Beautiful but troubled, Gianetta cannot seem to escape her past, her pain, or her ex-husband -- not even in a remote hotel on the Scottish Isle of Skye. One of her fellow guests, however, is also hiding secrets . . . and a skill and penchant for murder.

And now the killer only has eyes for Gianetta . . .

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 13 reviews)

Wildfire at Midnight

If you appreciate an 'old fashioned' tale free of graphic intimacy and violence, if you appreciate vivid description, romance and intrigue this is for you. I read all but one of Mary Stewart's books in my early twenty's through late thirties. Now, nearing seventy, I am rereading them and cherishing the stories I read in my young years. I have divested myself of hundreds of books. Mary Stewart's remain a constant. "Wildfire at Midnight" tells of a young divorcee, unusual in Ms. Stewart's books, traveling to the Isle of Skye to recover from and get over her ex. BUT...he is in the same hotel on the remote Isle. Like many of Ms. Stewart's work murder has been done, intrigue and danger abound and one is constantly wondering WHO DID IT? a good read.
September 30, 2008

Suspense At Its Best

I loved this book! It is a great example of Mary Stewart's ability to create suspense and atmosphere in writing. I only wish that she would write another book sometime. I don't even know if she is still around.
August 21, 2007

Great Atmosphere and Characters!

This was the first Mary Stewart I read and I was hooked. It is still a favorite along with Madam Will You Talk and The Ivy Tree. The author is masterly in setting up the suspence and romance along with compelling action.
In Wildfire at Midnight, the setting is the Isle of Skye and the tension becomes quite frightening as the heroine feels drawn to a possible murderer. Someone is committing ritual murders on the mountainside and the murderer is likely one of the guests at the remote lodge.
April 12, 2007

Creepy Hebridean Murder Mystery

When I was a child in the 1970s we were on a holiday on the west coast of Scotland and by chance, taking refuge in the car from the torrential summer downpour in the barren square of Portree, my father turned on the radio. What came on was a creepy, disturbing drama set on Skye. A young woman, the only visitor to this country hotel not on the suspect list for a grizzly murder is sitting in the dead of night by the unconscious body of another would-be victim of the murderer. "How appropriate!" my mother laughed, and we listened on. The landscape of the story was the same landscape that was around me, though I couldn't see it for the rain, and there were strange characters, a crazed climber, beltane fires and murder. I thought it was great and it really, really stayed with me. It was years later that I read Wildfire at Midnight and realised that this was the self-same story I'd heard as a child. It's cracking, unashamedly romantic, but really rather well written. A good read for a sick day tucked up on the sofa, or a quiet night in. Mary Stewart's great - if only new pulp fiction could manage the same alluring balance of literary poise and good swash-buckling plots. No one else does it as well.

April 05, 2006

One of the greatest first chapters in popular fiction

This is a very good book, but the first chapter is a beautifully polished gem. The description of the heroine's look-alike but very different ancestor is unforgetable: "the Vixen Venus ...a Beauty in the days when beauties had a capital B, and were moreover apt to regard beauty and capital as one and the same thing."

Some books are like relatives. You love them despite their lack of perfection. Perhaps they are better than other books in the ways that count - with characters who truly live in their pages and your imagination. Or perhaps they become alive because they transcend the confines of genre fiction and have the complexity of real life.

I love this book, and the author's Nine Coaches Waiting, but both books raise issues about love and trust that I don't think they resolve realistically. However, it is probably my persistent re-reading of the books that caused me to see flaws the casual reader would not.
March 25, 2005

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Madam, Will You Talk?
by Mary Stewart

Thunder on the Right
by Mary Stewart

This Rough Magic
by Mary Stewart

Nine Coaches Waiting
by Mary Stewart
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My Brother Michael
by Mary Stewart