Customer Reviews

Midnight Champagne (Mysteries & Horror)

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A.Manette Ansay has a gift for character development and description. She provides just the right amount of both to keep the reader engaged and involved but not overburdened. Like RIVER ANGEL, MIDNIGHT CHAMPAGNE deals with slightly quirky, yet believeable Midwesterners from a small town. April is an individualist with an altruistic bent. Caleb is just sweet and loveable in a goofy sort of way. Their families and friends are basically simple folk just trying to deal with everyday life and love.

The message of love flows throughout the book--it's not always beautiful and glossy. It can be cruel, murderous and frightening at times. It can kill but it can heal, too. As with RIVER ANGEL, there is a wistful, bittersweet quality to this book. I was hooked after the first page and really didn't want it to end.

Another winner for A.Manette Ansay!

Attention all Vinegar Hill haters: Midnight Champagne will change your mind! Now, I am one that loved Vinegar Hill but know lots of people who didn't. This time around, A. Manette Ansay has written a less depressing and more indulgent story. It takes place in the course of one day with lots of characters that each get a turn to speak. So I beg those who have put off reading anything else by Ansay to read Midnight Champagne and give her a chance to redeem herself. You won't be disappointed.

After three months of dating, 22-year-old April Leisgang and Caleb Shannon are getting married. Most of the family is against this marriage and especially the place where it's held - the nondenominational Great Lakes Chapel and Hideaway Lodge. Formally a notorious dance hall, roadhouse and brothel, it is rumored to be haunted by the mistress of the house, Greta Flame, who was murdered by one of her lovers back in its heyday. Such sets the stage for an unforgettable, eerie, and life-changing celebration....

The novel takes us from ceremony and reception through dinner and dance and ends with bouquet toss and midnight champagne. Written through the eyes of various characters, we get the opportunity to know the feelings, thoughts and goings-on of parents, grandparents, cousins, children and hotel staff. In doing so, I believe A. Manette Ansay has created the whole picture, a testimony of the love, pain, disappointments, hopes, and secrets felt, endured and kept hidden by the family and intensified by the union of April and Caleb and frequent visits to the cash bar. Readers are everywhere at once, witnesses to this spectacular party, omniscient flies on the wall.

Midnight Champagne holds a goodie bag of emotions within its pages, a delicious and intoxicating mix, a declaration of the course of marriage and the many side roads it can take. Like listening to stories around a campfire: passionate and revealing, exciting and anxious, haunting and uninhibited. Much better than Vinegar Hill and certainly places A. Manette Ansay at the top of my reading list. Wonderful!

Members of my reading group recommended this, my first A. Manette Ansay book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was reminded of one of those 'fly on the wall' documentaries that are so popular at the moment. I was able to sit in, watching and listening to a whole cast of characters as they interacted (or didn't), from ceremony and reception, through to the bouquet toss and midnight champagne. Better still, I was even privy to their individual thoughts and dreams. The blurb on my book cover, talks of two stories, April and Caleb's wedding and the Hideaway Lodge quarrel, intersecting, but I felt there were dozens of stories weaving in and out of each other and culminating in what I thought was the perfect champagne toast. The characters are beautifully drawn and I defy anyone not to find at least one they recognise from their own family. From the opening page, I was drawn into a world so real, I could swear I was there, in my glad rags, enjoying the wedding myself.

The story in this book renders many perspctives on marriage. The "midnight champagne" toast is perhaps one of the most lovely, eloquent pieces of writing that I have ever read. Fast moving, you really feel as though you're at the wedding, and like you know the characters. Full of wisdom and reality, no one should skip this!

It's Valentine's Day and a record breaking blizzard blows in as guests arrive at the Great Lakes Chapel and Hideaway Lodge for the evening wedding of April Liesgang and Caleb Shannon. As they take their vows and begin their lives together, another couple in Lodge Room 33 are ending their marriage in anger and violence. A. Manette Ansay takes a strong look at marriage and relationships as family and strangers come together in this sensitive, humorous, poignant novel. Midnight Champagne travels back and forth between April and Caleb's wedding/reception and the incident in Room 33. These two diverse story lines move closer and closer together until they finally intersect as the wedding reception comes to an end with the final midnight champagne toast. Ms Ansay has written a spellbinding, compelling story that examines love, trust, betrayal, divorce and spousal abuse. Her large cast of characters are interesting and beautifully drawn and developed and each scene is vivid and comes alive on the page. The great strength of this novel is the eloquent writing and attention to detail. And though there is not a spare word in this story, it speaks volumes. Midnight Champagne is a powerful snapshot of marriage and mid-western life, told with great insight and wisdom.

