Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Midnight Bayou

Midnight Bayou
LaurieS avatar reviewed on + 504 more book reviews


I read this as an unabridged audiobook which is usually an advantage for me but I may have been better off reading the paperback version because I wasnt thrilled with the male narrator who reads the bulk of the book. His voice kept putting me off and kept me at a distance from the story or maybe I should face the fact that the romance just wasnt that great. I guess the combination of the two didn't help.

The prologue details some nasty business featuring rape, murder and madness that went down in the 1800s. Just when it had my full attention it leaps forward to 2002 and loses me a bit.

Declan Fitzgerald is 31 and a successful attorney but his heart isnt in it and he decides to trek across country and purchase a Louisiana mansion with the intent of fixing it up even though hes no carpenter. Yes folks, this is the mansion where the nasty stuff happened. It is soon revealed that Declan had basically left a fiancee at the altar a few months earlier and the thought occurs to me that hes running away from life which doesnt exactly win me over. Almost immediately he starts seeing visions and hearing a baby crying and this intrigues instead of frightens him because, as we're told over and over again, he feels like he is finally exactly where he belongs.

His love interest is local bar owner Angelina (call me Lina because Im no Angel) whose grandmother lives near Declans property. Lina is independent but soon swoons when Declan is near and begins to help him unravel the secrets of the mansion. Shes gorgeous and a good business woman but she was just a bit too distant for me for a large portion of the book. The reasons why were revealed way too late because at that point I had nearly tuned her out.

I found the ghostly aspects of this story much more compelling than the modern day romance. It was all rather by the numbers and meh without much emotional connection and the love scenes were a snore. The flashbacks to the past were much more interesting to me and I found myself wishing on more than one occasion that the entire book was set in the past. As the story continues events are revealed to tie in the current day couple to past but it all seemed a little off to me. Not my favorite by Roberts but not the worst book Ive ever read either.