Review: A Kiss at Midnight

A Kiss at Midnight by Eloisa James
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

2.3 stars 

“I did it,” Gabriel said, conversationally. “I met the woman, the only woman for me. I met her, and now I’m going to meet my wife.” 

This month's TBRChallenge theme was Fairy Tale, last year I did a Beauty and the Beast because my tbr is full of that theme as it happens to be a personal favorite. I wanted to switch it up this year so I went with a Cinderella inspired. I got this book from a garage sale around 6 years ago and since I've read James before, I figured I would generally like it. 

“Why did Caesar bite Victoria, anyway? I never thought to ask.” 

“She was feeding him from her mouth.” 

“What?” 

“Holding a piece of meat between her lips and encouraging him to take it from her. Foolish business, coming between a dog and his meat.” 

Kate shuddered. “That is disgusting.” 

Look, it was a bit rough of a start between me and the heroine Kate, she was pretty vocal about not liking her step-sister's three little doggies. I'm an avowed crazy dog lady, who, maybe this is too much information, could hold a treat between my teeth and let my Rottweiler take it out of my mouth. I never got bite once and, obviously, don't find it as odd/disgusting as Kate. She also said this about the doggies: She disliked her stepsister’s pack of little dogs, affectionately, or not so affectionately, known to all as the rats. Granted, I'm not big on little Maltese dogs but calling them rats had me growing cold towards Kate even more. I graciously read on and decided to give the heroine time to improve her attitude. 

With that personal huffiness aside, the beginning of this was chaotic, we get the basic set-up of Kate's mother dying when she was in her early teens, her father remarrying two weeks later, and then her father dying pretty soon after to leave her with a step-mother and step-sister a couple years younger than her. Leaning into the Cinderella inspiration, the step-mother doesn't share any of the inheritance the father left her with Kate, gives it to her daughter Victoria as a dowry and does her best to bankrupt the estate. Kate gets moved to the attic and basically treated like a servant. Kate wants to leave to start her own life but feels guilty leaving the tenants to fend for themselves. What starts off this whole story is that Victoria's lip is infected from the dog bite and she was supposed to travel with her betrothed to meet his uncle, who just so happens to be a prince. They can't postpone the meeting because Victoria and the betrothed have been anticipating the wedding night for three months and Victoria is pregnant, they planned on getting married after meeting the prince, the betrothed's mother won't let them get married until the prince approves. For some reason that didn't quite make sense to me, Victoria's lip can't be seen in public so the mother concocts the plan that Kate will take her place and pretend to be Victoria. They sort of resemble each other because, GASP!, they are actually sisters, Kate's father was cheating on her SICK mother and after the SICK mother dies, marries his mistress. This plan really made no sense to me. 

Gabriel Albrecht-Frederick William von Aschenberg of Warl-Marburg-Baalsfeld 

Our prince, of the many fabulous names, has his own trials going on. His oldest brother is going through it back in the home country and has decided to lean in hard to the teachings of a religious zealot. Because of this, he has kicked out anyone not willing to become devout and Gabriel has taken the heathen relatives, friends, and workers with him to England. He feels guilty leaving them on their own, I guess. Personally, he's always wanted to be an archaeologist but the callings of duty. However, he's a poor prince and must marry a rich Russian princess, who is making her way to England, where if everything goes according to plan, they will become betrothed at the Ball. 

She turned around, mouth open. “You can’t go about trying to seduce young ladies!” she squeaked. “If I weren’t betrothed already, I would consider marrying you.” 

You can probably tell where this is going, but it wasn't quite as predictable as I thought it was going to be. Kate and Gabriel meet and have an instant attraction but by 30% Gabriel knows who Kate really is and why Victoria isn't there to meet him. We learn that Gabriel's majordomo is his illegitimate half-brother and along with how he feels responsible for everyone, connections are there for Kate and Gabriel to bond. The problem was that with the chaotic beginning, we don't really get to sit with characters, Kate and Gabriel especially together, and that ruined some emotional connection between them. 

“Oh damn,” he said, and there was a kind of hoarse hunger in his voice that spoke of truth, “I wish you were my Russian princess.” 

The first half also introduces us to Kate's godmother, Henry. Kate didn't know about her and due to Henry loving Kate's father but him choosing an heiress over her and then Henry being barren and Kate's father not understanding her grief and thinking naming Henry godmother would make her feel better, they never connected over the years. But what is Cinderella without the godmother? Henry played her part well and helped to give love, life, and fashion advice to Kate. Around the midway point, Kate and Gabriel finally start to spend sometime together and while they have some nice conversations, this couple was really more about the teasing and foreplay. I do like how they didn't just jump to sex and some of the teasing seduction scenes were played out well but I kept wishing some of the side characters and their stories had been pushed to the side more so that we could have gotten to know Gabriel more and Kate and Gabriel as a couple could have shown me more of the mental emotional reasons they were falling/in love. They were really more of a bedroom couple. 

And then she knew what the emotion in his eyes was. It was despair, and rage—and love. Love. “Gabriel,” she said, with a little gasp. 

With his Russian princess arriving any day, Gabriel makes a bet with Kate that if he restores the reputation of a girl Kate has befriended, she must let him kiss her. They've kissed and fooled around at this point but both keep saying Kate can't give up her virginity to him. The night of the Ball, Gabriel organizes things to have Kate up in his turret room and they have a fairly steamy seduction sessions with Gabriel having to go downstairs to be with his Russian princess and then sneaking up to continue the seduction with Kate. It starts to feel like, Gabriel, my man, Stop. But we need that ending angst. At 80% they have sex and still think Gabriel will marry the princess and Kate will go with Henry to London to find a husband. Of course when Kate is leaving, she loses one of her “glass” slippers. 

His foot brushed something. He bent down. It was one of Kate’s glass slippers. It shimmered in his hand, as delicate and absurd as any bit of feminine nonsense he’d ever seen in his life. He said it aloud, because there was no reason to be silent. “I am—undone. She has undone me.” And his hand closed around the glass slipper. 

The next chapter jumps to 41 days have passed and Kate is depressed in London but of course, Gabriel shows up and does a romantic thing and happily ever after with an epilogue. The money problem gets solved with a book advance(??????) (have to remember back to Gabriel wanting to be an archaeologist) and Kate's dowry wasn't as stolen as she thought. This is definitely not a leave your family on pilgrimage to find this book and read it, but it had some nice moments. The step-sister not being evil/mean was a nice turn and Henry as the godmother was a treat but I never felt like Gabriel was a full character, would have loved more of him and his half-brother Wick, and Kate and Gabriel's relationship was more in the teasing seduction than feeling romantically complete. There were some odd/uncommon additives in this (a lion who maybe eats dogs who eat pickled food, all the secondary character probably/maybe not needed side-stories, and I can't let this go, a butler named Cherryderry) that made it feel chaotic and stole away from the romance of the main couple. You probably won't be bored because of the “what's that now??” quality but I can't say you'll be romanced either. 

(I know you all are wondering and yes, Kate sort of changed her mind about the doggies, at least one of them anyway and became a dog lady herself :)

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