{"product_id":"the-midnight-hour-isbn-9780593976234","title":"The Midnight Hour","description":"\u003cb\u003eIn this thrilling, richly woven novel that spans from bustling London streets to the boulevards of Paris, a woman with a dark family secret tries to turn back the hands of time before it's too late.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“A wonderful twisty novel of family and secrets—the perfect summer read.”—Kate Morton, bestselling author of\u003ci\u003e Homecoming \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNotting Hill, London: One May evening, seventeen-year-old Maggie Parker's mother walks out of their front door and doesn't return. With her little brother in tow, desperate to find their mother, Maggie is drawn into a labyrinthine world of secondhand shops and shadowy figures, far from the grand townhouses in her comfortable neighborhood. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Maggie struggles to maintain a stable life for herself and her brother, she befriends Wolf, another young person also living on his wits alone. But can he help solve the mystery of her mother’s disappearance—or will her growing feelings for him just cause her further pain, upending her life even more? When she discovers that her beloved house now holds a dangerous new secret, and Wolf is involved, Maggie, heartbroken, makes her escape. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwenty-one years later, in her Paris apartment, Maggie gets a phone call that shatters her hard-won new life. While in London, the incoming owner of the Parkers' old Notting Hill house is excavating the basement, unaware of what might lie beneath—and the clock starts ticking on buried secrets.“A gripping tale of family secrets.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Woman’s Own\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Passionately emotional, dreamily written and dripping with boho glamour.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Daily Mail\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A gripping read, with each tantalizing thread eventually coming together.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—The Sunday Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Mesmerizing—a book you want to race back to.”\u003cb\u003e—Lisa Jewell, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eNone of This Is True \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’m always so excited for a new Eve Chase book and \u003ci\u003eThe Midnight Hour \u003c\/i\u003eis her best yet, beautifully written with characters that jumped off the page and a clever mystery that kept me gripped. I loved every word.”\u003cb\u003e—Claire Douglas, \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eThe Girls Who Disappeared\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Absorbing and compulsive . . . a writer at the top of her game and a novel to stir your nostalgic nineties heart . . . I loved every page!”\u003cb\u003e—Hazel Gaynor, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eThe Last Lifeboat\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A wonderful, twisty novel of family and secrets—the perfect summer read.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Kate Morton, \u003c\/i\u003ebestselling author of\u003ci\u003e Homecoming \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I adored every word of this beautifully written, immersive family mystery.”\u003cb\u003e—Gill Paul, author of \u003ci\u003eScandalous Women\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“The Midnight Hour\u003c\/i\u003e is an intricate family drama with Eve Chase’s trademark lyricism, disheveled, dysfunctional glamour and beguiling characters. Emotionally astute and beautifully descriptive with a plot as tightly sprung as a Swiss watch, this will put Notting Hill back on the map.”\u003cb\u003e—Veronica Henry\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Evocative, beautifully written and absolutely gripping, \u003ci\u003eThe Midnight Hour\u003c\/i\u003e is sensational—her best yet.”\u003cb\u003e—Rosie Walsh, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eThe Love of My Life\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An Eve Chase novel is always a sumptuous treat, and \u003ci\u003eThe Midnight Hour\u003c\/i\u003e is perhaps her best yet. This is a novel to immerse yourself in this summer: lush, evocative, nostalgic; gripping, with a dark undercurrent, but ultimately redemptive and hopeful. It’s a true treat of a book.”\u003cb\u003e—Sarah Vaughan, author of \u003ci\u003eAnatomy of a Scandal \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eReputation\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“The Midnight Hour\u003c\/i\u003e has all the brooding allure of a Daphne du Maurier novel and all the wonderfully English eccentricity of a Richard Curtis movie. Eve Chase is at the top of her game in this twisty mystery about broken families, first love, the burdens of fame, and secrets never to be told.”\u003cb\u003e—Elizabeth Fremantle, author of \u003ci\u003eDisobedient \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eQueen’s Gambit\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I loved \u003ci\u003eThe Midnight Hour\u003c\/i\u003e, a gripping, beautifully written novel. . . . A summer must-read.”\u003cb\u003e—Sarah Pearse, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Sanatorium\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Retreat\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Exceptional . . . moody, evocative, with a dreamlike quality no other author can master.”\u003cb\u003e—Gillian McAllister, author of \u003ci\u003eWrong Place Wrong Time\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This mesmerizing mystery from Chase traces the story of an eccentric British family across two decades. . . . With poetic prose and a sweeping scope, Chase reveals the Parker family’s secrets at a tantalizing pace.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Publishers Weekly, \u003c\/i\u003estarred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eEve Chase\u003c\/b\u003e is an internationally bestselling British novelist who writes rich, layered, and suspenseful novels, thick with secrets, unforgettable characters, and settings. Her previous novels include \u003ci\u003eThe Birdcage; The Daughters of Foxcote Manor\u003c\/i\u003e, which was a \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e top ten bestseller and Richard and Judy Book Club pick in the UK; \u003ci\u003eThe Wildling Sisters\u003c\/i\u003e, which was longlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award; and \u003ci\u003eBlack Rabbit Hall,\u003c\/i\u003e winner of Paris's Saint-Maur en Poche prize for Best Foreign Fiction.