the Midnight Watch
David Dyer
John Steadman is a body man. His reporting for the Boston American newspaper involves finding those bodies, and writing a story of them that brings their lives back. When he gets caught up in the story of the ship that watched the Titanic sink, he finds himself losing himself in the story – to the loss of his own job.
What I loved was that the blending of fact and fiction made me feel at home in the novel. I didn’t object that I never really understood everything behind Lord’s motives. I didn’t mind that there was no happy ending.
I did feel a little confused towards the end, when John’s story of the Titanic is published. There is a disconnect between John’s words and the story, despite this being in chronological order as far as I could see. I felt that John’s newspaper story could have come at the very end of the novel, and I still would have been happy – as I would have seen it as an overall conclusion.
Confession – I’ve never seen The Titanic! Nor do I ever hope to have to sit through it. As far as I can tell, it’s a ‘classic timeless love story’ and I barely have the patience to sit through one of those in novel form, let alone a movie!
Giving this beauty 4 stars. It was surprisingly gripping, despite already knowing the major outcome (pretty much everyone on the Titanic died). Kudos to Dyer for this fantastic and well written novel, and my absolute condolences on it being from your Doctorate!
When will I get tired of extreme-situation teenage novels? Maybe some time soon. I’m feeling an end of my sympathy for idiots that let love get in the way of all things! But real life problems? Yes, I’ll take those. This novel isn’t too far off course for things that could happen. Who knows how many people are having this problem, and it’s just not picked up?
You’d think that since I was up until 1am finishing this book (and doing some other writing) than means I enjoyed it. Honestly, I’m not sure that I did. There were huge time gaps and gaps in Jinhau’s memory that made me fall out of the novel time and time again.
As always, I preferred the personal stories rather than the advice given in this novel. I think if you are going for a more ‘traditional’ career (not a university and teaching focussed career like mine) this novel is going to be perfect for you. I’d choose it as a gift for someone just starting out at their first job.
I put off reading this novel for a very long time, because I knew it was the second in the series. Finally, in a bid to cull down the number of older novels I had sitting on my shelf, I decided to pick it up. A quick google of the first novel in the series seemed to suggest that I didn’t need to read the first one – this was definitely the case.
This was such a slow novel. I was halfway through and saying to my partner that I wasn’t sure I could face keeping on reading it. I started out being a bit wary of it, because of the changing perspectives.
I wasn’t won over by the way there were ‘bytes’ of information from the way that Scarlett and Lucas thought. I didn’t like the consciousnesses changing, and I thought Avery was an idiot. A rich, spoilt idiot.
Oh yeah, who’s going to cheer for that entirely surprising ending? Uh, that would be me. I didn’t see that coming at all. Should I have? Were the signs there? I can’t remember.
I didn’t even realise Earl was black. Call me stupid, but I didn’t even look at the front cover before I started this novel. And then it doesn’t bother me that people would be a different race to me, so I guess I didn’t pick it up for ages.
This novel is filled with ‘F-bombs’, sex and a rather disgusting sense of humour. But that being said, I laughed out loud at some of the dialogue, and although I’d never purchase it on my own, I think it’s a good read to borrow from a friend.