Ash’s review of Shadows at Midnight by Elizabeth Jennings
Romantic Suspense published by Berkley 3 Aug 2010

This book was a bit of a roller coaster ride for me. Some parts I liked, but mostly I wanted to toss it across the room.

There are a bunch of things I didn’t like, but these things stuck out the most to me. It started off good, I was drawn into the story and I liked both Claire and Dan. Claire is a strong character, but not overbearing. Dan is the typical military hero, but neither of them really stayed that way, and in the end I was disappointed.

There is a huge difference in Claire before the trauma she went though, and the Claire from after.  The after Claire is emotionally scarred and it felt real, but I much prefer the Claire who is strong and confident in herself. She started to get back to that, but by then it wasn’t enough.

It is Dan that I had the biggest problem with. He seemed alright at first, but he turned kind of creepy.  It was these thoughts from him that made me dislike him (and question if I would ever read another Elizabeth Jennings book).

“He was Big Man here, he’d saved her life, now had her in his home. No, she wouldn’t fight him.”

Talking, of course, about sleeping with her.

Then he had this lovely thought to share, that frankly I could have lived without.

“Way out in the field, where there were no women to help you get rid of your hard-on, soldiers used their fists. After combat, barracks smelled like goats had died in there.”

That is where the story just lost me. He was not attractive to me after that lovely inner monologue, which contained a lot more creepiness.

As for the story as a whole, I felt like it was ten pages of mental ramblings from Dan or Claire for every five pages of action. It was lacking any excitement, and even the love scenes were boring. Things would happen and I would start to get into the story, and then it would switch to someone else, and it lost momentum.

By the time I got to the last hundred pages or so, I just wanted it to be over. There is even more I could add to the list of things I disliked, but that would probably just be overkill.

Grade: D

Summary:

She was just a shadow of her former self.

Until he came back into her life.

U.S. intelligence agent Claire Day and former Marine Sergeant Dan Watson must solve a deadly conspiracy—or forfeit any chance of having a future together.

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