Andrew Smith's Reviews > The Midnight Feast

Francesca Meadows is readying herself and also hustling her team of helpers in anticipation of a celebration feast to mark the opening of her luxury hotel. She’d inherited the Manor from her grandparents and has subsequently invested a good deal of time (and money) transforming this familial coastal estate into a retreat for those with deep pockets. The guests are now in place, amongst them the mysterious Bella, someone who seems to have something of a history with this place, and with Francesca.

We’ll learn how events play out through the eyes of Francesca and Bella, but also through Francesca’s husband, Owen, and a local kitchen helper called Eddie. To some extent it’s hard to like any of the major protagonists, with the possible exception of Eddie: their behaviours are almost always self-serving and very often inappropriate. But the story is told with its tongue often firmly in its cheek, so I’m inclined to forgive it this characteristic. It’s at once wryly amusing, somewhat shocking and intriguingly mysterious.

Some of the locals are not happy that Francesca has sealed off access to areas they’ve always treated as communal, including a stretch of beach. They’re not going to take this lying down, so some disruption to the evening’s proceedings is possible. As we near what promises to be the highlight of the weekend, we also learn more of the history of this place, and some of these people, through a series of diary entries, written by a teenage girl who spent some time here whilst on holiday quite a few years back.

Foley draws these threads together skillfully and eventually leads us to a truly dramatic finish. This is a psychological thriller that pits a selfish need for social status against a desire to right historical wrongs. It’s really very well done. I listened to an audio version, brilliantly narrated by a team of actors.

My thanks to HarperCollins UK Audio for providing a copy of this audiobook via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.