Customer Reviews

The Midnight Side

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Not many people can claim they receive phone calls from a dead person, but Isa De Witt talked with her cousin Allette two days after the latter died. At the time of their discussion, Isa was unaware that Allette had already died until a solicitor informed her that she inherited her cousin's large estate. Isa immediately leaves her South Africa home for Allette's estate in England.

Allette's solicitor gives Isa a letter written by the deceased in which she claims she suffered mental abuse from her ex-husband Justin and wants revenge from the grave. Her goal is to see his pharmaceutical company, which he loves the most in the world, destroyed even as the firm is close to creating a medicine to help with Alzheimer's disease. When Isa hesitates, Allette calls her again to encourage her to take action. Isa learns that someone murdered Allette, but is unaware that the killer plans to send her to a place where she will not need a phone to talk with Allette.

The supernatural elements add a chilling feel to a well-designed mystery. Dead people using telephones (must be a cell phone) allows the audience to see the reflections inside the mind of the victim as well as her mirror image reflected from the eyes of an obsessive maniac. The metaphysical and the mundane overlap, as Natasha Mosteri provides her audience with a wonderfully unique reading experience.

Harriet Klausner

I think The Midnight Side has everything a mystery /suspense reader would want! The dead communicating with the living via dreams and phone calls, a murder mystery, unrequited love, revenge, and a surprising twist at the end.

I'm looking forward to Ms. Mostert's next book!

Wow - I can not believe this author isn't better known!

If you are looking for a haunting, imaginative experience with mystery, suspense, and romance presented with incredible writing skill and talent, then this quality book is for you.

I cannot remember when last I have encountered another author who writes this well.

You just cannot compare this book to the usual lackluster fare churned out by high school drop-outs with spell checkers, which for some reason become best sellers. This is art - a reminder that writing is a craft best left to professionals.

I, for one, will be looking out for more novels from her. Her next novel, Windwalker, is due for release on April 5. I can't wait.

Even though "The Midnight Side" ends in a bit of a whirl-winded rush, any reader who picks up a Mostert novel is in for a well-researched treat satisfyingly replete with either supernatural or theuristic themes that add a spiritually fresh dimension to the genre of Gothic romantic suspense. "The Midnight Side" intrigues for almost the entire 270+ pages and falls short only at its rather abrupt finale.

Nevertheless, Mostert's characters exude an interesting combination of sophistication and vulnerability that acts as a convincing foil to those aspects of the plot that defy mainstream credibility. Mostert introduces her two women as cousins bonded not only by the closeness of being raised together in South Africa under the guidance of an African mage but, by their ability to share lucid dreams in the same dreamscape. When the more mystical of the two, Alette, dies in a car accident, Isa inherits her estate in the UK and must comply with her cousin's last wishes with regard to exacting revenge upon her ex-husband by destroying the hard-earned success of his pharmaceutical company. From beyond the grave, Alette exerts her power, placing Isa in a perilous situation that threatens her sanity and may bring about her premature demise.

Mostert hinges her plot around a paranormal theme for which it is obvious she has great respect. For the reader who is also piqued by the idea of the unknown as explored through lucid dreams, she provides an adequate springboard complete with her character's thoughts, documented scientific studies and material for subsequent research on the subject in the form of a book list in the book's appendix. Reading Mostert's other novels rounds out her predilection for investigating other quantum-based modalities. In "Season of the Witch," she looks at remote viewing, while in Keeper of Light and Dust, she investigates distance healing and protection through the energy work of Reiki, meditation and martial arts. Mostert's ability to place an unconventional heroine in a situation that keeps her in the realm of the material yet raises her to areas of the sublime, place her in the rarefied space of Marion Zimmer Bradley who gave readers the magical Morgaine of "The Mists of Avalon," a confused yet purposeful adept that plays her role out in the grand scheme of things.

Bottom line? Readers who enjoy a novel that marries the unknown territory of the paranormal with real issues of the everyday world will love the novels of Natasha Mostert. "The Midnight Side" introduces the reader to the concept of lucid dreaming and a connection that moves beyond the plane of the living without being severed. Unfortunately, the novel's ending hits the reader like an unwelcome cold shower instead of the long warm soak in new information and ideas that seems de rigueur after such an intriguing character study and page-turning narrative. Recommended.
Diana Faillace Von Behren
"reneofc"

This book started out a little slow. As I was reading the book I was waiting for the "climatic" moment. That did not happen until the last 50 pages or so of the book. I did enjoy it and the characters are interesting. You are someone into reading thrillers; this book is not for you. It has very little suspence.

I don't recommend this book because it's a poor reading. If you think it's misterious, it's not. If you think it's thriling, it's not. And if you think it will keep you awake and interested, forget it.
Based on 4 main caracters, the story is very poor, predictable and disconnected. I can't understand the good critics about it.