MIDNIGHT IN THE CHAPEL OF LOVE BY MATTHEW R. DAVIS (BOOK REVIEW)

6/7/2021

The racism was represented as it should be, ugly, inexcusable and spiteful. Whereas non of the main characters are necessarily massively likeable, they all feel like real people.

MIDNIGHT IN THE CHAPEL OF LOVE BY MATTHEW R. DAVIS
(BOOK REVIEW by astrid addams)

First of all, Midnight in the Chapel of Love came to over 500 pages on my e reader. I admit, for the first 200 pages it was a struggle, awkward situations following a not hugely likeable and frustrating main character avoiding his past and drinking. I kept reading because the story was interesting enough to keep at it. The final 300 pages flew by as hinted at events and mysteries came together and the gut punch, tragic climax is worth the wait. But this is not a novel about the climax, it is a long slow meander through life, leading to what feels like an inevitable the tragic ending.

The story is told through a mixture of flash backs and current events. Primarily the story is told from Jonny’s point of view. However the novel starts decades before any of the main action with a car chase and a shoot out involving a teenage Natural Born Killer kind of couple. There significance is not revealed until hundreds of pages into the novel. The main narrative focus’s on Jonny whose guilt is driving him home to face his fathers funeral and the old town and forsaken friends of his past. As he returns to the old town with his partner Sloan, Jonny remembers his past, in particular Jessica and his old friends. The narratives interweave, forcing forwards towards Jessica’s disappearance and inevitably the Chapel of Love, an ancient local legend, that pulls Jonny towards it. A combination of guilt, longing and manipulation drag Jonny back to the Chapel of Love with devastating consequences.

Over all I enjoyed this book. Whilst it could have been shorter by a few hundred pages, all the narrative had relevance and entangled to flesh out the story and characters. The racism was represented as it should be, ugly, inexcusable and spiteful. Whereas non of the main characters are necessarily massively likeable, they all feel like real people. The narrative is structured in a way that delays the plot to create suspense, sometimes it felt like it was done too much. Midnight in the Chapel of Love is a story about love and the stupid and deadly things people do because of it. This is a slow burn story that leaves the main horror right until the bitter end.

MIDNIGHT IN THE CHAPEL OF LOVE BY MATTHEW R. DAVIS

THE MAN
Jonny Trotter has spent the last fifteen years running from tragic memories of the country town where he grew up-but the black envelopes pushed under his door won't let him forget, and now that his father has died, he can run no more.

THE TOWN
Returning to Waterwich for the funeral and wake with his partner Sloane, Jonny must confront old resentments, his estranged best friends Brendan and Coralie, a strange, veiled woman the locals call the White Widow...and the mystery surrounding the fate of his first lover, Jessica Grzelak.

THE GIRL
A morbid and reckless city girl banished to the country to live with her aunt, Jessica loved to push the limits and explore the shadows-and no one has seen her since the night of her high school formal, the night she and Jonny went looking for the Chapel.

THE CHAPEL
Rumoured to be found in the woods outside Waterwich, mentioned in playground rhymes about local lovebirds Billy and Poppy and their killing spree in 1964, the Chapel is said to be an ancient, sacred place that can only be entered by lovers-a test that can only be passed if their bond is pure and true.

THE TRUTH
Before he can move on to a future with Sloane, Jonny must first face the terrible truth of his past-and if he can't bring it out into the light at last, it might just pull him and everything he loves down into the dark, forever.