The Midnight Feast – Lucy Foley Book Review

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“Rich people problems. Ruby says they manage to make everything into a drama because when you have no real difficulty in your life you end up creating your own.”

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No author has featured more in our book reviews here at What We Reading than Lucy Foley. Ever since we picked up our copy of The Hunting Party back in November 2022, we’ve been hooked on her ability to create Agatha Christie-like locked room mysteries brimming with eccentric characters hiding shocking, jaw-dropping secrets. And when we saw that her latest release, The Midnight Feast, was on the shelves, we just knew it was a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ we would sink our teeth into it. It’s taken us a little while longer to get around to it, but we finally managed to snag a copy. So, how did this latest thriller featuring paganist cults, glamorous wellness retreats, and dark obsessions stack up on its own merit, and against other Lucy Foley books? Join us for our The Midnight Feast review to find out! 

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Date Published: 2024

Author: Lucy Foley

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Pages: 354

Goodreads Rating: 3.58/5 

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The Midnight Feast Summary

It is the opening night of The Manor, and no expense, big or small, has been spared. The infinity pool sparkles; crystal pouches are handed out for the guests’ healing in the Seaside Cottages and Woodland Hutches, and the “Manor Mule” cocktail is being poured with a heavy hand. Everyone is wearing linen. 

Yet, underneath the burning sun of a scorching summer, darkness stirs. Old friends and enemies circulate amongst the guests. Just outside the Manor’s pristine perimeter, an ancient forest bristles with secrets. And the Sunday morning of the opening weekend, the local police are summoned. Something isn’t right with the guests. There’s been a fire. A body has been found. It all started with a secret, fifteen years ago. Now the past has come to crash the party. And it’ll end in murder. 

What Worked

There’s something so distinctive about Lucy Foley, the way that she writes, and the mysteries that she crafts that we absolutely adore. Similar to books like The Guest List or The Paris Apartment, Foley excels in creating these glitzy and glamorous characters that are all absolutely awful in the best way possible. They’re all selfish, self-centred, callous and judgemental, yet there’s something so indulgent about them, perhaps knowing that their worlds are all about to collapse, that makes a book like The Midnight Feast so delicious. 

Foley does a really great job of bringing the Dorset coast to life in The Midnight Feast. From the luxurious surroundings of the Manor, the sweeping, rugged beauty of the coastline, to the eerie darkness of the surrounding woodland, everything is described in excellent detail, and all tie into the story’s narrative and themes nicely. 

The history and culture of the setting are also done really well here. The influence of old pagan customs and rituals helps flesh out the setting and add to the tension needed to create a convincing, compelling mystery. It takes a while for some of these elements to really begin to shine, but overall, it’s a unique and distinctive environment that serves as a wonderful backdrop for a fun summer read. 

What Didn’t

The first thing to say about The Midnight Feast is that there are a lot of perspectives. These perspectives aren’t just around the Manor during the past and present, but also consist of diary entries and sections from locals. Jumping back and forth in time was something that Foley did well in other books, but here it does slip into exposition and overkill. Something is revealed in the plot, we get a diary entry revealing it, we get another character reacting to it – it can feel repetitive. 

Whilst the overall aesthetic of the book and its characters was typically strong for Foley, the actual main cast we were treated to really didn’t land as well as with other books we’ve read by her. They all felt a bit bland, some of them a bit too one-dimensional, and none of them really housed any of the sort of jaw-dropping secrets we would have come to expect. Francesca, the Manor’s eclectic owner, was undoubtedly the stand-out, but the others just didn’t have the same charisma or layers to them.

Verdict

The Midnight Feast is another fun summer read from one of our favourite authors right now. The setting of Dorset’s beaches and coastlines is beautiful, the elements of pagan cults and rituals from that part of the world were interesting, and the trademark voice in which it delivers its story really hones the ‘rich people behaving badly’ trope. Ultimately, this feels so much like a Lucy Foley mystery novel, and we’re always going to be here for that. 

However, there’s just something about The Midnight Feast that holds us back from saying it is as good as other works like The Paris Apartment or The Hunting Party. The characters are all a little plain, and their motives and secrets just don’t hit as hard as in those other books by Foley. 

The sheer amount of character perspectives is one thing, but the diary entries and other jumps around in POVs probably made the narrative feel a little looser than we would have liked, which is perhaps why it didn’t land as well with us. Overall, we probably were looking and expecting a bit more of a bite to this one. 

Nevertheless, if you’re looking to escape this summer with a fun, decently gripping and easy mystery-thriller, we certainly wouldn’t try and steer you away (even if we did prefer The Paris Apartment!) 

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Our Rating: 4/5

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