Middle of the Night by Riley Sager

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⭐ 4/5 Book Review: Middle of the Night by Riley Sager – Childhood Trauma Never Sleeps 🌙

👉 Grab Middle of the Night on Amazon 📚 (affiliate link)

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⚠️ Trigger Warnings

• Child abduction & death 🧒💔

• Drunk driving 🚗🥂

• Violence & kidnapping 🔪

• Psychological trauma 😱

• Guilt, grief, & obsession 😔

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First Thoughts 💭

Okay, let’s be real: how does a kid just vanish from a tent in the middle of a suburban backyard sleepover without anyone noticing?! 🤯 This is the question that kept me flipping pages.

Riley Sager serves up another psychological thriller full of twists, neighborhood secrets, and haunted childhood memories. The book kept me guessing, though I have to admit—the final twist was a little underwhelming. I suspected Ashley early on (she was way too present for a side character), but even if I hadn’t, the big reveal wasn’t exactly fireworks. Still, I couldn’t stop reading because I had to know the truth.

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📖 Full Spoiler-Filled Plot Summary

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: Massive spoilers ahead! If you haven’t read the book yet, skip down to my thoughts & verdict.

The Setup: Hemlock Circle, 1994

• Ethan Marsh (10 years old) has his best friend Billy Barringer over for a backyard sleepover.

• The boys are cozy in a tent when Billy mysteriously disappears in the middle of the night. Gone. Just like that.

• The neighborhood panics, search parties form, but Billy is never found.

Thirty Years Later…

• Adult Ethan (now late 30s) returns to Hemlock Circle. He’s never gotten over Billy’s disappearance and is still haunted by guilt.

• Weird things start happening—ghostly whispers, eerie signs that Billy is still around. Ethan wonders if his friend’s ghost wants him to uncover the truth.

The Interludes 👀

• Sager sprinkles in flashback “Interludes” from different perspectives (Billy’s brother Andy, his mom, even Billy himself). These fill in the backstory, show neighborhood secrets, and hint that everyone may know more than they’re letting on.

The Haunting Isn’t a Haunting 👻

• Plot twist: it’s not really Billy’s ghost tormenting Ethan. It’s Andy (Billy’s little brother), who’s been lurking around Hemlock Circle for years.

• Andy is convinced someone in the neighborhood killed Billy, and he’s desperate to find out who.

The Kidnapping & Confession 💀

• Things escalate when Andy kidnaps Henry, the young son of Ethan’s old friend Ashley Wallace.

• Andy drags Ethan and Henry to the waterfall where Billy’s body is finally discovered. He demands Ethan confess.

• BUT—Ashley steps forward and confesses it was her.

Ashley’s story:

• That night in 1994, Ashley was driving home drunk and unlicensed from a party.

• Billy had snuck out of the tent, wandering into the woods, and Ashley accidentally hit him with her car.

• Panicked, she hid his body at the waterfall.

• She carried this secret for decades, until the truth finally unraveled.

Billy’s own Interlude confirms it: he left the tent on his own that night, chasing his curiosity, and tragically crossed paths with Ashley’s car.

The Epilogue

• Ashley turns herself in and goes to prison.

• Ethan takes custody of Henry and, at last, finds a sliver of peace.

• Hemlock Circle slowly starts to heal, though the scars of that night will never fully fade.

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My Thoughts 🤔

This was a page-turner. I mean, how could I not keep reading when the setup was that wild? A boy just disappearing from a tent in the middle of the night—it’s the kind of premise that won’t let you go.

That said, the ending didn’t hit as hard as I wanted. I suspected Ashley early because, frankly, everyone else was pretty much ruled out. It’s not that the twist was bad—it was tragic, sad, and believable—but it lacked the punch I usually expect from a Sager twist.

Still, the journey there was compelling, emotional, and unsettling in the best way. I loved the themes of childhood trauma, survivor’s guilt, and how memory plays tricks on us.

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Final Verdict ⭐

⭐ 4/5 stars ⭐

If you’re a Riley Sager fan, Middle of the Night is worth the read. It’s eerie, emotional, and keeps you guessing—even if the final reveal lands more softly than explosively.

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🧛 More Books Like Middle of the Night

If you liked this one, you might also enjoy:

• Survive the Night by Riley Sager (road trip suspense + deadly secrets)

• Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell (family secrets + missing child mystery)

• The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager (campsite disappearance vibes)

• All the Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham (motherhood + missing child psychological suspense)

👉 Check them out on Amazon 📚 (affiliate link)