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    The Midnight Dress
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    The Midnight Dress
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    The Midnight Dress
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Midnight Dress

    Written by Karen Foxlee

    Narrated by Olivia Mackenzie-Smith

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Quiet misfit Rose doesn't expect to fall in love with the sleepy beach town of Leonora. Nor does she expect to become fast friends with beautiful, vivacious Pearl Kelly, organizer of the high school float at the annual Harvest Festival parade. It's better not to get too attached when Rose and her father live on the road, driving their caravan from one place to the next whenever her dad gets itchy feet. But Rose can't resist the mysterious charms of the town or the popular girl, try as she might.

    Pearl convinces Rose to visit Edie Baker, once a renowned dressmaker, now a rumored witch. Together Rose and Edie hand-stitch an unforgettable dress of midnight blue for Rose to wear at the Harvest Festival-a dress that will have long-lasting consequences on life in Leonora, a dress that will seal the fate of one of the girls. Karen Foxlee's breathtaking novel weaves friendship, magic, and a murder mystery into something moving, real, and distinctly original.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateOct 8, 2013
    ISBN9780804123648
    Unavailable
    The Midnight Dress
    Author

    Karen Foxlee

    Karen Foxlee is an Australian author who writes for both children and young adults. She grew up in the Australian mining town Mount Isa and still frequently dreams she is walking barefoot along the dry Leichhardt River. She is the author of Dragon Skin and the Carnegie Medal-longlisted Lenny's Book of Everything, both published by Pushkin Children's Books. The first book of the Miss Mary-Kate Martin's Guide to Monsters, The Wrath of the Woolington Wyrm, was a Foyles Children's Book of the Month

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    Reviews for The Midnight Dress

    3.5/5

    46 ratings6 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I was completely captivated by this story. The combination of the exotic (well, exotic to me, at least) setting and the compelling main character made for a page-turning read, that once I finished, I wanted to start all over again. That doesn't usually happen to me in a book, which makes me glad that this is the last book of the year that I finished, letting me end my reading on a high note.So let's start with the setting. Rose and her father move to a small, rural town in Australia, which is described so well by the author that I could feel the humidity closing in on me at times. Admittedly, I don't like heat and humidity at all, so reading this book sometimes made me want to fan myself (or at least step outside for a moment. I live in the Chicago area, so it's nice and cold right now). The town, itself, isn't described so much as some of the parts that are outside of town, like where Rose and her father live, and where the dressmaker's house is. I've never been to Australia, so I wasn't familiar with some of the plants and animals in the book. However, this just made me want to look them up, and hope they were all real. And speaking of settings, the house that Edie (the dressmaker) lives in is a character all unto itself. The author creates something that seems to be more than a house, almost, where there might just be small bits of magic happening. It's not the loveliest house; actually, it's far from it. "The house is falling apart. There's a tree growing through the front stairs. Everywhere there's the detritus of the forest. The leaves drying in small piles in the corners of rooms and seedpods jammed in the floorboards. The curtains are dappled with mildew and festooned with spiderwebs." (p. 45-46). But somehow, despite its condition (and apparent smell, I'd imagine, considering the mildew and constant humidity), it's fascinating. It's hard to imagine Edie living in it, but at the same time, it's completely appropriate.The characters are well-written, and not all of them are likable (which is perfectly fine with me - I don't need to like a