Quick Synopsis – Elijah returns to his hometown after his writing career failed to launch. As he fixes up the cabin he grew up in he grieves for the loss of his parents, the death of his career, and the high school sweetheart he left behind 15 years ago. The small Pacific Northwest town is thrown into chaos when the town’s young doctor is found dead on Elijah’s property and the book descends from a quarter life crisis into a murder mystery.

Song This Reminds Me Of – All My Heart by Sleeping With Sirens

Publication Date – June 11, 2024

Content Notes – This is a mystery novel so there is a fairly graphic description of a dead body. This books also deals with themes of grief, there is loss of a parent, child death, and loss of a pseudo parent. There are also several scenes with blood.

Rating – 3 out of 5 🌟s

Review – This book had really good bones, but the overall story just felt messy to me. For one, there were too many dead bodies for me. Both of Elijah’s parents are dead, the town doctor dies, Nakita’s husband is dead, etc. That’s right, there are more dead people I didn’t mention, and only the town doctor is the one whose death is a mystery. To me, Elijah’s story of coming home and having failed your dream while also dealing with the grief of losing a parent would have been a good enough story. I thought the murder mystery was just shafted into this story.

Middletide is told through multiple time frames. Some are in the past when Elijah is in high school, and some are in the “present day” during the murder investigation. The story really follows Elijah as he tries to make it as an author and then as he is licking his wounds in his hometown after failing. He reconnects with his high school sweetheart who is dealing with her own profound grief. To me, that story of grief was so well done and could have been the focus. Introducing a third character to act as a foil was too much. There were already so many heavy themes; a divorced doctor whose toddler had passed was just too much.

Oh also, Middletide is the name of the novel that Elijah wrote that only sold 13 copies. This is an important plot point as it ties in with the murder mystery later in the book, but it just felt like it was repetitive. HEY THIS GUY WHOSE BOOK DIDN’T SELL. HE’S A LOSER. But also someone murder someone else based on this book.

Middletide is a good book, but the murder aspect of it could have been abandoned and it would have been even better.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria books for the ARC. All opinions are my own.