A Touch of Midnight by Lara Adrian #Review

Pages -  184 

Publisher -  Lara Adrian, LLC

Published -  3 edition (December 14, 2013)

Sold by -  Amazon Digital Services LLC

Genre -  Romance, Paranormal, Vampires

Series -  Midnight Breed Series

Sexual Content -  4/5

Language -  4/5

Narrative -  3rd P

Since the slayings of his young brothers by Rogue vampires in London centuries ago, Breed warrior Gideon has pledged his life and his sword to the mission of destroying those of his kind lost to Blood lust. But that vow is tested when he meets Savannah Dupree, a beautiful college student who finds herself in the crossfire of Gideon's war with a hidden, deadly enemy. 

IF I am to understand this correctly, A Touch of Midnight, billed as a prequel novella to the entire series, is actually an afterthought of the author's when so many of her fans begged for the background story on Gideon and Savannah.

So, if you read all of the other works in The Midnight Breed Series...

The Midnight Breed Series reading order

A Touch of Midnight (prequel novella - free ebook)

Kiss of Midnight

Kiss of Crimson

Midnight Awakening

Midnight Rising

Veil of Midnight

Ashes of Midnight

Shades of Midnight

Taken by Midnight

Deeper Than Midnight

A Taste of Midnight (novella, ebook only)

Darker After Midnight

The Midnight Breed Series Companion

Edge of Dawn

Marked by Midnight (novella)

Crave the Night

Tempted by Midnight (novella)

Bound to Darkness 

Stroke of Midnight 

Defy the Dawn

Midnight Untamed

Midnight Unbound (novella, Spring 2017)

Claimed in Shadows (Summer 2017)

Midnight Unleashed (novella, Fall 2017)

...and more to come!

...although receiving top-billing here, A Touch of Midnight was not the first in this series but rather something that came much later.

So, if you read the others prior to this novella, then it is more likely that you will enjoy and even appreciate A Touch of Midnight.

This isn't a horrible read, but it is a swift one and that means insta-love, insta-sex, insta-bonding between the two leads.

Even in a novella meant to help tie up loose ends (or, in this case, appease a lot of interested readers of a series), that combination of things never works with me.

All I can ever assume under such formulaic circumstances is that the author (and her readers) truly believe that as long as the H is buff, fly, and possesses a great smile, it is okay (and expected) for the h to want to get naked within minutes of their meeting one another.

Whores do that for money.

Extremely desperate teenagers do it for social status upgrade.

Drunk people do it because they are drunk and stupid.

I cannot be expected to believe that an eighteen-year-old in college, who already had a bad past experience with another fella, is going to readily and willingly go at it again just because the Hero is super-human, gorgeous, and stuffed with muscles.

And, why eighteen when he is an eternal 28 yet well over 500?

When I say age ain't nuttin' but a numba, I'm thinking mature adult age levels and not 12 gets with 19, or 20 gets with 65.

Which are all just as gross/pedo as 18-28.

Eighteen is still child, beyond stupid, and with almost no life-coping skills, much less the mental faculties needed to survive such an intense relationship meant to last an eternity.

It's unfair to the heroine AND the reader.

It is so illogical and antiquated as to be laughable.

So, throughout this novella, I had to force myself to believe that some odd circumstance occurred to make this eighteen-year-old female somehow think, behave, and even speak as if she were actually forty-three.

Takes all the fun out of the story for me.

WHICH leads to the suspending belief issue so many of us Romance Readers toss about like it is just a thing and requires zero effort or understanding to accomplish when it goes a lot deeper than that in reality.

And, I get it.

I get that the author wants to cater to a much younger reader than me, so she includes that age group in her heroines to make the reader somehow 'connect' to these fictitious characters in their fictitious surroundings and their even greater fictitious lives.

That doesn't make it any easier to swallow, and even if it IS Vampire Fiction we're talking about here.

And, I'm not saying eighteen can't fall in love.

I'm not saying she can't have the hots for someone a lot older than her, either.

I have to draw the line, though, at a grown man having lived several CENTURIES going after someone straight out of high school.

Gives me the woollies.

As for suspending my beliefs?

It's a freaking Vampire novel, folks!

I think I more than suspended by choosing to read this one, don't you?

There isn't very much to say about the story itself, either.

She's got this special power, he's working in a secret society to help stamp out renegade vampires, she touches an ancient sword on campus, all hell breaks loose, she ends up on the news, he sees her and gets a boner, shows up at the library where she works, they talk, sparks fly, he ends up protecting her from the baddies, they have all-night sex, he does his job, she falls in love... the end.

OH

One more thing that bothered me.

There were numerous cinnamon-skin, dark eyes, and dark hair references throughout the story... until we arrive in Fictitious Town, Louisiana.

Suddenly, her older sister is referred to as being 'black'.

Made me laugh.

Are we still afraid, people?

Don't want to offend anyone!

Even if it's a-okay to go on for paragraphs about a White woman's porcelain skin, pink blush, fair complexion, light hair color, and pale blue eyes?

That's fine for both White and Black readers, yet it is still somehow Racist to say the heroine is black?

Unless, of course, the author happens to be Black. Right? Then, she's free to describe her heroine down to the fancy design she chose for her fingernails.

Good Heavens... when are we going to get over ourselves and move on?

And BTW... when you say Cinnamon, my mind auto-sees RED.

A very dark red tone and not brown or black.

Kind of like the color of a Black woman's cheeks when she blushes?

Yeah, that's cinnamon.

IN CLOSING

It wasn't badly written, but there was a whole lot of this annoying habit to make me cringe.

• He paused just outside the door, turned to face it. Then kicked the panel off
• Savannah shrugged. Gave a weak nod.
• She picked it up off the floor, closed her fingers around the cold metal ring.
• He stepped closer, gave a mild shake of his head.
• He walked over, sat down beside her on the sofa.
• she stroked his face, smoothed back the soft spikes of his blond hair.
• He reached out, took her hand in his.

All this does is make me keep searching for the end of the sentence.

AND?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

God Forbid we use a conjunction to join two fragments and write a complete sentence, eh?


Also, the oddball syntax.

• he’d just gotten a hold of a few days ago.
• get his blood racing a bit faster through his veins.
• how big of a
• and hot-footed it up the
• “Cooking has never been your best quality.
• those questions lit his veins up with fire.
• before the sobs had torn out of her throat.
• Savannah slanted him an arch look.
• the color of a dusky wine rose.
• The Gen One leader of the Order blew out a nasty curse.
• were slaughtered outside our family Darkhaven in London.”
• offered the square of note paper to him.
• he had managed to avoid revealing her a single thing
• He leaned farther across the cockpit of the Firebird,
• from the ceiling speakers overhead.
• Through the soughing of his breath, a chuckle.
• a thought that made his blood go icy in his veins.

This story supposedly took place in the 1970's, and yet quite a few references to the 21st Century occur.

• start ramping up
• she’d been played
• “Ah, fuck.” Gideon raked a hand through his hair. “Fuck me.
• long enough to run a quick hack on the IRS databases,

Because it is a novella, everything kind of fell into place nice and neatly, and within a few short days of the story's beginning, too.

The reviews at Amazon were pretty favorable.

And, yes, as a matter of fact, I'm quite interested in reading another in this series.

Just to see where it is headed, if it becomes staid, or if the other Romances (as it were) have any meat on them.

If the author continues to be lazy, however, then no... I will draw the line there and move on to something a bit more intelligently written, thanks.

Midnight Breed Series by Lara Adrian