, I disliked The Hunting Party, liked The Guest List and loved The Paris Apartment. The premise of this one sounded intriguing and I was excited to get stuck in.

Francesca has developed the site of The Manor into an exclusive, luxury countryside retreat. A Midnight Feast event is taking place for the opening weekend which is happening over the summer solstice.

The book opens with a body being found at the bottom of the nearby cliffs and Lucy Foley weaves the story of who has ended up there and reasons why. The book is told following a number of different perspectives of people connected to The Manor. It follows a present day timeline and one set 15 years earlier in 2010.

I loved the experience of reading this book. The setting on the Dorset coast was great and I loved the atmosphere. I thought the use of local folklore worked really well too. I particularly enjoyed the short chapters, which despite the initial slow build of the mystery, made it fly by. I did not see all of the twists coming, although clues were there and I thought the twists were really good.

I think this one of my favourite mysteries I have read this year and probably my favourite of the Lucy Foley books I’ve read to date. A great page-turner for the summer!

I am rating this book 4.5 stars (rounded up to 5 stars).

Thank you to the publisher, HarperCollins UK, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own

If you’re looking for a gripping page-turner for the summer holidays then look no further!! I was absolutely hooked and loved all the twists and turns to this new thriller from Lucy Foley.

Francesca Meadows has inherited her family’s vast property on the coast and turned it into the most luxurious and expensive holiday retreat with only the finest organic ingredients, exclusive treatments and signature scents! She is zen personified! On the outside at least…

When the mysterious Bella checks in for the opening weekend, and the undesirable locals start causing mayhem for being shut out of their own beach and woods, things begin to unravel for Francesca. And the truth behind what happened at The Manor 15 years ago is about due to be exposed…

I loved the fast pace of this excellent thriller - the viewpoints of multiple characters who were all not quite what they seemed. Francesca was great to read - from a hilarious caricature to a woman driven mad from anger and the need to survive and triumph over everyone. And the diary entries from that summer 15 years ago worked really well to slowly build up the picture of who Francesca really is and what has brought all these people from the past back together.

Some of the scenes with The Birds were totally terrifying and I never guessed what was going on. There were so many surprised and I loved how everything came together and was explained by the end. A really clever and entertaining read!

Another tremendous thriller from the excellent Lucy Foley. The idea of past events coming back to haunt people in the present is a common enough trope in crime fiction but it is handled here in a refreshing and enthralling way. The array of characters is fascinating, the secrets are revealed bit by bit and the final outcome is shocking! Great stuff.

This was an average thriller. I expect so much more from a Lucy Foley. Everything just felt a bit half arsed and not very fleshed out.

I have loved many a Lucy Foley but this one just missed the mark for me slightly. As always I loved the different character viewpoints and the changes in time and place but the referral to “the birds” just felt almost forced into the storyline.
The ending felt like it wrapped up a little quickly.
Not a bad one but not my fave of Lucy’s!
Thank you for the ARC copy.

Overall an enjoyable read with an interesting setting and cast of characters. There were moments that felt a little disjointed but it came together in the end