We’ve been very lucky here at What We Reading that every book we’ve read, we’ve enjoyed. Even the books that we’ve found issues with have managed to stand out with an identity of their own (looking at you, Reprieve). Sadly, we can’t say the same for Harriet Tyce’s 2022 thriller, It Ends At Midnight. Join us for our It Ends At Midnight book review for the good, the bad, and our full verdict!
Date Published: 2022
Author: Harriet Tyce
Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Pages: 320
Goodreads Rating: 3.59/5
Premise
It Ends At Midnight is set up with two bodies being found impaled on a railing after a New Year’s Eve party.
Going back in time the book follows Sylvie, a high-flying barrister in a relationship with a caterer called Gareth. Her world is flipped on her head one day when her best friend, Tess, reveals she has a brain tumour. Two of her dying wishes are to renew her wedding vows with her husband Marcus, and make amends with a girl she and Sylvie wronged during their college days, Emma.
Told through Sylvie’s present-day accounts as well as several flashbacks to the past, It Ends At Midnight is a thriller-mystery that pulls the curtain back on who the two victims are, and the ‘how’ and ‘why’ they have ended up at the foot of the building.
What Worked
Off the bat, this was a book we did not get on with. In fact, it was the first time since launching What We Reading we were considering putting it down as a DNF. But, we think it’s only right we give every book a chance from the first page to the last and, thankfully, It Ends At Midnight is a book that gets better as you go along.
Parts two and three of the book were far better than the first, really giving the impression that author Harriet Tyce hit her stride as she was going.
If you’ve read our The Hunting Party review, you also know we’re big fans of stories that don’t reveal who the victims at the end are until the end. It adds another layer of suspicion to each character, and the novel definitely did a solid job of casting the spotlight on most of the figures at various points.
Without wanting to spoil too much, the book also attempts to layer in elements of an unreliable narrator. Whilst we didn’t think it was as impactful as it could have been, it did add an extra dimension to leave readers with.
What Didn’t
Now on to the parts, we didn’t like.
For starters, this book is steamy. Every single chapter seems to have a detailed account of Sylvie either getting off with someone or getting absolutely trollied. It contributes in general to Sylvie being one of the worst protagonists we’ve read: she gets pushed around, acts unprofessional and
And then there’s the issue of Sylvie and her relationship with Tess. The pair are supposedly best friends, and their relationship acts as the driver for all the events in the book. However, neither in the past nor the present does they ever act remotely like close mates.
Tess spends all her time undermining her friend, whilst Sylvie is constantly going about how much she resents her. Every decision or step forward in the book is made by Sylvie going: ‘well, I really don’t want to, but Tess could have a tumour and she’s my friend’.
Ultimately, no one, at any age, would put up with what these characters do to one another. It makes the whole read really hard to immerse into, and even harder to sympathise with.
Verdict
The good news is that, halfway into the book, this review was shaping up to be so much more negative than it turned out.
There are some ambitious things at play, which we always appreciate, but they don’t quite work as well as they could have done. For the most part, however, this is a guilty pleasure sort of easy mystery-thriller read that we’re sure plenty of people will enjoy sinking their teeth into. We just didn’t.
The characters are all beyond unlikeable, their actions are all incredibly self-motivated and the lack of sincerity between any of them makes investing in their stories hard. The twists were generally worthwhile, though hardly Earth-shattering, though ultimately how bad of a character Sylvie is what really lets the book down the most.
Our Rating: 2.5/5
Looking for another mystery thriller read? Check out our The Dinner Guest review!
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
