The Midnight Feast

“In the middle of the scene, like a fairy queen—like Titania on her woodland throne—sits the owner of The Manor. Francesca Meadows. Radiant in a pale rose, off-shoulder fantasia of washed silk, hair rippling down her back, face aglow with candlelight. The culmination of a dream: that’s what she said in the article. I’m so excited to share this place with everyone. Well, everyone who can afford it, anyway. But who’s quibbling?”

Here Foley evokes the image of Titania—the Fairy Queen from the Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night’s Dream—which takes place in the English woods during the ritually magic time of midsummer. The image connects the world of The Midnight Feast, which takes place in the English woods during the summer solstice, a few days before midsummer, to a long, rich history of British folk magic. The comparison of Francesca to Titania reflects the fantasy persona she’s cultivated for herself sets up Foley’s reveal that Francesca’s true self is a dark foil of the character from Shakespeare’s comedy.

“It wasn’t really any of that though. It was what happened in the woods. What we found. Every time I saw her I remembered. Every time we had sex I thought about how we’d been about to do it in the woods when we heard that sound. The scream.”

Foley employs multiple narrative POVs to progressively reveal the layers of her story. Here, Eddie reveals that he and his now ex-girlfriend Delilah had been in the woods at the time that Lord Meadows died. They heard a scream and later came upon his dead body. In a subsequent POV later in the narrative, Foley adds an additional layer to Eddie’s description that suggests Lord Meadows’s encounter with the Birds contributed to his heart attack.

“I take a deep breath. Then I lift the notebook back onto my lap. Before anything else I turn to the back, willing my trembling fingers to work properly. There it is. A scrawled map, drawn in biro. The house, the cliffs, the wood.

X marks the spot.

Time to drag the past screaming into the light.”

Bella discovery of the journal she hid in the rock cave near the beach 15 years prior represents one of many clues Foley reveals to draw the reader into the mystery and suspense of the novel. Bella opens the journal to a map with a location marked on it without revealing its significance, building suspense consistent with a classic whodunit novel.

“Jesus Christ. The realisation of it shrieks through me. It’s a bird. Someone has nailed a dead bird to our door. Not just any bird—it’s the white cockerel from the run in the walled garden. The one Francesca was photographed with in Harper’s Bazaar.”

Owen’s discovery of the dead bird nailed to the door provides one of the many red herrings in the text. Through the mention of the Harper’s Bazaar article, which Bella has in her cabin, and Bella’s presence near the scene, Foley suggests it was Bella who left the dead bird, but later reveals it to have a been a symbolic threat left by The Birds.

“Then she turns and, for a few seconds, meets my gaze. There’s a trembling of something in the air between us. Her smile remains in place and she continues surveying the room. I dip my face beneath my hair. But she saw me, I’m certain of it. A shiver passes through me. It’s the feeling they say you get when someone has walked over your grave.”

Throughout her novel, Foley weaves in references to old superstitions and folklore that posit natural occurrences as evidence of the supernatural, blurring the divide between the two and positioning Magic as a Natural Force in the text. According to folk magic legend, when someone walks over the site of your future grave, you shiver just as Bella does when looking at Francesca.

“Then just before I left Frankie gave me a big hug and was like, that was fun right? And I said yeah, because it was kind of fun. In a creepy way. Then she said: but next time swallow the pill, Sparrow. It’s no fun if you don’t. It’s kind of a let-down? I hate it when people let me down.”

Bella description of a conversation she and Francesca had when they were teenagers in her summer journal adds a layer of menace to the tension between the two women in the present, illustrating the insidious nature of Francesca’s cruelty and narcissism. Her comment—“I hate when people let me down”—spoken with the veneer of friendly banter, hides a thinly veiled threat, foreshadowing Francesca’s true villainy.

“How short a time Francesca and I have been together, how shallow our knowledge of one another really is. I’m aware of how little of myself I’ve revealed to her. But Francesca, with her wholesomeness, her emphasis on ‘radical honesty’, has always seemed an open book. Now it occurs to me that there may be another deeper self, a history, that I know nothing of.”

Structurally, Foley interweaves the scenes of teenage Francesca from Bella’s journal with Owen’s growing insight into Francesca’s true character, allowing each to inform the other. Although Francesca pretends to be “wholesome” and “honest,” Owen begins to recognize her careful cultivated persona as a mask, hiding a much more menacing and dangerous side that she attempts to hide from the world.

