Mist of Midnight by Sandra Byrd

Copy received from the publisher for my honest review

I want to be very careful in how I word this review, because I mean no offense to the author or her fans.

I had many issues with this book.  I felt like the pacing was terrible, the character development all over the place, and the gothic touches irrelevant.

But, here's the problem.  I had gone into this thinking it was a mystery.  Yes, I knew there would be a romance, but I really thought it was going to be a mystery that was somewhat gothic and also had an element of romance.

From the standpoint OF A MYSTERY-- the pacing was terrible, the character development all over the place, and the gothic touches should have been left out entirely.

The problem is, now that I've read the book I realize it is, in fact, a ROMANCE with a touch of mystery and gothic.  And really, had I known that, I wouldn't have agreed to review it.  That's not my thing.

And if you're eating an orange, and it's the best orange in the world, but you wanted, you know, a bowl of mashed potatoes.... well, the orange is bound to disappoint.

What I can say is that despite my picking this up on a night when I was rather in the mood for something else, it did draw me in quickly and I still finished it in under 24 hours.  I rolled my eyes during several scenes, but again, I wanted potatoes and this was totally an orange. ;)

If what you like and want is an orange, I honestly would recommend this one.  If I look at it as objectively as humanly possible, I think it's probably a pretty good orange.

(Yes, this review is identical to my GoodReads review.  I honestly try to not duplicate like that, but once I'd managed to actually get down how I felt about this book I couldn't bring myself to try to either expand upon it for a blog post nor to condense it for GoodReads.)