4.5 stars

Holy moly!! Ashley Winstead does it again 👏

Her writing is phenomenal. I couldn't put this book down. I loved the FMC and MMC, Ruthie & Everett.

The religious aspect and small town worked so well. And let me tell you that ending 🤯

Thanks to NetGalley, HarperCollins Canada & Sourcebooks Landmark for advance copies in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed the atmosphere of the book, but the characters were incredibly frustrating and flat, despite the drama. The conceit of the book kept it moving, but it all felt a little unbelievable. I also thought the ambiguous ending was a bit of a cop out.

Captivating Southern Gothic thriller that will leave you on the edge of the seat from start to finish - you're not ready for this one folks!

WOW, this was a creepy journey and I loved every moment. Winstead does a fantastic job transporting the reader to this small town in Louisiana and into the path of these troubled, conflicted people. The writing is so atmospheric and detailed. The character development is authentic. My favorite surprise were all the "Twilight" references :)

If you liked Verity, Flicker in the Dark, or any of other books by Winstead, GET YOUR HANDS ON THIS ONE!

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for this Advanced Readers Copy of Midnight is the Darkest Hour by Ashley Winstead!

This book was not a good fit for me.

I thought the premise of this sounded amazing, but the pace was very slow, and I didn't really care about any of the characters. Ruth's reasoning for staying trapped in that miserable town, under her father's churchy thumb, didn't make a whole lot of sense, and the open-ended ending was infuriating, especially after the amount of time it took me to slog my way through.

Loads of other early reviewers LOVED this (as well as her two previous thrillers), so I'm coming to the realization that Winstead is maybe not the author for me when she's writing thrillers -- I did, however, really enjoy her first romcom, Fool Me Once!

Ugh, this one pains me to write 😣

I adored Ashley’s first two books and 1000% assumed Midnight would be exactly the same…

Sadly, something got lost in translation between me and this book 😞

I just didn’t get it. However, many early reviews are raving about it and I’m so glad it’s speaking to y’all 🤍

My hang-ups:

• Nothing really happened until ~70% in.

• Billed as a thriller, but mostly felt like a coming-of-age story about two friends (with some mystery, occult, and shady small-town dealings thrown in).

• I had trouble connecting with Ruth, who never seemed particularly sure of herself, her feelings, or what she wanted for most of the book 🤷🏼‍♀️

I unfortunately did not enjoy this story. This felt like Bible camp meets Forks, Washington and the way Twilight wasn’t just mentioned but part of the plot really turned me off.

There were actual quotes from Twilight in this book and the FMC romanticized it to the point that she didn’t think her love interest was human.

The anti-female rhetoric was a bit much, the plot didn’t make any discernible sense, the characters were caricatures of Edward and Bella, and I felt that this was a drag and hard to read.

There were some redeemable twists, but I also did not enjoy the ending.

Thank you NetGalley, Sourcebooks, and Ashley Winstead for proving me with this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thanks to Net Galley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an advanced copy of Midnight Is the Darkest Hour by Ashley Winstead. This book will be published on October 3, 2023.

This book is a deeply atmospheric Southern Gothic thriller that totally captivated me. It has ties to religion, the occult, and the Twilight book.

Ashley Winstead is quickly becoming one of my go-to authors for twisty thrillers! The ending was magnificent!

I greatly disliked the relationship between the main character and Everett. When it wasn’t boring me, it was irritating me. It didn’t help that Barry was in the middle “complicating” things.
Beyond that, I didn’t like jumping backward and forward through time. Just as I was getting into one timeline, it’d switch to the other.
I read the whole thing(the ending is so over the top melodramatic) but this book had lost my interest by the 30% mark.

Ashley is definitely known for handling hard topics and usually packs her books full of trigger warnings, and this one is no different.

She hasn't been the author for me, but I still keep reading her books. I think this is my favorite of hers. The small town and cult vibes were done well and I really did enjoy this one.

