Book Review: The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

‘The Midnight Feast’ by Lucy Foley was published in 2024. It was Waterstones’ Thriller Book of the Month in June 2025 upon the paperback release.

Prior to ‘The Midnight Feast’, I hadn’t read any of Foley’s books before, primarily, because I have never leaned much into thriller, and while I have enjoyed most of the ones I’ve read in the past, it isn’t necessarily a genre I would actively seek out. Saying that, the premise, and its ominous folkloric ambiance piqued my interest and I was happy to give it a go!

This book was a split-narrative book that followed several characters in the wake of Francesca, a rich woman from London inheriting her Grandfather’s ancestral home on the coast of Dorsett, and deciding to remodel and build a wellness retreat inspired by her childhood and nostalgia visiting her grandparents there as a teenager.

While influencers and other rich people have come flocking to this extravagant new wellness retreat, where they lounge around by a pool and drink expensive alcohol to get away from the stress of their lives, the local population grow increasingly vexed by Francesca’s return to Dorsett and her hotel, The Manor’s impact on local people, jobs and land. The people want revenge.

The story follows Francesca, her husband Owen, a local boy, Eddie, who works as a dishwasher at The Manor, and one of the guests, who doesn’t quite fit the expectations of a guest attending the opening weekend for the few days preceding and following the doors opening at the hotel.

I absolutely loved this book, and I am not a thriller reader, particularly, but there was something about how deliberate and careful Foley narrated her book that had me in a vice-like grip and I wanted to know everything.

Foley wrote an eerie thriller with the local legends of The Birds lingering over the heads of everyone in the story, from Eddie, who has grown up fearing these supernatural eerie creatures and how they exact revenge on behalf of local people, to Francesca who may have made an enemy of them many, many years ago, and those who were affected by the choices a rich, careless teenage girl made without thought for the people she left in her wake or the damage she caused.

I loved the ending sentence so much! It really made your skin crawl as you pondered the implications of the events of the story, and how everything came into place, and immediately made me want to read it again to see what I had missed! This book was engaging, gripping and eerie. I loved it, it is a thriller I would definitely recommend.