The Midnight Secret
Published 2026-09-22 12:01:08
Book info
- Author
- Year 2025
- Genre Historical
- Format Ebook
- Pages 393
Jayne Ferguson has always been a keeper of secrets – especially her own...
If there’s one thing Jayne Ferguson has learnt in her life, it’s that every blessing comes with a curse. She married the most handsome man on the isle of St Kilda - but he’s a bully. She inherited her mother’s gift of second sight - but only ever foresees her fellow islanders’ deaths. She has learnt to keep to herself, treading in the shadows and shirking the highs for fear of the lows.
When a needless death strikes at the heart of her home, Jayne’s bad marriage becomes worse and she finds solace with an unlikely friend. Glimmers of happiness tantalise her, though there’s no possibility for anything more, especially once word comes of St Kilda’s evacuation.
But as evacuation draws near, tensions on the island rise. Secrets are being forced to the surface, passions and enmities erupting with equal violence. A man is killed, as Jayne knew he would be, and her closest friends Effie, Mhairi and Flora are each implicated.
On the mainland, the villagers scatter into new lives, hoping distance means refuge. But then Jayne has another of her dreams and she knows the past isn’t done with them yet.
Thoughts
This is the final book in Karen Swan's Wild Isle series, so we're getting to the bottom of the secrets of St Kilda.
Each book has followed a different woman's journey through the evacuation of St Kilda to the mainland, usually with a romance driving things, over the top of the main murder mystery that has spanned all the books. In this one, Jayne takes the first narrative, but we actually revisit all four, updating their stories in turn.
The first 15% or so of the book is set on the island, and I love reading about their simple lives there. Yet, when we are on the island, we are re-treading the same ground as before. Each of these four books has told the same story from a different viewpoint, and it has diminishing returns. I wanted to enjoy our final moments on the island, but I also just wanted them to get off and get resolving things.
Eventually, we do leave St Kilda for the mainland and start getting some answers. It is fun to see how the islanders adapt to the wider world, you can tell Swan has really got into the heads of these women and how things must seem so alien to them:
A distance of 150 miles might be insignificant in a country measuring 4,700 of them, but for a girl who'd grown up on a rock only two miles long, it felt like going to the moon.
There's a significant baby kidnap story at the heart of this book, and hints and glimpses of domestic abuse, so avoid it if those are sensitive topics. I don't think you could pick this book up without having read the previous titles in the series either, as there are so many dangling plot threads that get sewn up.
By the time we got to the murderer's reveal, I was happy we were getting an answer but not that bothered about it by then. I did like all the romantic storylines being resolved, though, particularly for Effie who was the first protagonist and the one I am fondest of.
For a successful but not perfect end to a series, this would have been a 4 out of 5, but the repetition of island plot reduces the score to a 3.
Rating: 3 / 5