Laura Kinsale

A tarnished legend driven into exile deep within the depths of a crumbling French castle was once the Prince of Midnight. Now he is just a forgotten shadow. She is seeking the hero but finds herself weary of the reality. He is the only person who can help her realize her dreams, but could she trust a man so entombed in despair and self-loathing with the depths of her heart? They begin their journey over land and sea to independently attain their dreams, but under the blanket of night they find a spark of passion has been born. Will their all-consuming fire light the path that leads to everything they desire or will it pull them into the dark abyss?

The Prince of Midnight

Beatriz

1.5 stars and the only reason I’m not giving it just 1 star is because the ending wasn’t totally terrible and the characters didn’t annoy me as much in the last 80 pages

Saayan

Oh boy, this one is hard to review! There were moments that felt like a five star read, but overall it didn’t quite reach that level for me. This is another 15-hour book from Laura Kinsale, but her stories never feel that long and I was never bored. Definitely adding bonus points for one of the most creative sex scenes I’ve ever come across lol. The audiobook is once again narrated to perfection by Nicholas Boulton.

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Overall this one was mostly just OK. ST saves the story from being populated with entirely unlikeable characters. Things started off interesting enough - ST, Prince of Midnight, former highwayman, swashbuckler, and Robin Hood-esque rogue, takes early involuntary retirement in the Prove√ßal countryside after an accident renders him deaf in one ear and afflicted with vertigo. Leigh tracks him down, posing as a young man, in the hope that ST will train her to fight and kill. Her quest is to avenge the deaths of her family in England.

Let me just come right out and say it. Leigh was a real bitch throughout this book and it was almost impossible to like her. I asked myself at one point if I would feel the same way if the genders had been reversed and I think I would but there is definitely more tolerance for emotionally damaged male characters to act like assholes than I think there is for female characters. This should really have been Leigh's story of emotional healing and recovery after the horrific loss of her whole family and getting to a place where she could let people into her heart without fear of being devastated by their loss. 

But maybe Kinsale didn't like Leigh much either and preferred to write about ST instead. :) I do think this was a missed opportunity to really explore emotional trauma and recovery, particularly in contrast to ST's physical trauma that lead to emotional issues (lack of purpose, confidence, feeling "unmanly" and incapable etc). We have 2 damaged people but we really only see ST's physical healing. Leigh says and does some really unforgivable things to him in an effort to push him away and that also gets rather short shrift in terms of these 2 people resolving the hurt she caused. 

I really liked all of the interactions with the animals and the passages about ST training the gray horse were exceptionally well done. I liked Nemo (the wolf) as a character 100% more than Leigh. And I didn't really get why ST fell in love with her so easily (other than she's beautiful) nor why he stayed in love with her despite her prickly and mean behavior. Even Leigh asks him why, when she's given him only her worst throughout and none of her best. The religious cult angle and double Deus ex Machina plot events were just a bit too much once was when (view spoiler)[the villain was conveniently killed by someone else (hide spoiler)] and the other was when (view spoiler)[ST was saved from hanging for the murder because he saved the life of a woman whose father was a high-ranking peer and government official who was able to procure a pardon from the king, including his highway robbery past (hide spoiler)].

The Prince of Midnight

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