Midnight Is A Lonely Place (1994) - Plot & Excerpts
What did I just read?:Oh yeah, Barbara Erskine.:Ummm, does anybody have an extra 6 reading hours to spare? I'd like to get them back if possible.OK, refocus.In this Barbara Erskine doosie, the murderous results of a Roman/Celtic love triangle over 19 centuries old (that's 1,900 years to those of you numerically challenged) is threatening to engulf our intrepid heroine Kate, her erstwhile poet boyfriend Jon, and the petulant, acts-like-a-14-year-old-but-is-really-27 year old landlord's son Greg. These three frankly irritating characters traipse through the marshy dunes of North Essex, England trying to figure out the curse, stop the ghosts from inhibiting the inside of their heads, and make it to the final lackluster pages of our book with their sanity and entrails intact.****SPOILER ALERT***They do.***END SPOILER ALERT***But at what cost to the gentle reader? That's the real curse.OK, here's what Erskine does right:- Sets mood- Creates atmosphere- Generates thrills & chills- Includes a decent smattering of historical data (it's not as detailed as she's capable of, but it's there)Here's what Erskine needs work on:- Editing- Editing- Editing- Some editing would be niceHere's what Erskine should avoid:- Relationships involving a man/men and a woman (aka: "romance").Just....no. Don't do it, Barbara. It's painful to read and there's no reason to bog down a good spookie with a cast of immature characters masquerading as adults in love. I've found that the typical Erskine heroine is generally a decorative doormat in search of a ghost to rescue them from their romantic folly. The Erskine male normally has the emotional maturity of an Adam Sandler fan club president (which really makes it quite impressive that they can STILL manage to wipe their feet on said doormat heroine).So why, you ask, do I read Erskine and write this (waaaaaaaay too long) review of a book 15 years old??Because when Erskine is good, she can literally make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.Can cause me to jump when my refrigerator makes a funny gurgle.Can force me to read her books only with another human being in the house.I live for those moments in an Erskine book, and she delivers. Regardless of my frustration with her characters, regardless of my wasted time spent wandering the frozen Essex shoreline in search of a decent plot, and in spite of my book hurling spleen vented at the abrupt and lousy ending, I love it when a good Erskine sentence makes me glance surreptiously around the room in search of the shadow I thought I just saw out of the corner of my eye.And that, my GR friend, is why I'll continue to read Barbara Erskine like a doormat girlfriend takes her petulant boyfriend back again and again.
The first half of the book was okay and had some scary parts that genuinely creeped me out. However, at the halfway mark Barbara Erskine had pretty much revealed everything about the ghosts and the murder and so it was no longer a secret to the reader and I thought what on earth can happen I know everything and I'm only halfway through!The second half of the book was just sooo drawn out it became ridiculous, seriously it did not need to be that long! I felt like she had a target of so many words she needed to reach and was just wasting time and padding it out until that target was met. It became overly repetitive again trying to use the same words and phrases as many times as possibly to reach the word target - oh Allie has gone to the grave again oh Claudia has appeared again oh now she's disappeared oh no she's back again. Oh Marcus is here now he's gone, now he's back, now you see him, now you don't oh Allie is back at the grave again. This pointless character has come to house and is now stuck here and can't help us oh and now this pointless character is also stuck at the house!The ghosts became less and less scary and more irritating as did the main characters at the end I decided I didn't like any of them and didn't care if the sea engulfed them all and put everyone including the reader out of their misery but no we were all tortured on for another 300 pages!I got incredibly bored and struggled to finish this book. I might read another Barbara Erskine because I have read good reviews so willing to give her another chance but this book was a once only read will be dropping my copy off the charity shop tomorrow!
What do You think about Midnight Is A Lonely Place (1994)?
With a slow beginning, a weak ending and a supposed "heroine" that had me face-palming in frustration, it could be easy to talk myself into not liking this book at all. But there was a while there, somewhere past the middle that, even while screaming at the stupidity of the characters, I found myself checking the night-black windows of my house periodically to ensure that the ghosts of Claudia, Nion and Marcus had not traveled through the pages to haunt me also.Not every book is perfect after all. Credit must be given where credit is due. Erskine did have a winning combination here - Romans, Celts, and ghosts. And for a while, that combo was worth something - worth enough to plough on through, despite the flaws.
—Dana
It almost causes me physical pain to write this about a woman whose work I so publicly worship but...I found this book to be a major disappointment. This is an older one of hers but if you're working your way through her back catalogue like me, you can probably skip this one.There are a few reasons I think it didn't quite measure up.Firstly and most obviously, the story was missing the rich tapestry of historical information I have come to expect from her novels. She did create a minor story and there is some reflection on Roman times but it really failed to capture the heartbeat of history. Instead, it flailed around some jealous love triangle and left me completely detatched to the plight of these people from the past.Secondly, I really don't understand the deal with the poet boyfriend. Maybe women in 1994 didn't expect quite so much from their life partners but I didn't really buy it all. Kate seemed so weak. I still don't understand why she didn't just tell both her love interests to bugger off. Neither of them were exactly prince charming.Thirdly, the whole ghost thing was really overdone. I mean, if I wanted to read that stuff, I would've read an out and out horror novel. It didn't even really scare me (and I'm a big fraidy cat!). Can 2000 year old ghosts transport cars into the middle of lakes? I don't think so...I would really only recommend this book to die hard fans of Erskine who read her novels for their spooky side rather than the historical fiction. It had excellent potential but it just fell flat for me.
—Annie
Well, it was a good book to read the week before Halloween; delightfully ghost-y and atmospheric. But I too am mystified by the end. I suppose Kate and Jon are supposed to be Claudia and Nion; however, I sure did not see their relationship as any great love story (especially after he sponges off of her, disparages her career and then kicks her out of his "flat" . . .) I suppose I can see Greg as Marcus, too, but . . . After several pages of flat out delicious creepiness, I too literally cannot figure out how this one ended.
—Louise Behrendt
