The Other Side of Midnight by Simone St. James

The Other Side of MidnightNarrated by Mary Jane Wells

Simone St. James’ fourth novel, The Other Side of Midnight, is an absolutely superb listen all round. The story is fascinating, beautifully-written and well-plotted with a twist I didn’t see coming; and paired with a wonderfully engaging and superbly acted performance from Mary Jane Wells, I was in audio heaven for all of its ten hours.

The years following World War One saw an explosion in the interest in spiritualism as people who had lost loved ones in the conflict grasped at anything that might enable them to communicate with their deceased fathers, sons and lovers. As a result, there were numerous charlatans only too willing to take advantage of this desperation, but Ellie Winter and her one-time friend, Gloria Sutter, are not among them.

Both women are true psychics, and Gloria establishes herself a glamorous reputation as well as a large roster of clients for whom she regularly holds séances and summons the dead. But Ellie prefers to live quietly and although she also has the gift, since the death of her mother (also a medium) and her falling out with Gloria, she no longer performs the same services, preferring instead to make her living by finding lost things. She is suspicious of her newest client, thinking that perhaps he is a journalist looking for a story, and is stunned when he admits to being Gloria’s elder brother, George. He tells Ellie that Gloria is dead – likely murdered, and that before she died, she left him a note saying “Tell Ellie Winter to find me.”

As the book is a mystery, I don’t want to give away too much about the plot, save to say that it’s gripping and incredibly well thought-out. Ellie is a terrific heroine – intelligent, brave and very real, a young woman who has spent the three years since her mother’s death living a lonely life. What makes her so easy to relate to is the way her determination to find out the truth carries her through her fears; she is often scared, but knows she is the only person who can do what needs to be done in order to find out who murdered Gloria and why.

Her initial investigations bring her back into contact with James Hawley, a handsome former army officer whose work at the New Society for the Furtherance of Psychical Research had, three years earlier, branded her and her mother as frauds. James has never forgotten Ellie; even though his tests had shown her to have no true psychic ability, he was never quite sure of his findings, and has, over the years, become more and more convinced that somehow Ellie’s test results were wrong. Ellie has never forgiven him for writing the reports that destroyed her mother’s livelihood, yet she has also never forgotten the way he’d looked at her the night they first met and the strength of the feelings he’d awakened in her.

James is an attractive hero, clever, reliable and with an unexpectedly dry sense of humour, but he has his crosses to bear, too, having found it incredibly difficult to adjust to life after the war. He has been strongly drawn to Ellie from the first, and wants to help her in her quest to find Gloria’s killer. Although she is initially wary of him, she gradually comes to see that his desire to help is genuine and that he’s someone she can trust.

When I reviewed Silence for the Dead at All About Romance, I said that Ms St. James seemed to be almost single-handedly revitalising the gothic romantic novel. The Other Side of Midnight is another example of her mastery of the genre, and is possibly my favourite of her books so far. All the different elements of the story – the mystery, the supernatural and the romance – are drawn together perfectly so that no one of them overshadows the others, the pacing is excellent and all the characters are strongly drawn. The story of Ellie’s friendship with Gloria is revealed gradually, in a series of flashbacks which evoke the hedonism of the “bright young things” of the post-war era, and the slow-burn romance between Ellie and James is imbued with a lovely, sweet sensuality.

The writing flows beautifully, and the descriptions are lush, evocative and almost poetic at times:

“It was a house that had stood for a hundred years, the picture of bucolic English gentility, and it was easy to picture an old gentleman smoking his pipe while his wife puttered in the garden.”

– and she is also able to create the most incredibly menacing, spine-tingling atmosphere without being overly graphic or obvious. My one small complaint is that for a book in which the author has clearly spent a lot of time researching the geography of 1920s London, the use of the word “sidewalk” and one or two other Americanisms is jarring and sticks out like a sore thumb.

Mary Jane Wells is a favourite narrator of mine, and having thoroughly enjoyed her performance in Silence for the Dead, I was delighted to see her name attached to this audiobook. The narrative is well-paced and expressive, and she inhabits the character of Ellie, bringing her vividly to life in the mind’s eye in a performance that is so brilliantly realised overall that I really can’t fault it. Her characterisations are all extremely good, and she makes excellent use of a variety of tones, timbres and regional accents throughout. Both Ellie and James are Londoners and not of the upper-classes, and her choice to give them both less polished, cockney-esqe accents reflects this perfectly. She doesn’t lower the pitch of her voice very much for the male characters, but she invests them with an inherent masculinity by adding a slight edge and somehow “broadening” her tone. George Sutter and Inspector Merriken (whom listeners may recall from An Inquiry into Love and Death), are determined men, authority figures who speak with more refined accents and whose delivery is usually quite clipped. I loved Ms Wells’ portrayal of Davies, Gloria’s assistant, a woman with a deadpan sense of humour and no time for fools, who speaks with a loud, slightly nasal and perfectly contemptuous drawl. I also liked the way she chose to portray the villain of the piece; his quiet, considered manner of speaking perfectly conveying that this is an incredibly dangerous man.

In short, if you have never listened to a story by Simone St. James before, then this would be a great place to start. The story is compelling and the narration is superb. What more can one ask for?

Caz


Narration: A

Book Content: A

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in (but very tame)

Violence: Minimal – flashbacks to wartime

Genre: Romantic mystery with paranormal elements

Publisher: Blackstone Audio

 

The Other Side of Midnight was provided to AudioGals by Blackstone Audio for review.

11 thoughts on “The Other Side of Midnight by Simone St. James

  1. OMG – I just started listening to this yesterday while doing laundry and the (never ending) ironing and it is so good! Got it from the library after reading a review (somewhere) online but prior to that I had never heard of this author … I know, I need to get out more. Anyway, I keep picturing Phryne Fisher in my mind (love that show) and am looking forward to listening to her other books. So glad to see another great rec for this book.

    1. Nice to know I’m not the only one who listens while tackling the ironing pile!

      If you haven’t listened to Silence for the Dead yet, I can wholeheartedly recommend that, too.

    1. Thanks :). I’m a big fan of this author thanks to her last book, Silence for the Dead. I didn’t think the narrator for Maddy Clare was as good as MJW – I hope they stick with her for future books.

      1. Alas, I can only buy the CDs of this author’s audiobooks – no download for me, so it’s far less likely I’ll get to listen to them.

  2. I just finished this audiobook which I thought was so well written. I didn’t pick up on the Americanisms in this book but I do appreciate how these details can irritate the reader and yet it must be quite difficult for an author to weed out these oversights. What did seem strange to me was the pronounciation of ‘proven’ so many times (sort of like ‘provide’) which when I looked it up online is supposed to be more of a Scottish way of saying it? Did anybody else find that strange?

    1. The book is so obviously well researched that it’s a shame when little things let it down. I can’t believe, in this age of the internet that it was impossible for SOMEONE not to correct those US/UK errors.

      As to “proven”; I’m a Londoner and “proh-ven” is the way I’ve always heard and said it. I’ve never heard “prooven”.
      But as I’m sure you’re aware, British English is full of these little foibles :)

  3. Another one! Nooooo Caz! I’m working my way through your earlier reviews and am almost relieved when you don’t give double a’s and now you have…again! Lovely review…SOLD????

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