A Kiss at Midnight

This was such a fun audiobook and story. I must confess if I had read this, I think I might have been bored because there are long conversations about particular nonsense that aren't too important and could be condensed. But listening to it was enjoyable and felt like a play with the hysterical voices of the odd and nonsensical characters. The only real sensible character is the heroine who seems on the surface quite boring but I thought her ordinariness a good balance to the colorful cast. I also liked how the hero and heroine acted and understood their responsibilities and there wasn't any big misunderstandings between them to create unnecessary drama. This isn't a book for you if you're into politically correct romances. There's an arrogant prince and heroine who's goal is marry and live a simple and content life. Plus some kind of forced seduction, not the bodice ripper type though. I liked it and felt the portrayal of females characters fit for the historical setting. The ending was a bit erupt and explained very quickly. Overall, I would call this story a one big slow seduction.

As you can all gather from the blurb this book is a sexy re-imagining of the classic fairy tale Cinderella. I think Ms. James is very clever and did an expert job re-writing this story and adding her own regency(?) era flair. The characters are real and fit time period nicely. I also love the little details from Cinderella that Ms. James took the time to fit around in the story.

Our prince, well, he is dark, brooding, and sexy, in my mind he sort of looks like Wrath (from J.R. Ward's BDB series) so that definitely helped my interest in the story. I also loved the way that Kate is portrayed as homely by her own imaginings until she finds her center and beauty and then she truly IS more beautiful. I also love Henry, Kate's godmother, she is so horrible and wonderful all at the same time, I hope that I am that witty and just perfect when I reach my older years. I love her, she is my favorite character from the entire book, next to her husband Leo of course.

This story is made so well because of the power Ms. James has for writing truly magnificent characters. I love this story and I enjoyed meeting all these wonderful characters that will stay with me for a long time. I will never be able to read or watch Cinderella again without thinking of Kate and Gabriel

This was a cute book. Not great literature, to be sure, but very cute and fun to read. A nice palate cleanser between two heavier books. This boo borrows heavily from the Cinderella fairy-tale, but takes its own cute spin on it. And unlike many of Eloisa James's books, she doesn't go off on a crazy tangent that has nothing to do with the plot about halfway through.

The only problem for me was that it really didn't seem to have enough twists and turns, it seemed pretty clear from the beginning exactly what was going to happen, which made it really slow in places.

Still a fun book, though.

Guilty pleasure/brain candy kind of a read.

Or research for fairy tale retellings, perhaps?

This was a quick, sort of fun read, but it was ultimately disappointing. Some of the set up at the beginning felt really forced and false (a certain amount of info had to get dumped on the reader, and the way the author did it was kind of dumb: we are learning it at the same time as the main character, and I couldn't figure out why she didn't already know this stuff...)

I do like James's humor, but over all this was kind of MEH for me.

The Cinderella elements were "visible" but not forced. It was everything else that seemed like it was trying too hard.

Literally a Cinderella story in the framing, but lovely in the details. And I liked the stepsister not being evil and so much else.

A little fantastical, and a little too much deus ex machina at the end, but a lot of fun.

A Cinderella story presented in a new and original way. So much fun to read with great characters and details!