About the Book
From the author of the acclaimed novel We Are Called to Rise comes a “jewel of a novel” (BookPage) about four vivid and complicated women in Las Vegas whose lives become connected by secrets, courage, tragedies, and small acts of kindness.
Fun-loving and rebellious, twenty-one-year-old June Stein abandons the safe world of her New Jersey childhood for edgy 1950s Las Vegas. For the next 60 years, June will dare to live boldly. She will upend conventions, risk her heart and her life, rear a child, lose a child, love more than one man, and stand up for more than one woman.
June’s story will intertwine with those of three unlikely strangers: a one-time mail order bride from the Philippines, a high school music teacher, and a young mother from Mexico working as a hotel maid. Knit together around June’s explosive secret, they forge a future that none of them foresee.
This jubilant, compassionate novel explores the unexpected ways that life connects us, changes us, and even perfects us. A powerful story of lust and of hope, of redemption and of compassion, In the Midnight Room is a smart, sagacious novel about womanhood, family bonds, and how we live in America now.
My Review
When I first started reading this book, I thought uh-oh. I was not able to get into the first few chapters, I couldn’t follow the storyline or figure out the point of the book, and I nearly gave up on this one. I’m really, really glad I kept going, because I ended up not being able to put In the Midnight Room down. If this starts slow for you too, I recommend you stick with it, because it will all start coming together after a bit. When it does and the full storyline really starts to unfold, it’s such a wonderful read that I would still recommend this novel even with the slow and slightly unsettled start. I loved the intimate Vegas setting we get to read about, so different from today, and all the characters that share their story throughout. Still a very solid novel.
4 stars
