Read with Fern

‘It’s a mystery novel about a murder that was made to look like a suicide. … It’s the perfect alibi. He’ll say the same thing you just said. He’ll ask who in their right mind would commit a crime exactly like the one they wrote about in their novel. He’ll say he was framed, that someone read his book and made it look like he’d done it.’“

Sarah Crouch, Middletide

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

At its core, Middletide is a murder mystery with a moody atmosphere from its Pacific Northwest location. However, the extra details are what set this book apart, for better and worse. It focuses on Elijah Leith, a man who grew up outside the small town of Point Orchards. We get to see two different points in time, first when he’s just graduated high school and is getting ready to leave for San Francisco, then when he returns after his father dies, 15 years later. Once he’s been back in town for a few years, a hanged body is found on his property. Eerily, the entire scene matches a book Elijah wrote while in San Francisco.

The best part of this book was the atmosphere and environment. Crouch’s prose about the Pacific Northwest was the highlight of the story, and truly transported me to the quiet acreage Elijah lives on. The small town he lives by felt like a true small town, filled with loyalty, distrust, hierarchies, and gossip. There were no cutesy moments that pulled me out of the story. Instead, the environment is was kept me grounded as I read.

The plot itself was interesting but the pacing felt incredibly slow. In between every moment that moved the plot forward was long stretches of character development. Unfortunately, the character development focused only on Elijah, whose story wasn’t compelling to me. He is very one-dimensional, with minimal emotion. The other main character is Nakita, Elijah’s first love. Nakita is a strong, independent archetype of a woman whose only purpose in the story is to progress Elijah’s development. Similarly, when Erin, another woman, is introduced, her only purpose is to move the plot forward, with no nuance. 

Another issue I had was the made-up Native American tribe Nakita is a part of, called the Squalomah. Crouch has an author’s note before the story, explaining her reasoning for creating a fictional tribe. However, I don’t understand why it was necessary to make a fictional tribe when she referenced the real tribes in her author’s note. It’s clear that Crouch was trying to be respectful, but instead, it felt like an easy out to avoid doing research. 

Overall, this was a book I liked, but didn’t love. I found myself wishing the plot had been paced a little faster, and that the characters had more dimension. Together, those dynamics made the story feel incomplete and made the ending feel anti-climatic. The final twists really pulled their weight to make this feel like a thriller, but the first 80% had dragged me too far down to fully enjoy the last 20%.

I think this was a decent debut novel, and I will definitely continue to follow Crouch’s journey as an author. However, this is not a book I would recommend often. I think it has a few very key things that could attract readers, but as an overall story, it will most likely fall a little flat for most. 

Thanks to Netgalley and Atria for the free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!