The only reason it didn't get 5 stars is because the ending dropped off a little bit and became slow. She's an amazing writer and is talented as hell.

This one wasn’t for me, I think. I couldn’t really connect to the story and writing. But that’s may, we will still purchase for the collection as I know we have patrons that will really enjoy this novel.

Ashley Winstead does well with multiple genres, creating stories that pull you in and and don't let go. Midnight is the Darkest Hour wasn't my favorite of her books, but it kept my interest throughout and I really enjoyed the setting.

Midnight is the Darkest Hour by Ashley Winstead, set in fictional small town, Bottom Springs, Louisiana, is a creepy tale of religious fervor, dark secrets, town lore, and family dysfunction. While a slow beginning, the last quarter of the book picks up speed and ends with a bang.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I read In My Dreams I Hold a Knife like 18 months ago. Since then, I’ve been enthralled with Ashley Winstead’s work. I read an arc of The Last Housewife and was thrilled to get access to this arc to see if it also would fit in with the others in my wee bookstore. One of my most favourite things about Winstead is that she uses the thriller/suspense/mystery genre to examine real things in a really honest, truthful way.

This book is doing A LOT of things, but in my opinion, accomplishing them masterfully. The examination in this book of religious fundamentalism, of hypocrisy, of power, of the belief in the ends justifying the means, of the ways that bad men get away with things, of the inclination to take things into your own hands - it’s all extremely incisive and poignant. I personally don’t agree with the comps here, mostly because I HATED Where the Crawdads Sing (I think Owens is 1000% less thoughtful about her writing); I will never read a Colleen Hoover book but I’ve heard about Verity and strong disagree; and while I think Flicker in the Dark is the closest of the three, I didn’t find it necessarily as intentional or perceptive as Midnight is the Darkest Hour. I really enjoyed it and I can’t wait to see more from Winstead.

This book has been described as a crime thriller, which I will say is accurate, but it is one with a surprising amount of depth which for me places this above many of the other books I have read in this genre.

The book is told in a non-linear fashion, with one narrator: Ruth Cornier, the sheltered daughter of a small Louisiana swampland town's pastor, and the most powerful man in town. Ruth has lived a lonely life, escaping into books that her father hasn't managed to have banned or burned, subject to his preaching and corporal punishment if she ever dared to live her life outside of the strict code of her father's (and the town's) Christian fundamentalism. But when a skull is dredged up from the swamp, and another swiftly follows, the secrets that have been kept in the swamp begin to come to light. Ruth and her friend, Everett Duncan, another outcast who is the son of an alcoholic who avoids church and therefore might as well be the Devil incarnate, need to investigate the murders to protect their own secrets.

At first, the book almost lost me early on when Ruth explains how as a teenager she became obsessed with Twilight and how she thought the love that Bella and Edward had was pure and a real love (which I couldn't really take seriously although I suppose from the perspective of a teenage girl it does make sense). It was also a secret she kept because of course her father would call the book satanic. I am glad that I stuck with it though, because I think the fact that Twilight was itself written by a strictly religious person, and the themes of Eve, of monsters, and morality tied in nicely with this story. Ruth is constantly confronted with the "morality" of religion, of the law, and of nature itself with the background of the wilderness in the Louisiana swamps. In the end, neither religion nor law, created by men, can hold up in the face of those who seek only power and who love to hurt others because it makes them feel good. The reader has to confront their own morality in a way when faced with this town of supposed God-fearing Christians with something rotten and dark running through it. Sometimes the beasts aren't in the swamp, but are in our churches, our schools, our homes. Sometimes we have to create our own justice. The author did a great job with these themes, and I loved the setting.

I loved this novel by Ashley Winstead!! I have only read her romances and as an avid mystery/thriller reader I was really excited to dive into her darker fiction. I found the writing to be absolutely gorgeous and highlighted several passages, which I find myself doing very rarely in this genre. I found her characters to be really well rounded and truly interesting, everyone was flawed and twisted in the best way. The town and religion itself felt like a character which added to the dark atmosphere and ominous vibe. The murder mystery aspect was a good through line to keep the plot going while giving us flashbacks to flush out the story. I found it to be propulsive and would highly recommend to anyone who is doing a dark character study and group think!