“Glasses and coffee cups shatter, sunbathing spots and mobiles are abandoned, a pair of Oliver Peoples shades are trampled underfoot.

‘Call the police!’ a guy shrieks. But already the storm seems to have passed. One final pebble plops into the pool like a piece of punctuation and then there’s the roar of several outboard engines gunning down below. Just before they leave a voice blares through a loudhailer: ‘More where that came from, you posh fucks! Enjoy your stay!’”

This scene, in which the working-class locals led by Nathan Tate and Delilah throw rocks at the wealthy hotel guests, calling them “posh fucks,” embodies the novel’s thematic interest in Class Tensions in a Small Town. Foley emphasizes the wealth of the guests by peppering references to luxury brand names throughout the text—in this case, expensive Oliver Peoples sunglasses.

“I’m so proud of having state-of-the-art wellness infrastructure here. Everything you might expect to get in London—or LA—tucked away in this little quaint corner of the English countryside. We also have our own skincare line, formulated from local moss and a tiny sprinkling of chemicals, sold exclusively here, though (on the downlow for now!) soon to be stocked by SpaceNK, Liberty and Cult Beauty, so everyone can experience just a little of the magic. Quite democratic, if you ignore the price!”

In Francesca’s descriptions of The Manor and its various related commodities, Foley provides a satirical critique of the contemporary wellness industry. Here, Francesca reveals the extent to which her all-natural, all-organic front is a marketing ploy. She intends to market her skincare line as “local” when it contains a “sprinkling of chemicals” despite her claims, and pokes fun at the notion of making it accessible to everyone (“democratic”), when its price point makes it cost prohibitive for all but the wealthy.

“I remember you both, coming in to drop off the catch. You and your dad. You were so quiet. You barely even looked at me. I suppose that’s because everyone made fun of you. But just look at you now, Shrimp.”

Foley links several of her central characters by a common thematic thread: Owen, Jake, Bella, and Francesca have all remade themselves to varying degrees and with different motives, but the stakes remain high for each of them if their past selves are revealed at the wrong time or to the wrong people. Foley highlights these stakes for Owen when Michelle reveals that she knows Owen is actually the working-class fisherman’s son known as Shrimp. Owen believes the luxury and stability of his current life is predicated on hiding his true identity and association with the working-class locals. In making the stakes of discovery clear for each of her characters, Foley implies potential motive for the crimes at the center of the whodunit plot, suggesting that any of the central figures could be the culprit.

“‘But they’re historic,’ I say. ‘Aren’t they? I mean, presumably this group…the Birds, whatever they are, they ceased to exist a long time ago?’

I wait for her to answer but nothing comes. I turn around, only to find that she has gone.

I feel jittery, spooked by the whole encounter, by the memories that are threatening to surface.”

The local vicar tells Bella about the history of The Birds, pointing to the novel’s thematic interest in Magic as a Natural Force with a long history in the region. The conversation unsettles Bella and leads her to reflect on the encounter with The Birds she had as a teenager. Although Francesca told Bella that she was the one behind the creepy bird activity in their youth, adult Bella’s experiences in Tome cause her—and, by extension, the reader—to re-evaluate everything she thought she knew.

“‘They found…blood in the woods.’

I swallow. What the hell? ‘Blood?’

‘Yeah. Not just a few drops either. The guy said it was “like something from a horror film.”’”

With the guests’ discovery of blood in the woods, Foley uses macabre and unsettling imagery as another red herring, suggesting that someone has been murdered. However, she later reveals the blood to be a result of The Birds’ ritual sacrifice of Ivor the bull.

“All day I’ve had the feeling that someone is watching me.

I close my eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. Ah, that’s b—

I open my eyes. Was that…a howl?”

As Francesca’s curated beliefs in spiritual self-help begin to unravel during The Manor’s opening weekend, her relationship to Magic as a Natural Force begins to shift. Over the course of the novel, Foley chronicles the slow descent of Francesca’s self-assured disbelief into abject terror in the novel’s climax.

“You wouldn’t think a nursery rhyme could sound so sinister. But there in the dark woods it did. It seemed like it was coming from every direction, following me through the trees.”