\u003cb\u003e1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMaggie\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eParis, May 22, 2019\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAny danger has surely passed. Cycling into the unfolding Paris morning, Maggie can breathe easily again. She’d been dreading yesterday’s anniversary. But here she is on the other side. Weirdly fine. Maggie knows, as people who have survived things do, that fine is everything. A quiet triumph. She takes nothing for granted. Not the sun glitter on the Seine. The rhythmic brush of a horse-­chestnut leaf, stuck in her front bicycle wheel. The waft of coffee. Paris. Life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRising from the saddle, Maggie stands on the pedals and cycles faster, her blouse sleeves swelling with air, the river’s truffle tang. Her oversize sunglasses—­Le Bon Marché sale, a rare present to herself—­slip down her nose and she thumbs them up. The bicycle wobbles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlthough capricious, with iffy brakes, Maggie’s secondhand vélo is the perfect red of a Parisian’s lipstick, so she loves it. Bouncing inside its front basket is an unraveling straw tote, flopping open to reveal a baguette, a honking Camembert, and a stuffed bag of peaches, perilously perched and seeping in the early-­summer heat. Reaching to nudge them back in, Maggie’s fingertips touch their downy skin, and she starts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePeaches. Something inside Maggie snags, like a chain unexpectedly shifting from one gear to the next. She’d buy her mother peaches at the market. Carry them home in a brown paper bag that would disintegrate in the London drizzle. For a vivid moment, she sees her mother holding a peach in her long, elegant fingers. Her small smile of anticipation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrown by this—­how can the past arrive in a bag of peaches?—­Maggie swerves to the left, just missing an overtaking cyclist. Over his rattle of fast-­fire French, her phone rings. Voicemail nips the call. A second later, it goes again. Since Maggie is incapable of leaving a phone unanswered—­a neurosis baked into her two decades earlier—­she brakes abruptly by the riverbank, where the young and beautiful smoke and loll, and fishes inside her bag. No caller ID. “Hello?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It’s me.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou. That voice—­husky, London—­reaches deep inside, steals the air from her lungs. “Hey,” she manages, after a beat, as if they’d last spoken a week ago, not years before.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe’s changed his number since: she’s tried it, more than once, just to see. Maggie is glad she’s never changed hers. So many questions. Is he married? Kids? Would he still fit the lumberjack shirt she keeps hidden at the back of her drawer? All she’s got. No photos: they didn’t back then. She wonders if he dreams like her, bucking out of sleep, that dark bloom of fear and longing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“How’s things?” he asks, guarded, soft. She can hear a city—­oh, God, which city?—­churning in the background, another life, impossibly running in parallel to her own.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMidway through nervously rushing an answer—­a book deal, a divorce, a move to Paris!—­Maggie stops, shocked by the sun-­damage freckles on the thirty-­eight-­year-­old hand clasping the bike’s handlebar. How on earth did she get to this age without him?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Some news, Maggie.” It never was going to be a social call. His voice lowers, hesitates. “About your mother’s old house in Notting Hill.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA bolt of heat rolls over Maggie. Legs jellied, she clambers off the bike, which crashes down, the peaches leaping from its basket.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Some new owner is renovating.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Right.” Maggie must fight to stay in her hard-­won grown-­up life. Stop it rupturing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In January a basement planning application went in. Maggie, I didn’t contact you because I honestly didn’t think they’d get permission. But . . .” He swallows hard. “They got it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe could hang up now, un-­hear this. Focus on the boats frilling the silver-­green water. The lovers embracing on Pont Neuf.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“There will be digging,” he adds, in case she hasn’t grasped the implications.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaggie feels lightheaded. Slightly unreal, slightly sick. Despite knowing this day could come, as the years have passed, she’s allowed herself to believe it wouldn’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Still there?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaggie whispers, “Yes, yes.” But parts of her are already shearing off, flying over the Seine and the kitten-­gray rooftops, drawn back to London, as if trying to recover something. The young Parisians glance over with amused curiosity—­what’s with that woman, surrounded by peaches?—­and, for the first time in weeks, she feels inescapably, lumpingly English.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Soon as I find out more, I can let you know.” A moment passes. “If you’d like me to?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYes, she’d like that very much. They hover on the line, connected by their silence, their quickening breath, their appalling secret, neither wanting to be the first to hang up. Then, with a click, he’s gone again.Internationally bestselling author","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233713139941,"sku":"NP9780593976234","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593976234.jpg?v=1767740502","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-midnight-hour-isbn-9780593976234","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}