4.5 stars. Midnight is the Darkest Hour was kind of like a cross between Twilight and Bonnie and Clyde. But also Thelma and Louise mixed with Where the Crawdads Sing. I also think fans of Stacey Willingham’s Flicker in the Dark will find a lot of enjoyed with MITDH as well. Basically, if that sounds like a wild combo, it’s because this book was WILD. It’s hard for me to really review this without giving anything away. And Winstead does such a good job of divulging information at exactly the right moment, so I really don’t want to spoil anything. But also… that ENDING 🙈.

Let me start by saying that Midnight is The Darkest Hour is the perfect read for Fall and spooky season. It’s gothic and romantic at the same time. There are also dead bodies and bad guys, religious zealots and satanic/Wiccan rituals, as well as characters that personify innocence, but also those that personify depravity. As such, definitely check the trigger warnings if there is any subject matter that might effect you. MITDH was super fast paced and there were a lot of surprises I didn’t see coming— which for my personal preference is a requirement for a successful thriller. There are tons of flashback scenes that help provide important contextual information to the present day plot. Normally, I don’t enjoy flashbacks, but these were essential and actually kept the pace of the book moving rather than stagnating things. In addition to crafting a compelling plot with multi-dimensional characters, the writing itself was also beautiful, poetic, and haunting. I’ve read several books from Winstead, and they’ve all been winners. Midnight is the Darkest Hour is yet another example of how she excels at her craft.

Thank you so much to Winstead, Sourcebooks, and Netgalley for the chance to read this one early.

“In her small hometown, librarian Ruth Cornier has always felt like an outsider, even as her beloved father rains fire-and-brimstone warnings from the pulpit at Holy Fire Baptist.

Unfortunately for Ruth, the only things the townspeople fear more than the God and the Devil are the myths that haunt the area, like the story of the Low Man, a vampiric figure said to steal into sinners' bedrooms and kill them on moonless nights. When a skull is found deep in the swamp next to mysterious carved symbols, Bottom Springs is thrown into uproar—and Ruth realizes only she and Everett, an old friend with a dark past, have the power to comb the town's secret underbelly in search of true evil.”

I have read both romances and thrillers from Ashley Winstead and trust me when I say she can do no wrong! Ashley transports you to south and makes you feel like you’re sitting in a pew of a Baptist church. Her descriptive writing is ✨chefs kiss✨. She is a pro at having multiple plot lines that collide and create an amazing, explosive ending. Also every book she writes forces me to have a new book boyfriend and Ever is that boyfriend. I love his and Ruth’s relationship. He shows Ruth that she does have a voice in her own life and men do not own her. I also love that she weaves together the southern Baptist religion as well as the spirituality and folklore of the Low Man. And the freaking ending 🤯🤯🤯. Seriously get this book for your October TBR because you do NOT want to miss out on this one

Are you lamenting the loss of ‘Riverdale?’ Well let this book fill the Archie & Veronica sized hole in your heart! We got snake themed biker gangs, we got drug runners, we got evil dads and young people pulling off ridiculous, complicated, illegal things so often you will have to pause every few chapters and say “WHAT?!” out loud to your dog.

Was it fun? Yeah, a little fun. The best parts are when Everett is around. He is 10 times more interesting than Ruth who is so painfully naive and many steps behind both Ever and the reader throughout most of the book.

Some missed opportunities to get across how lonely and desperate the women of Bottom Springs were, and it would have been nice to have the women of the town play a bigger role in the conclusion.

Had the author just picked one of the dozens of bonkers things taken on by these characters I would have loved it. But it all felt claustrophobic by the end. A quieter, more subtle ending would have been chilling.

Overall it felt like a second draft, there is lots of potential here but it misses the mark overall.