In Which I Review the One Book I Managed to Read in November.

Let me first say that getting old sucks.

Now I’m not one of those people who believes in saying things like that, and I most certainly am not dumb enough to think I am old (for example, I am not yet as old as Boy Scout). However, in getting older body chemistries change, and things that used have no affect on you whatsoever become life-ending, apocalyptic elixirs of doom.

Like, say... caffeine.

Or, more specifically, the amount of caffeine found in a chai.

Last week, in the midst of trying to write over 3,000 words per day to make up for my WriMo slackedness (Have you heard I won? No? Well I did. And it was awesome), I had a chai late in the day. A word about me and caffeine: it’s no big. Or it wasn’t a big.

Until I found myself wide awake at 11:00 that night, which then found me with the time and awareness to finally finish the Eloisa James book I had started 2 weeks before on the flight home from San Francisco. Maybe getting old doesn't suck that much.

As a rule, I’m not a hunormous fan of fairy tale ripoffs-- they can come out clumsily, and with very little connection to the real world they are trying so hard to... connect to.

A Kiss At Midnight is a take on exactly the fairy tale you think it is, only Cinderella’s name is Katherine Daltry. She’s not been made a servant in her own home, but rather has been the only one to step up and take charge to make sure everything doesn’t go to hell in a hand basket after the death of her father.

The Prince’s name is Gabriel, and as with so many princes, he belongs to a made-up kingdom, if for no other reason than there’s no complicating real-life history to contend with for the reader’s suspension of disbelief.

The reasons Gabriel and Kate cross paths, in addition to the bulk of the book’s plot, are flimsy at best. Kate must go and make a good impression on the Prince while pretending to be her own wicked step-sister (who is not wicked at all) at a house party because the step-sister has... a boil on her face? And no one really knows what Kate and/or Victoria looks like? And wearing brightly-colored wigs is all the rage, so even if people have met Victoria, all Kate has to do is wear a wig and they’ll think that’s Victoria.

See? Flimsy. Especially when it’s made very clear how much Victoria and Kate don’t look alike. All the time. It's pretty much all the omniscient narrator talks about. Which makes their eventual reunion at that same house-party (with no one noticing anything amiss) that much more unlikely.

That said, the romance in this book is aces. Gabriel is charming and fun, and it’s wonderful to see him fall in love with Kate-- especially because he is smart enough to know almost immediately that Kate is not her sister.

Meanwhile, Kate is definitely not her sister in any way, shape or form. She is smart and capable, and when she makes the decision to give herself to Gabe and damn the consequences, it is with the clear-eyed knowledge of a woman who knows she is seizing what may be her one chance at love (even if it's temporary) in regency-era England, where everything is controlled by the size of one’s dowry.

As with all of the books that grab me the most, it is the characters who shine, from Gabe and Kate to Gabe’s brother-from-another-mother (literally) Wick (Wick gets a book, yes? Yes?? Must find out) and the indomitable Henry (short for Henrietta), Kate’s godmother, who has the clearest view about romance and love over the course of a lifetime that I think I have ever read anywhere, much less in a romance novel.

On the keeper shelf? Probably not. But definitely worth reading. And definitely intriguing enough for me to want Eloisa James’ back catalog immediately.