Midnight Is the Darkest Hour

A Novel

By: Ashley Winstead

Narrated by: Sarah Welborn

Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

For fans of Verity and A Flicker in the Dark, Midnight is the Darkest Hour is a twisted tale of murder, obsessive love, and the beastly urges that lie dormant within us all . . . even the God-fearing folk of Bottom Springs, Louisiana. 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.

A dark and powerful novel like fans have come to expect from Ashley Winstead, Midnight is the Darkest Hour is an examination of the ways we've come to expect love, religion, and stories to save us, the lengths we have to go to in order to take back power, and the monstrous work of being a girl in this world.

©2023 Ashley Winstead (P)2023 Tantor

It wasn't for me

The plot was predictable and drawn out, but it certainly had a great atmospheric "vibe". I had to listen at 1.55x speed because the narration was a bit slower than I'm used to.

Why so many Twilight references though? It was too much

Strange and boring

The girl character was kind of annoying, plot felt too religious or supernatural and the only twist was at the end.

Naive Heroine, Slow to Develop

I felt the narration was very slow; had to speed it up to 1.2x to make it feel “normal.” I kept waiting for the main character to become more endearing, but that didn’t happen for me.

The plot of this book had a lot of potential

I truly wanted this book to be good. I think there was a lot of potential for the plot and the characters but some of the development was thrown together and corny at times.

Overall it was entertaining enough. I might have enjoyed it more if I read it instead of listening.

The narration was awful. Slow and hard to get into. I wished I would’ve sampled the book first, I would’ve known the narrator was not for me.

worst narrator I've ever heard.

why would you pick a narrator so DULL!!! The story is intriguing and I was soooo excited about this book, but such instant regret when I listened to the voice... I should have gotten a physical book or the kindle version because I can't listen to the dullness past chapter 5. I really am disappointed.

so far the story is very interesting but I can't get passed the voice.

Painfully Twangy

Did not like the narrator and the story was just weird. Agree that the twilight references just made the character seem deranged.

This is an example of where narration can make or break a novel

I think I would have given this book a higher rating if I would have read it instead of listened to it because of how awful the narration was. The way the main character was narrated made me absolutely hate her which made none of the plot twists worth it in the end.

Horrendous narration. Weak story.

Had I read this book, I may have made it to the end or at least further than chapter 9. The narrator though killed any chance this weak story had. The characters are not interesting. I did not find myself caring about the dead guy or the two main characters. Ruth is obnoxious as read by this narrator. Ugh, such bad inflections and fake accents. She goes up on the end of each sentence as if she is asking questions rather than reading a novel. I will make sure to pass on any book read by Sarah Welborn in the future.

Just ok

Being from Louisiana it’s always disappointing to hear the accents people try to use. I kept waiting for the story to unfold. 😕