character, as long as I find them interesting). Rose is a bit prickly and difficult, and a real opposite to Pearl. Her home situation is also the opposite of Pearl, so I found it interesting that we have two teen characters who are similar and different, and we have the adults that way, as well. I liked that not all of the adults were wonderful, and helpful, and supportive. What I mean is: Rose's father isn't that great of a father, and I liked that he's this way, because it felt more realistic to me. One of the things that I enjoyed in this book was that there is a story within a story going on here. You get Rose's story, in the present (more or less), as well as the story that is going on right after someone (actually, two people) go missing. You get the perspective from Rose, but you also get the perspective from Detective Glass. I also liked that when Rose meets Edie and gets to know her, that Edie tells her stories of her own life. So, it's stories wrapped in stories (like a wonderful present in a beautiful box filled with layers of colorful tissue paper). I wasn't always sure what was going to happen, either, which made it a great read.This is one of the most beautiful books that I've read, mostly because it's beautifully written, but also because I felt like it was intelligently written. It made me want to look up things, and places. It made me imagine things, and it made me feel like I wanted to know some of the characters better. It made me wonder about what happened to some of them after the book. It's a talent not all authors have, and one that I really appreciate.
    • 5/5
      Will you forgive me if I tell you the ending?The Midnight Dress begins with a girl waiting anxiously in the darkness, the sounds of the town celebrating echoing in the distance, wondering what she will say when he comes for her. This is the girl that will disappear, the girl wearing the midnight dress.The narrative shifts between the present, as a Detective searches for the missing girl, and the past as present as the midnight dress comes to be. Rose arrives in the small northern Queensland town of Paradise with her alcoholic father, is befriended by Pearl despite her reluctance and with the Harvest Parade celebration imminent agrees to work with the eccentric Edie Baker to create a dress for the occasion. A midnight dress of deep navy blue, mourning lace and glass beads, hand sewn by Rose while she listens to the stories Edie has to share.I saw The Midnight Dress labeled as 'rural Australian gothic' (I am not really sure where - sorry about that) and thought it the perfect description. It has many of the elements associated with the genre - a wild, isolated landscape, a crumbling house, an illicit love affair, a lurking sense of something 'other'.The suspense is finely crafted, despite the intertwining narrative that foreshadows the grief and loss. There is a haunted quality that reminds me of The Picnic at Hanging Rock, it has that sense of an inexorable slide towards tragedy, of menace waiting to take advantage of innocence.The Midnight Dress is beautifully written with a lyrical rhythm and evocative language. I felt as though I could step inside Edie Baker's house, crowded with decaying junk, mildewed fabric and lost dreams. Gaze upon the looming mountain covered with dense forest, a waterfall burbling in the distance as the sweat of tropical humidity trickles uncomfortably down my spine. Spy on Pearl's flirtation with Paul amongst the tiny, musty rooms of the book exchange.Despite the teenage protagonist I would say this novel exceeds the boundaries of young adult fiction, it is more than a coming of age tale even as it delves into the angst of adolescence. The Midnight Dress is compelling, a story of loss, of yearning and dark enchantment and leaves me eager to read more from Karen Foxlee.
    • 4/5
      In The Midnight Dress by Karen Foxlee, Rose moves to a small seaside town with her drifter, alcoholic father. She unexpectedly makes a friend in the bubbly and naive Pearl, who encourages Rose to attend the Harvest Dance, a touted event where all the girls show off their dresses and parade on stage. Rose goes to the local seamstress, and rumored witch, Edie Baker, for help making a dress, and slowly becomes wrapped in Edie's life story.