This quote references the motif of “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic,” which Bella describes hearing in the woods as a teenager the night she found Cora kissing Francesca’s grandfather. Although Francesca later claims to playing the song herself to scare Bella, additional characters in the 2025 timeline hear the song as well, contributing to the mysterious and menacing tone of the narrative.

“‘Last time I saw him he was running like his life depended on it, out of the woods. Honestly, the guy looked possessed. This…demonic look in his eyes. Yeah’—Walker actually sees him shiver, in the act of remembering it—‘pretty bloody sinister.’”

The perspective of the Detective Investigator allows Foley to reveal fragments of detail out of context, cobbled together as the detectives interview witnesses at The Manor on the night of the solstice celebration. These fragmented details provide myriad opportunities for red herrings since, without the context of the whole, they can be interpreted in many different ways.

“I always did love sneaking out at midnight as a youth. There’s something so alive about this hour: magical and elemental. As though anything could happen.”

Francesca’s description of the midnight hour as “magical,” and her revisionist perspective on her youthful time spent in the woods, emphasizes her ability to remake the truth just as she has remade herself. Her observation that “anything could happen” at midnight foreshadows the novel’s climactic and violent events that include Francesca’s death.

“The Birds aren’t just a story kids scare each other with. They’re real. They’re up to something. And my dad is one of them.”

Over the course of Eddie’s arc, he moves from a casual, superstitious reverence for the woods and its accompanying legends, to putting on the cloak and joining their ranks on the night of the solstice celebration. Eddie’s discovery of the crow costume worn by the Birds behind the washing machine provides yet another red herring in the text, since Foley later reveals it to be his mother, not his father, who is one of The Birds.

“I do know this boy, though. And suddenly a lot of things fall into place. Why I was so drawn to Eddie the barman that first night. His strange familiarity. Why I totally took leave of my senses and found myself trying to seduce him.

He’s his brother. He’s his little brother.”

As Bella puts the pieces together and realizes Eddie is Jake’s younger brother, Foley lays the groundwork for her final reveal that Detective Inspector Walker is, in fact, Jake. Structurally, Foley connects Bella’s first scene—talking to Eddie in the bar—and her final scene—sitting in the local pub, identifying the members of The Birds, each of whom she has interacted with over the course of the narrative.

“He’s hit by the powerful scent of fresh-turned soil: a secret history just unearthed.”

As Detective Inspector Walker comes upon Cora’s grave, Foley uses descriptive phrasing to give the scene thematic resonance. The reference to “a secret history just unearthed” doubles as a description for the plot of the novel as a whole, as well as many of the characters’ individual arcs.

“I look back down at the diary. Dreading what I’m going to find now. My brother disappeared for good, fifteen years ago.

I think I’m about to learn why.”

Structurally, Foley intercuts sections of Bella’s summer journal with Eddie’s reactions to them, mirroring his experience of reading within the text itself. Eddie’s feelings of “dread” foreshadow the novel’s climactic events in which all is revealed.

“As we have established it could look far worse for you than for Francesca if the police were to become involved. This family has certain—resources. We will not hesitate to use them. I know people at the very highest level in this country.”

Foley depicts Francesca’s grandfather, Lord Meadows, as wielding his privilege and political influence like weapons against Bella and Jake, explicitly emphasizing the Class Tensions in a Small Town. Lord Meadows acts with impunity, believing his wealth makes him and his family untouchable, forever free of consequences for their actions—a perspective the events of the novel prove incorrect.

“They’re real. This is what the thing on the beach means. Those masked faces I keep seeing in the crowd. Grandfa’s warning, the last time I saw him. The Birds…

They came for him. Now they’re here. They’re coming for me.”

As Francesca’s carefully cultivated persona begins to unravel, so does her sense of control over the world and her disregard for Magic as a Natural Force. She sees the crow wicker statue on the beach placed there by The Birds, and she feels convinced that they are both real and after her—a profound contrast to her earlier dismissal of folk magic as a joke to play on others or appropriate for her own profit.

“The shadows melt back into the woods. Swarm and coalesce around the tree with a hundred eyes. Shadows with form, with substance. They haven’t failed yet to find justice. They are one with nature. And nature always finds a way.”

After the events of the solstice, the “shadows” disappear, their work done. In this short chapter, Foley implies that the Magical as a Natural Force alluded to throughout the text is not simply a metaphor but real and able to impact on the world to the benefit of the Tome locals.