Midnight Is the Darkest Hour

✮✮✮✮

Nov 17

Midnight Is the Darkest Hour - Ashley Winstead

my review : ✮✮✮✮

I was hooked on this book by the second chapter. It differs from any thriller I’ve read and was a wild and unpredictable ride. This is by the author of In My Dreams I Hold a Knife (dark academia) and The Last Housewife (sex cult book). She also has written a few romances—talk about an author with range! This book makes it very clear that the author does not like being confined to one genre. In the blurb, the book is compared to Thelma and Louise, Twilight, and Where the Crawdads Sing. I went into the book a bit apprehensive because it felt virtually impossible to pull off a book that brings to mind so many different stories in a good way. I had no need to fear! This book was excellent; the writing was addicting, the pacing was perfect, and I was enamored with the story from the beginning.

The story is about the small God-fearing town of Bottom Springs, Louisiana. Ruth is the preacher’s daughter and has lived a life of deference and submission to her parents and the church. We meet Ruth as a 25-year-old woman as she learns with the rest of the town that a skull has been dredged up from deep in the swamp, and it seems the victim was brutally murdered. The town is turned on its head, and the response leads Ruth to realize she is the key to figuring out what evil really lurks in Bottom Springs.

This story was dark and addicting and virtually impossible to put down, truly a perfect companion on an October night. It didn’t keep me up at night, but the subject matter was heavy and intense. The book is a little insane, but that’s the fun of fiction!