      There are three layers to the story, though Foxlee does an admirable job of keeping them distinct from each other, so that the storyline never becomes muddled. The first is the story of Rose herself, and her blossoming friendship with Pearl and nascent fascination with Edie. Edie has her own story to tell, going back to her father and mother's whirlwind romance, and the tragedy of his homecoming from the war. And finally there is the mystery of the girl in the midnight dress and her disappearance on the night of the Harvest Dance.

      The mystery is intriguing, but not difficult to solve; aside from a few red herrings, astute readers will be able to pick out both the girl and the perpetrator with little difficulty. The better story is probably Edie's slow unfolding and the path her reputation takes to local witch, and Rose's coming of age.

      But even that's not why this is a great book - that's purely the writing. The writing in this book has a dreamy, drifting quality that initially put me off, but then began to reel me in until I was well and truly caught. There are moments of occasional great writing in books - passages that make you stop and read them twice, to savor the words - but this does it throughout. There's no one passage or line that makes you do that; the whole book does. Take Edie's description of love: "Do you know what love is like, Rose? It's like having a sky, a whole sky racing inside of you. Four seasons' worth of sky. One minute you are soaring and then you are all thunderclouds and then you are deep with stars and then you are empty" (180).

      If you're looking for verisimilitude, this is not the book. Teenage girls, to my knowledge, have never talked like Pearl or Rose, and women living in strange houses in the woods don't have majestic stories to share. But if you're looking for that mystery, that romance, the sweet breath of words like mist in your mind, that's what this book will give you.
    • 2/5
      I read this one on the basis of a recommendation by a coworker. Maybe it was too hyped, but it was an ok read. The sewing and the older lady and the parade that the lead doesn't believe in--it seemed an amalgamation of other plots.
    • 4/5
      I got a copy of this book to review through the Amazon Vine program. I thought the premise was fascinating and had heard some great things about this book. It ended up being a very interesting and creepy young adult horror/paranormal read.This is about a girl named Rose who moves with her nomadic father to the city of Paradise. There she meets a girl named Pearl who convinces Rose to have an old woman named Evie help Rose make a dress for the upcoming Harvest Festival. As things start to unfold, tragedy befalls the town of Paradise...all because of the events surrounding the midnight blue dress that Evie and Rose make. The book was formatted in a really interesting way. Each chapter starts with an italicized portion that is in current time, then the book goes back to the past and the majority of the chapter is spent in the past figuring out how Evie and Pearl got to where they are in the present.The writing is beautiful, the pace of the story is deliberate and mysterious. This is basically about an unlikely friendship between two girls who are each suffering through their own problems. It is a creepy story, mainly because of Rose’s unpredictable and sometimes drunken father and because of an older man named Paul that Pearl is infatuated with.Rose is an interesting character. She moves a lot and has a hard time making friends. Her father is also very poor, so she doesn’t have much in the way of material items. For some reason Pearl takes an interest in Rose and kind of adopts her; Rose is stunned by this but also somewhat grateful to finally have someone in her life that she can share things with.Pearl is also an interesting character. She is a romantic and constantly dreams of leaving town and exploring the wider world. Pearl thinks everything is beautiful and that it is all a game. She expects the best of everyone, most of the time this brings out the best in everyone but sometimes it leads people to expect things from her they shouldn’t.There is some magical realism in here, but when I think back to the story everything can pretty much be explained through non-magical means. There are hints that the dress Rose and Evie make is something more and that Evie has roots in witchcraft.There are some pretty big twists right at the end of the story. You totally think you know what is going on and then bam! the story takes you by surprise. It doesn’t feel contrived or anything, and after you find out what really happened you find yourself thinking back to the story and then going “Huh, yeah, that completely makes sense.”Overall this was an intriguing book. While not the type of book I would normally read, it was an engaging book that was beautifully written. The story was told in a very creative way and I love how we got glimpses of the present while we were being told the story that led to that present. I would recommend to those who love creepy thriller-like reads with some magical realism in them.
    • 5/5
      Had this book not been chosen by my face-to-face reading group, I probably wouldn't have come across it, but I'm glad I did. Karen Foxlee is a new-to-me Australian author.Apart from anything else, the structure of the book is unusual and interesting. After the annual Harvest Parade in which they both participated, two girls are missing in a coastal sugar cane town in mid-northern Queensland.Each of the chapters is headed with the name of a stitch used in tailoring or embroidery.e.g.Anchor StitchOyster StitchCatch StitchStraight StitchBinding StitchSpider Web Stitch etc. etc. (I didn't know there were so many stitches)And the reader's attention is captured straight away in the opening of the first chapter, Anchor Stitch: Will you forgive me if I tell you the ending? There’s a girl. She’s standing where the park outgrows itself and the manicured lawn gives way to longer grass and the stubble of rocks. She is standing in no-man’s-land, between the park and the place where the mill yards begin. It’s night and the cane trains are still. It is unbearably humid and she feels the sweat sliding down her back and she presses her hands there into the fabric to stop the sensation that is ticklishly unpleasant. She lifts up the midnight dress to fan her legs. It’s true, the dress is a magical thing, it makes her look so heavenly.After a couple of pages from this narrator, the chapter continues with the story from the beginning. Rose Lovell arrives in town with her father at the Paradise caravan park where they will live for the next few months. She meets Pearl Kelly in the next day or so when she goes to school. They will be the central characters of the story, but there is also Edie Baker, an eccentric dressmaker with a history, Rose's alcoholic father, and Paul Rendell who runs a Book Exchange in the back of his mother's shop.The first chapter sets the pattern for the rest. There is always a preface from the narrator, helpfully written in italics, and then the continuing story. There's the feeling of two paths, with the main story slowly catching up to the point where the narrator's brief snippets begin.The two teenage girls are trying to establish their identities. Rose has been on the move with her father for a number of years after the apparent drowning suicide of her mother. She has had little chance to establish friends, and she connects surprisingly well with both Pearl and Edie, who agrees to help her make her dress for the Harvest Parade. Pearl is trying to work out who she is too, looking for her Russian father, by writing to men surnamed Orlov in Moscow. As Rose and Edie make the dress, so the tragedies of Edie's life emerge.After a stuttering start, the book gathers pace. The author drops information all over the place and there are many little stories for the reader to piece together. It is a very effective technique.So for me, Karen Foxlee is a new author to watch out for. A great book, not just a coming of age novel, but a well constructed mystery on many levels.