About the Author, Marlene M. Bell
Marlene M. Bell is an accomplished artist and photographer who takes pride in entertaining fans on multiple levels with her creativity. Marlene’s award-winning Annalisse series boasts Best Mystery honors for all installments including these: IP Best Regional Australia/New Zealand, Global Award Best Mystery, and Chanticleer’s International Mystery and Mayhem shortlist for Copper Waters, the fourth mystery in the series. Her children’s picture book, Mia and Nattie: One Great Team!, written primarily for younger kids, is based on true events from the Bell’s East Texas sheep ranch. The simple text and illustrations are a touching tribute of belonging and unconditional love between a little girl and her lamb.
You can follow the author on her website, on Facebook, or on Twitter.
About the book, A Hush At Midnight
Celebrity chef Laura Harris dwells on the horror of finding her mentor’s body in the groundskeeper’s disheveled bed—pillow and bedding half covering her open eyes—purple bruising around her mouth. A grisly snapshot in time revealing the Texas woman’s last moments during her attack. The elderly matriarch from the small town of Stenburg has left the physical world, and Laura is shattered.
She is catapulted headlong into the pursuit of a casual executioner, one bold enough to come and go from the crime scene with ease, dropping bizarre crumb trails designed to mock the deceased. But Laura herself doesn’t go unnoticed. As she digs deeper, she is followed and bombarded by warnings to leave the state.
When the victim’s attorney informs Laura that she’s to inherit the entire Stenburg fortune, the last act of kindness has made Laura the main person of interest in the investigation. Message by message, Laura is methodically taunted by someone so deranged and driven they’ll do whatever it takes to dislodge Laura from Texas – permanently.
Review of A Hush At Midnight, by Marlene M. Bell
I received a free copy of the uncorrected proof of this book from the author and from WOW! Women on Writing for review, so I won’t be discussing the actual writing of the book, only the story itself. The premise was very interesting, and is the reason I picked up the opportunity in the first place: What would I do if I walked into a room to find my mentor dead?
I remained intrigued and engaged throughout the book because I was curious to figure out what happened. But I did have trouble following the plot. I’m not sure if it’s because the way the plot is weaved in this book is so different from the way the plot is weaved in books I normally read. For example, I found some of the main character’s decisions and actions very confusing and even contradictory, without explanation. I felt she acted very irrationally at times and couldn’t keep track at other times of which direction she had decided to take during her personal investigation of the crime.
A relationship ended and another one started straight on its heels, and I found myself confused as to how someone who was supposedly heartbroken by the ending of one relationship could jump into another one so quickly. I talked to a few friends about this, and we figured that’s just how some people were. I did feel I personally needed hand-holding in the book to understand the main character’s mental process through this transition, as it was so different from my reality and my personal choice.
I also didn’t see the ending coming. Again, usually in mysteries, I feel like there are some breadcrumbs sprinkled throughout the book that, when I read the book a second time, I see as now-obvious hints as to the ending of the book. There were no breadcrumbs in A Hush At Midnight, which left me reeling — but again, just like with the relationship, it’s more what I’m used to than anything else.
Because after all, we have been trained to see certain books and certain formulas as the ‘right’ way to write. I have come to notice that, in my case, it makes me uncomfortable with certain books, for no other reason than they are written differently. For this reason, I’m glad I got intrigued by A Hush At Midnight and read something that isn’t written with the typical formula of mainstream books. This is also the reason I have been reading more and more books by authors from Africa, Asia, and South America. I think in this time of increasing divisive narratives online that tends to send us into our echo chambers where our views tend to crystallised and solidify at the expense of truth, getting uncomfortable at every level is a great act of resistance.
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