Midnight Bayou [Hardcover]

Nora Roberts (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2001

The phenomenal #1 New York Times-bestselling author presents a novel set deep in the bayou of Louisiana-where the only witness to a long-ago tragedy is a once-grand house.

Declan Fitzgerald had always been the family maverick, but even he couldn't understand his impulse to buy a dilapidated mansion on the outskirts of New Orleans. All he knew was that ever since he first saw Manet Hall, he'd been enchanted-and obsessed-with it. So when the opportunity to buy the house comes up, Declan jumps at the chance to live out a dream.

Determined to restore Manet Hall to its former splendor, Declan begins the daunting renovation room by room, relying on his own labor and skills. But the days spent in total isolation in the empty house take a toll. He is seeing visions of days from a century past, and experiencing sensations of terror and nearly unbearable grief-sensations not his own, but those of a stranger. Local legend has it that the house is haunted, and with every passing day Declan's belief in the ghostly presence grows.

Only the companionship of alluring Angelina Simone can distract him from the mysterious happenings in the house, but Angelina too has her own surprising connection to Manet Hall-a connection that will help Declan uncover a secret that's been buried for a hundred years.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Triple-platinum romance doyenne Roberts spins a tale of bayou passions old and new in her latest romantic suspense novel, set on the grounds of a dilapidated postbellum mansion outside New Orleans. Declan Fitzgerald, a Harvard-educated Boston lawyer, has longed to possess Manet Hall ever since he and his friend, Remy Payne, broke into the old place as drunken students on a lark. Now, on the eve of his wedding, Declan leaves Boston, the law and his fianc‚e, buys the decrepit hall and embarks on a mission to restore it with his own sweat, blood and money. But Manet Hall comes with a dark history, and restoring it means uncovering its past, which includes rape, murder and betrayal. Declan encounters an additional challenge in the person of Cajun beauty and bar owner Lena Simone, who has her own dark history and a surprising connection to Manet Hall. As Declan digs deeper at the Hall, he often hears a baby crying. The cries are followed by voices, particularly that of Abigail Manet, the baby's mother. Abigail's story, which unfolds in 1900, is woven so tightly with Declan's that he finds it difficult to escape her grasp. In the end, only Lena can bring him back from the tragic past that threatens to engulf him. Roberts's role reversal here it is the male character who hears voices and even swoons gives her faithful readers a little extra thrill, and the lush setting and the satisfying if predictable romance round out the package. Literary Guild main selection.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Always check to see whether the crumbling manor house you impulsively decide to purchase and renovate is in fact haunted. That is what Declan Fitzgerald failed to do, and now he must uncover a 100-year-old secret before it is too late.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1ST edition (October 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399148248
• ISBN-13: 978-0399148248
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (179 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,133,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars She just keeps getting better!!, November 12, 2001

By 

Cindy "ChaosInBlue" (Jackson, WY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Midnight Bayou (Hardcover)

I usually ration out my Nora Roberts books so that I can pick one up after I've read a truly horrid book....but, this one I just had to pick up!!! Am I glad I did!!! Nora Roberts writing about New Orleans and the bayous?? The mystery and the romance written by my favorite author??? A match made in heaven for sure. I started this book just before I went to sleep last night. Knocked off the first chapter and went to sleep with a smile on my face.... Today, the book didn't leave my side until I had finished it!! So what if dinner was late getting to the table? So what if my son barely got a nod from me when he got home from school? This was Nora writing about bayous and Louisiana and reincarnation and Lena and Declan and Lucian and Abby...he, that fabulous teenager, understands when I've got "a Nora" in front of me!!

I was hooked from the get go with this tale of love and redemption, murder and sadness. Roberts' touch of romance
interlaced with her wonderful sense of humor and a taste of mystery entertained and delighted!!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This has become one of my favorites!!, October 22, 2001

By 

Patti (Doylestown, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Midnight Bayou (Hardcover)

I loved this book!! I enjoyed that it was told from mostly the male's perspective and I really liked the lead characters. Declan feels compelled to leave his job as a lawyer and buy a house--Manet Hall--that has fascinated him for 11 years. It is in disprepair and he puts his all into bringing it back to its former grandeur. However, strange things happen while he is there, including flashbacks (memories?) of a murder that took place a long time ago. While doing this, he meets Lena, who plays an integral part in his memories. Declan has a sense of humor and makes you want to believe that people like him really exist. I would have to say my only complaint is that I wish the ending scene was longer--I would have liked to see Lena's reaction to the ring. This is defintitely one of my favorite Nora Robert's books, and I'm usually not into past lives, etc. Buy this book--you won't be sorry. Nora never disappoints!!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dwelling in Ghostly New Orleans, November 18, 2005

By 

A. Casalino "V^^^^^V" (Downers Grove, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Midnight Bayou (Hardcover)

Some little while ago, I went searching far and wide for an atmospheric read - had been thirsting (veritably parched, indeed!), for something mysterious and ethereal- ideally set, naturally, somewhere as beloved to me as New Orleans...

I inevitably found this novel on the discount shelves at my favorite, old hat, bricks & mortar bookstore- then took it home to savour overnight. -And now I must say - (and say it here, for truly it's an admission that doesn't normally go down so easily on one such as me, but...) Yes, I liked it: I liked it very well indeed, actually!

This lush & lively story intertwines the distant past and the ever present for a love story that is a force all its own. There's an old tale: set at the turn of the century on a magnificent mansion on the bayous in the outskirts of New Orleans, between the estate's heir and the Cajun servant girl he'd married -- a tale that had turned tragic, and then poignantly tenacious with the passing of about a hundred years....

Weaved through is the main, present-day love story- that being between Declan: a wealthy up & rising lawyer from Boston who chucks his job, his engagement, and all the ties that bind, to fix up that same old bayou mansion, which he had once felt strongly connected to in his youth -- and Angelina, a native of the New Orleans Bayou, whose blood happens to be intimately connected with the bayou's history, whether she likes it or not.

I must say, though, that the setting had just about all to do with my enjoyment of this book - anyone who can capture the true, bare essence of New Orleans in their writing can likely conjure glorious "Atmosphere" without any effort. -And for someone like Nora Roberts, who has had the privilege of having been published of well over a hundred books, this really was no problem.

In the end, it was the poignancy of place that overcame even the all-too-predictable, formulaic modern-day love story. And really, even its classification as a "Romance", its author being widely acclaimed as an unabashed mainstream assembly-line storyteller, could not hurt it either, I don't believe.

MIDNIGHT BAYOU is nothing if not a sinful, superfluous pleasure. Ever since reading it, I've been able to find in myself a weird, albeit endearingly decadent quality, which deigns to seek, and often finds (in about a dozen more NR books since, no less!) a vast amount of pleasure in reading these light, entertaining romances by a renown romance writer who can just as adeptly punch out a very good yarn as fill it through and through with the most excellently written sex (such glorious smut!) -& all by rote!

Because of its setting and atmosphere, I'll always consider MIDNIGHT BAYOU my far & away favorite Nora Roberts book. Yet since it shall be the one and only title of hers that I'll ever review (a Vampire must at least make some attempt, however feeble, to maintain its reputation) - I'll then sum this up with my rating of all her amusingly scandalous reads together: ~4 Stars~