Book Review: Midnight in the Snow by Karen Swan

 Midnight in the Snow

by

Karen Swan

 

An unstoppable connection. A secret that will change everything.

 

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia

 

Publication date: 14th October 2021

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

 

Pages: 480

 

RRP: $32.99 AUD

 

Format read: Paperback

 

Source: Courtesy of the publisher

 

My review

 

Every year I eagerly await Karen Swan's Christmas release. Whilst Australia is sweltering through summer heat I can escape to somewhere cold and, most often, snowy.

 

Midnight in the Snow is set in the Austrian Alps in the lead up to Christmas Day. Journalist Clover Phillips is riding high on the success of her documentary on ex-surfing great, Cory Albright - Cory had suffered a near drowning and subsequent brain injury, whilst competing. 

 

Karen Swan highlights how close a journalist gets with the family they are working with as Clover spent many months living with Cory, his wife and their three sons.

 

Wanting to follow with an equally explosive documentary Clover decides to go after Kit Foley, Cory's nemesis and the cause of his accident. Foley has left the surfing world and is now focused on snowboarding, where he is making his name known.

 

Our two main characters, Clover and Kit, had a real hate for each other and I love a good enemies to lovers trope. However I would have liked a lot more emotion and sexual friction between them. It was there, but it was very sparse.

 

I loved the portrayal of the two main characters; Clover was determined and relentless, she wanted her story, and Kit the po-surfer turned snowboarder was hostile, insular and aloof.

It's not until you dig deep that you get the real story and Clover is prepared to dig, but what she finds even shocks her.

 

The setting imagery was, as always, amazing and I enjoyed the little peek into the professional sports world. Some of the twists I'd guessed early on but there were also some that took me by surprise. 

 

And then there are  those little snatches of poetic prose that make Swan's writing so evocative.

 

my rating 4 / 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

 

 About the author

 

Karen Swan is the Sunday Times top three bestselling author of twenty-one books, and her novels sell all over the world. She writes two books each year - one for the summer period and one for the Christmas season. Previous winter titles include Christmas at Tiffany's , The Christmas Party and Together by Christmas, and for summer, The Spanish Promise, The Hidden Beach and The Secret Path.

Previously a fashion editor, she lives in Sussex with her husband, three children and two dogs.

 

 

 

Click on the covers to read my review