Middle Of The Night.

 

 

★★★★

 4.5 ★

The worst thing to ever happen on Hemlock Circle occurred in Ethan Marsh’s backyard. One July night, ten-year-old Ethan and his best friend and neighbor, Billy, fell asleep in a tent set up on a manicured lawn in a quiet, quaint New Jersey cul de sac. In the morning, Ethan woke up alone. During the night, someone had sliced the tent open with a knife and taken Billy. He was never seen again.

Thirty years later, Ethan has reluctantly returned to his childhood home. Plagued by bad dreams and insomnia, he begins to notice strange things happening in the middle of the night. Someone seems to be roaming the cul de sac at odd hours, and signs of Billy’s presence keep appearing in Ethan’s backyard. Is someone playing a cruel prank? Or has Billy, long thought to be dead, somehow returned to Hemlock Circle? 

The mysterious occurrences prompt Ethan to investigate what really happened that night, a quest that reunites him with former friends and neighbors and leads him into the woods that surround Hemlock Circle. Woods where Billy claimed monsters roamed and where a mysterious institute does clandestine research on a crumbling estate. 

The closer Ethan gets to the truth, the more he realizes that no place—be it quiet forest or suburban street—is completely safe. And that the past has a way of haunting the present. 

 

 🌼

  Mysterious. 

This novel took me by surprise. When I first took up this book, I wasn't sure what to think. I have only read two books written by Riley Sager. You will be captivated by the story from the first page. As a reader, you will wonder, 'Who took Billy?' and 'What was their motive?' At least, those were the questions I kept asking myself while reading the book. Like Ethan, I wanted to know what happened to Billy. I wondered if there was a reason why someone took him; perhaps someone disliked him or was jealous of him? Like Ethan, I wonder if Billy is still alive after all these years, or at least I want to believe he is. I couldn't believe that a ten-year-old boy went missing from someone's backyard and no one saw anything. I had considered that it was someone Billy knew and trusted. 

I enjoyed how the story alternated between the past and the present. Even though the plot moved to the day Billy went missing, it became more intriguing. By middle of the story, I was suspicious of almost everybody in Hemlock Circle, and I knew that each of them was hiding something. By the middle of the story, I had grown skeptical of nearly everyone in Hemlock Circle and was certain that they were all hiding something. The reveal was not at all what I had assumed had happened to Billy. I was just as surprised by this unexpected turn of events as Ethan had been. Once you start reading Middle of the Night, it's not a book that you can put down easily. 

I did feel like some parts dragged on, but just for a few pages. Otherwise, I like this story, and I can see why so many people were talking about it. I'm delighted I had the chance to read this book. I'm eager to see what the author has in store for us next.