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At its centre is Franny Stone, a woman driven by an almost physical need to keep moving. She's crossed countries, abandoned homes and repeatedly left the people she loves, but her latest journey is different. Believing that the Arctic terns may be undertaking their final migration, Franny travels to Greenland and attaches tracking devices to three of the birds. She intends to follow them south to Antarctica, where she'll fulfil a promise connected to her husband Niall.

Every now and then a book comes along that makes you wonder whether you've been telling yourself the wrong stories about your own life.

Matt Haig has built a career around asking deceptively simple questions. What if you could live another life? What if you could revisit your regrets? What if you had one final opportunity to understand the person you became? In The Midnight Train, he returns to familiar territory, but instead of exploring the lives we never lived, he examines the life we already have—and the quiet choices that slowly shape it.

And the horror works because it never feels entirely fictional. But, that said, not every element landed for me. The novel occasionally sacrifices subtlety in favour of impact, and there were moments when the chaos of the narrative threatened to overwhelm the story itself. Some readers will undoubtedly find the political commentary too heavy-handed, while others may feel the novel doesn't go far enough.

Anthea, in particular, anchors much of the emotional core. Their relationship isn’t dramatic or overtly declared, but it grows in quiet increments, like in shared knowledge, small acts of care, and the simple fact of being understood. It’s only much later that the narrator realises what that connection was. That perhaps it was love, or maybe something adjacent to it. The book resists naming it too neatly, which feels right.

And then, at the novel’s core, comes an unexpected relationship. It’s unconventional, built on sincerity and a refreshing lack of sentimentality. Communication isn’t instant or effortless—it’s painstakingly constructed through trial, error, and the stubborn refusal to give up when understanding seems just out of reach. It’s quietly profound. In a plot that’s ostensibly about saving humanity, it’s connection (not conquest) that matters most.