The Turn of Midnight by Minette Walters is the sequel to The Last Hours and continues the story of Develish. It picks up shortly after the end of the previous book with Lady Anne trying to help her daughter Eleanor with her unexpected and unplanned pregnancy, while also helping the other inhabitants of Develish. The same inhabitants who don’t like Eleanor and with good reason. Thaddeus is busy continuing their plans to gain freedom for the various serfs of Develish by convincing the Lord of Bourne to help him pass as the Lord of Athelstan and buying the rights to a neighboring village. However, things do not go quite so easily when the former steward, Hugh de Courtesmain, retains a grudge against Thaddeus and does his best to thwart him by trying to prove he is not actually a noble. As the country starts recovering from the plague they work on trying to safely secure their future in an increasingly uncertain world. When out traveling Thaddeus ends up arrested, due to the machinations of de Courtesmain, making him and Lady Anne fear the potential unraveling of all of their plans.
This book was a good sequel to the previous book in that it continued and finished off the story of Lady Anne, Thaddeus, and all of Develish. At the same time it had a decidely different feel and focus for the majority of the story. The previous book focused primarily on how the plague or the black death affected the residents of Develish along with the various ways they combatted the effects of that. While it did cover the social interactions of the characters that was not always the driving force of the story. In the sequel the plague is now more or less finished and gone so the focus shifts almost entirely to the societal implications and interactions. While this does make sense it also results in some slight glossing over of certain things. A good example of that is what happens with Eleanor as at the beginning of the book she is still fairly similar to the way she was in the previous book. After a short time jump though she does an abrupt about face in temperament and thought which is not explained or covered very much. Considering how big of a role her story played in the previous book I was expecting a lot more from her which did not appear. It was instead replaced by the romantic storyline that was developing between Lady Anne and Thaddeus which was only barely even hinted at in the previous book. I feel like there was rather abrupt shifts in direction between the two books only some of which can explained by the disappearance of the plague. The book is not bad and has some rather intriguing plot lines, such as Thaddeus having the ability to pass as a noble, but not all of them seem related to the plot lines from the previous book. It was a good story and one that I enjoyed despite all of this so I am happy giving it the same rating as the first book which is four out of five stars.
This book is a good example of historical fiction, specifically historical fiction set in England during the time of the plague or the black death. If you enjoy reading that genre or about that time period or topic than this would probably appeal to you. However, I highly doubt it will hold a lot of appeal for those who don’t enjoy those topics. This book is predominantly intended for adult readers and for the same reason as the previous book I would agree with that. There are references, especially towards the beginning of the story, to some rather disturbing content that works on wrapping up something that was touched upon in the previous book. Because of this content I would feel extremely hesitant about recommending this book to underage readers. Despite that it is still a pretty good book and I hope you will consider it. If you do feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.