Customer Reviews

Between Mist And Midnight (Harlequin Presents)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I can easily say that this is one of the best romances I've ever read. But if you're like me, you're only reading this in the hopes of a synapsis. So I'll bend to that whim:
Home is where the heart breaks
For Eleanor Wilding, home was Wildings-her family's antebellum estate in Mississippi. Wildings...where she'd foolishly fallen in love with her handsome stepbrother, Edan Bond. And where Edan had rejected that love.
And it was to Wildings that Eleanor returned after a five-year, self-imposed exile. She'd come back to visit her ailing grandmother, but also to confront Edan. Because, like the legendary family ghost, memories of Edan haunted her, and it was time to exorcise the past.
However, once she'd seen Edan again, it was impossible to forget what he'd meant to her...since those feelings were still all too real.

The charactors are very believable and incredibly well written. I find myself sucked into this book over and over again, and since I found it seven years ago, it has not left my collection, and I still reread it often. I can't recomend this book highly enough!

I read this book when I was in high school and can nearly recite it word for word. It's the only romance novel I still own, and has been reread time and again. It's one of those stories that takes up residence in your imagination and haunts you. Over a decade later, I'm still a bit in love with the hero, Edan, myself. I don't have to tell you how unusual that is for a mass-produced "throwaway" Harlequin novel! A real gem. Two enthusiastic thumbs-up!

Since someone already wrote the synopsis on the back cover, I'll just give you my thoughts.

WARNING: SPOILERS GALORE!

Okay, I warned you! What can I say, whew, the hero and heroine definitely had issues they needed to resolve! Eleanor's parents divorced when she was 15. Her father married Edan's mother. Edan's 20, Eleanor 15. Eleanor has issues because she doesn't feel like her parents cared about her and was hurt and jealous when her father immediate took in Edan wholeheartedly. She felt as though her father loved Edan more than Eleanor. So Eleanor was always trying to compete against Edan. Eleanor also felt some sort of attraction to her stepbrother. Edan himself had his own issues when his parents divorced when he was six but of course he hid it well so Eleanor just thinks Edan is just this arrogant son of a gun who "stole" her father from her, etc. Little does Eleanor know that Edan actually held a "shameful" attraction to his younger stepsister. But of course Edan hid it very well and promised himself never to act on it until unfortunately (or fortunately??) Eleanor mistakenly pushes him to the edge of no return. Yep, Eleanor and Edan did the deed, her being 16 and Eleanor 20/21. Yikes! Because Eleanor has this love/hate relationship with Edan and because she was a young immature kid, she and her school friends had decided to play a prank with Edan. Edan had a big bosom girlfriend named Nancy so Eleanor decided to put a love letter on Edan's pillow to come meet him at the gazebo for a tryst. Of course Edan comes, and doesn't realize its Eleanor. Edan touches Eleanor's body but doesn't do anything else and says its too cold outside and they should just go back in the house. Unfortunately (or fortunately? =P) Edan's touch arouses unexplained desire in Eleanor and she wants more! -_- Eleanor wants to Edan to know its her, Eleanor. She tells him and Edan is shocked/aghast. He is furious and says what the heck are you doing. This is crazy and was going to leave her. But Eleanor doesn't let him. Eleanor pushes him and totally hahaha, arouses him with her innocent prodding/hands and against his better judgement Edan goes for it, since he fell in love with her since she was 15 - albeit the deed was done in a semi violent/hurtful way. Yikes! Edan of course absolutely hates himself for what he did. And then, Eleanor's father busts in on them. YIKES!!!

Ok, I shouldn't really go into the whole book, hahaha... So fast forward to five years later that's one of the issues they have to resolve. But sigh.... It was really heart wrenching for them throughout the book. I was like when are they gonna clear things up! But I thought it was extremely sweet that Edan was so into Eleanor. I know, Eleanor was a minor but hey, these things happen! And throughout the book you can see that Edan really loves Eleanor, sigh... They both had major issues but the author really did well in writing this story. It just touched my cynical heart =P I'd give it a five stars but I took half a star out cause gosh darn it, I wish it was longer!! The ending felt a little rushed to me and after all that heartache/unresolved conflict/misunderstanding, I wanted them a super long making up sweetness thingie and even for all her other relatives to see that they were in love and gonna marry each other etc. I want an epilogue!! Anyway, great book, and I'm glad the previous reviewers were right. I actually bought this book from Amazon based on their reviews. Yeeeaah!

I owned this book in 7th grade and read it over and over again. Once I graduated HS, the book got lost during a move and I was unable to recall the title or the author. After searching forever I was finally able to find it again thanks to the synopsis provided by one of the reviewers. This book is great and I am very happy to have this book back in my collection once again. One of the better romance novels that I have read, a real keeper.

i still remember the fact that i stole this book from my grandmothers collection and read it and re read it and til this day i remember just how good this book is. You will cry, laugh, sigh and fall in love with both of the main characters.

Like the other reviewers, it's one of my favorites. I've never forgotten it, although the final scene isn't as gratifying as it could be.

This is probably the only romance novel I have ever read where the characters do not say "I love you" by the end of the book. You are quite sure throughout the book that Eleanor loves Edan, and has since she was a girl. She admits this freely within her own thoughts. She never tells him.

Edan, for his part, is self-assured (arrogant?) enough to assume her love at the book's end. Edan has apparently been in love with Eleanor all along, too, but he never says "I love you." Not even at the end of the book. He rehashes their past in the book's last conversation and makes a statement about how he fell in love with her as a teenager, and then makes a remark like "Of course he [married her]. He loved her. I plan to do it myself." when discussing someone else, so you know he DOES love her. But he never just says "I love you."

Kathleen O'Brien is a talented enough writer to have created two characters that you really care about, and really do want to see happy. You want to see these two come together and they have chemistry. But they don't play straight with one another until the final conversation and even then, they aren't playing entirely straight. When Edan rehashes everything and owns up to his part in their troubled past relationship, you desperately want Eleanor to speak up and give her side of the story, too. When she tries to, Edan basically tells her it's not necessary. I think this was supposed to reflect how much he finally understood where she was coming from, and how much responsibility for their misunderstandings he was willing to shoulder... but it left me with an uneasy feeling, like these two were still not able to communicate properly. Eleanor had spent the entire book tortured and misunderstood. She really needed to have this conversation, and she doesn't have it.

All in all, though, it was a compelling book. You want these two together, like I said, so on your first read through it, you are just happy they'll end up together. It's on the subsequent reads (and it's a good enough book to want to reread it) when you really think about this relationship, that it isn't as satisfying as it could be.