Is The Midnight News a love story? a murder mystery? an espionage tale? a story about a dysfunctional family? an exploration of how the stress of war affects people psychologically? I’m not telling.
Charlotte is the daughter of privilege. Her father is a peer and a member of Parliament with an important war job. But Charlotte has chosen to work as a typist in a government office and live in a respectable but middle class boarding house.
It is the Blitz, and Charlotte’s home is in a dangerous area south of the Thames. She and the other residents of the house have been spending their nights on the lowest level of the house.
The novel starts slowly. Charlotte spends a day with her best friend, El, who has been elusive lately. Then El is killed in the Blitz. Charlotte goes to visit her godmother, Saskia, after she hears that a well-known actress, a schoolmate, has also been killed. Then Saskia dies, too. Charlotte has noticed a square gray man in several different places and comes to believe he is following her and killing people she is close to. This may seem like a wild idea, and since Charlotte has begun hearing the voices of her dead friends and has a history of mental illness, we begin to worry about her.
Then there is Tom, the son of an undertaker whom Charlotte has noticed feeding the birds. He is waiting to hear about a scholarship and a place at King’s College, but notifications are delayed because King’s has been hit in the Blitz. He is in love with Charlotte but thinks she is above him.
Is Charlotte being followed or is she paranoid? Is there something else going on? This novel eventually because a fast-moving, tightly plotted, and satisfying tale.
whatmeread 
I was going to ask if this was the same author who wrote Longbourn, and then looked at the cover and it actually says it on there! lol
Thanks for sharing your review with the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.
You’re welcome!