Publisher: Berkley Sensation
Date published: November 2nd, 2010
ISBN: 9780425237816
Paranormal Romance
Mass Market Paperback
Reviewed by Dawn
Obtained ARC via Publisher
Mercenary Christian Durand has tried to shield his men from his maniacal and power mad father. When he spies a beautiful ghost, he thinks he is finally going insane after this ghost tries to tell him they are friends in another life. Torn between wanting the ghost woman and fleeing, Christian finds it hard to believe her claims of living a life in another time. All he knows she calls to him in ways he never anticipates.
Grace Gladwell knows about abusive fathers when her own father beats her to death for kissing a boy. One minute she is living in 1950 and the next talking to a soldier in 1460. Grace had never had a friend before so when she meets Christian, she has to convince him she isn’t an angel nor a demon. As their friendship turns to something more, Grace and Christian will have to deal with the Vampire Queen who has set her sights on Christian. Can these two find a way to fight together for their love or will all be lost?
Ok, I have got to admit, I really liked this author’s past books but DEVIL AT MIDNIGHT was a little weird for me. The story had a few plot twists that either had me confused or wincing in horror by what the characters were doing. Don’t get me wrong, the writing was good, classic Ms. Holly but it was the characters that had me, at times, wondering what the heck happened to the author I loved? I mean we have got the supposed hero, Christian running around, professing his love for Grace and then he does a total one eighty that had me gasping in disbelief and basically turned me off him completely as a character. As a reader I love multi-dimensional characters that come across as relatable, have layers to peel back and emotions to feel but Christian kept making me want to smack him upside the head in anger three-quarters of the time while I read DEVIL AT MIDNIGHT. Grace was also a hard character to swallow as well. As much as I like the angle of her being a ghost in the ‘In Between’, she was, at times, one heroine I wanted to yell ‘get a spine’ from all the back and forth Christian did in the book. Add in the Vampire Queen Nim Wei’s obsession with Christian, two fathers who made my skin crawl from their abuse towards everyone, I was wondering what happened to the story I found intriguing from the book blurb.
Once the story decided to start doing all these weird plot twists, I had a hard time finishing this book. I understand that sometimes authors like to mix things up to get the readers going “OH MY GOD!” and flip the pages, but in DEVIL AT MIDNIGHT, it just didn’t work that well with me. Even though the author tries her best in creating a storyline that is a bit different, it just doesn’t carry over with me after I found the characters to be a bit distasteful. Plus there were a lot of sex scenes in the story just for the sake of filling in the story in some way. I got turned off, after awhile, from all of them as well.
DEVIL AT MIDNIGHT is a love ‘em or leave ‘em type of book for me as a reader. I enjoy Ms. Holly’s past books and will probably read those to get my fix for her unique and breathtaking stories. DEVIL AT MIDNIGHT just didn’t do it for me this time around. If you enjoy a weird story of vampires, ghosts, past lives and more, then you might enjoy DEVIL AT MIDNIGHT. Myself, I will just go read this author’s backlisted titles for my reading enjoyment instead.
This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.
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