After forcing myself to finish that vile book, Vinegar Hill, I vowed I would never read another of A. Manette Ansay's books. But she has redeemed herself with Midnight Champagne. Never have I seen as many complex topics as spousal abuse, divorce, and adolescent strife, handled so masterfully in such a short story. How clever a setting--the wedding of April and Caleb. One night that brings together family and strangers in the midst of a Wisconsin blizzard. As the plot reveals itself, Ansay's writing reveals her to be a worthy author. And while I threw my copy of Vinegar Hill in the trash (not wanting to spread more bile upon the earth) I will be recommending Midnight Champagne to all my friends. I look forward to reading her other books, including Angel Falls.

This is another quick read for me ~~ and keeping track of all the characters wasn't difficult at all. The book flows entirely on its own, like champagne. Some people like champagne and others don't ~~ and so will they with this book. It's really an insightful and thoughtful read into relationships and marriages.

April suddenly announces that she is marrying her boyfriend of three months and her family is left wondering why she ditched her steady and reliable boyfriend of years ~~ though the reasons were highlighted in flashbacks ~~ even Barney was wondering why he was dumped. There are other marital stories as well ~~ interspersed with incidents happening in suite 33 in the hotel. (The hotel was once a raunchy roadhouse and rumor has it that there was a murdered woman haunting the place.) While April and Caleb begin their married lives together, another marriage was ending in Room 33. And the stories begin.

It is such a fun read ~~ dark in some places, light in others, hilarious in some takes and romantic in others. It is also well-written and easy to read. I couldn't wait to finish the book to see how it all ended. The characters spoke for themselves throughout this book with their stories ~~ stories that everyone like us can relate to. Marriage is not easy and those characters provide a glimpse into their lives and marriages to show why that particular thing we all long for ~~ are sometimes so unattainable.

I highly recommend this book. It is one of the top 100 reads on my list!!

"Midnight Champagne" is a gorgeous romp, beautiful and offbeat. I have no idea how Ansay keeps all her glittering balls of narrative in the air at once, but she does. God, what fun!

The probability that Wisconsin's April Liesgang and Tennessee's Caleb Shannon falling in love with each other seem less than zero. However, three months after first meeting, the duo has more than just fallen in love, they are getting married

As a snowstorm devastates Lake Michigan and traps the wedding party, none of the family members quite believe the nuptials are occurring. Some of the relatives are irate that the ceremony is not a religious (albeit theirs) rite of

passage. Others just look back at their tragic lives to see divorce, cheating, and alcohol and drugs (legal and otherwise). Everyone argues with one other, but agree that this union cannot last. No one seems to genuinely want to wish the best to the couple. Even as the bitter guests poorly hide their feelings, one person can not deal with his situation any longer. He murders his mate, leaving a final omen at what the future holds for the honeymooners.

MIDNIGHT CHAMPAGNE is a bittersweet relationship drama that paints a melancholy look at love. The story line is clever and well designed as the ensemble cast reacts to the sudden marriage by comparing the newlyweds to their own lives. Award winning author A. Manette Ansay has written her best novel to date. The tale deserves wide reading, especially by fans who enjoy a passionate deep look into the soul.

Harriet Klausner

This writer gets more interesting with each book. Each time I read one of her novels, I have to plan ahead... no sleep that night. I could not put this simple yet complex story down. The tale of a Valentine's Day wedding in a chapel on the shores of Lake Michigan, we are treated to a fascinating cast of characters who take on more complicated dimensions in their wedding finery. Those boring aunts, uncles, cousins give way to their own inner lives for a while at the wedding of April and Caleb, an event spiced by a snowstorm that makes lights darken and roads impassable. Even the scorned ex-boyfriend is bumbling around, as well as curious children from 8 to 15. All these antics are mixed and frequently stirred to make a soup filled with all varieties of homemade soup. No one means any harm, not even the stranger, staying for Valentine's weekend with is wife at the Hideaway Lodge, just a few snowdrifts behind the Chapel. After a quarrel that escalates into domestic violence, the stranger insinuates himself into the wedding merrymakers, unnoticed, until the finality of this quarrel is discovered. The story is filled with the characters from our own families, with all their endearing faults and temporary dreams. I love the way Ms. Ansay wove these people all together, so that I would want to know what happened on this fateful Valentine's Wedding night. Midnight Champagne is a view of real, everyday Americans, a perfect example of the "melting pot" and it's descendants.