Customer Reviews

The Prince of Midnight

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Is it possible to read a Laura Kinsale book without feeling captured, body and soul, and held prisoner for 400 pages? In this story, S.T. Maitland, a legendary English highwayman--dangerous and larger than life--has been brought to his knees by an explosion which renders him deaf in one ear and racked by sudden, debilitating bouts of vertigo that leave him staggering, nauseous and wretched. S.T. exiles himself to a decrepit French castle to lick his wounds and mark his days in monotonous anonymity with his only companion, a strange half-wild, half-tame wolf named Nemo. Into this suspended life comes Leigh Strachan, a damaged but beautiful young woman bent on avenging the deaths of her parents and sisters. She seeks the Prince of Midnight to aid her in her plans for revenge. What she finds is not her Seigneur de Minuit, but a shattered hero of the night, seemingly incapable of helping either her or himself. Their journey of discovery is told in some of the richest prose I have encountered since Pat Conroy's Prince of Tides. This is storytelling at its best and will leave you breathless to the end.

I am retired and have the time to read about 3 books a week. I found this book on our local library's free exchange rack. I had never read any of Ms. Kinsale's books and didn't realize till now what I have been missing. I have read a few 5 star rated books lately which can't hold a candle to her writing. So if I could I would rate this closer to a 10. The story covers so much of interest that I couldn't put this down and finished it in 2 days. S.T. is the sweetest hero ever. The story brings in training of horses like the famous Lippizan stallions, Marquis de Sade and the Hellfire Club, religious fanatics, inner ear damage leaving deafness and loss of equilibrium. A man hopelessly in love and a woman bent on revenge, quite the switch. As you can tell I loved this book and her spellbinding storytelling. I can't wait to find more of her books and this is going on my keeper shelf.{:o} But I will return another book to the library to keep me honest.

This is a wonderful story of a heart-hardened heroine and a flawed, romantic, optimistic hero who rises to the occasion. Not only is this beautifully written, but there is a nice flip of roles. He is aching to be in love and she is desperately afraid if it, not just with him but with his horses and his wolf sidekick as well. The only really disappointing thing about this particular printing is the lack of respect for the written word. Whoever is responsible for printing this edition (eread.com) should be ashamed of themselves. I have never seen so many typos in anything. There must be well over a hundred mistakes in this book. Sometimes two and three on a page. Some of these mistakes made it hard to understand the intent of the author. Really a mess. If you can find an old issue read that. The one pictured here should be burned. If I were the author I would sue.

God, I LOVED this. Leigh, a desperate English girl, has traveled alone across most of England and France in search of him... Monseigneur du Minuit: The Prince of Midnight. Leigh has lost her loved ones and is desperate and determined to track down and kill the man responsible for the murder of her family. She feels sure that this man known as the Prince of Midnight is the only one that can help her. However, when she does finally come upon him, he is nothing that she was lead to believe. She believed him to be dashing and dangerous, just as the legend of him claimed. What she truly finds is a troubled, lonely, dreamy exile.
Left with no other choice, she accepts his offer of help and together they make their way back to where Leigh once lived, but what is now a town under the control of a madman. The same man that killed her family.
Leigh and S.T.(her prince)face many obstacles and some of them were quite shocking, but when the book finally does come to an end, it is unbearably sweet.
I absolutely fell in love with S.T. He was just so sweet and romantic, and ridiculous, and strong, and brave and just really, really, wonderful. Leigh was harder for me to warm up to. It took me a while to understand her, but eventually I did and her behavior began to make a lot of sense.
The characters in The Prince of Midnight were very well developed and so real. I just loved this story. This is a keeper for me for sure.

The highwayman is a staple of the romance genre, but this one manages to be at times repulsive, pathetic and then sexy and heroic and the heroine...this one is as tough and independent as I have seen. I can not stress how wonderful it is to have a story that moves in unpredictable twists and turns and really is tough to put down. The setting in France and England, incredibly detailed and well selected. Many other romance novels are so predictable that you know the ending before the middle of the novel. Laura Kinsale doesn't have any cookie cutter characters and she does her homework.

I've loved all of LK's previous works. I simply live for heroes like of Jervaulx in Flowers in the Storm, Sheridan in Seize the Fire and Sam in Shadow and the Star, but somehow, though likeable enough, I just wasn't able to get into S.T. I guess that's because I'm not into the sweet, cuddly beta type of guys. I like my men, and thus my heroes, mean, lean and adorable. As for Leigh, I didn't really like her all that much, and I thought LK's previous heroines like Maddy and Olympia from the first two books named above made more of an impact on me with their quiet but steely strength than Leigh did. I totally agree with one reviewer who said she could be very frustrating with all her cynicism. Get over it and fall in love with the guy already! He's a great catch! was all I kept thinking throughout the book. I just don't have the patience for those novels where the romance starts at the end of the book instead of in the middle, at least.

What I did like about the book, though, was its realism. In life you set out on journeys expecting to meet people and places of a certain sort but it is never like what you expected. LK writes wonderfully realistic love stories that are among the truest to real life I've ever come across. They end happily ever after but with a certain poignancy to them that is often pertinent to life. She gives you enough room to escape the real world but at the same time cling to the true essence of human nature. And I just love that.

All in all, this book didn't touch me emotionally like LK's other books, but I gave it three stars mainly because of what I said in the previous paragraph, and because LK is a very talented and deserving author.

In all her books that I've ever read, this is the first one I didn't like and I've read them ALL. So, buy everything else, is basically what I'm saying but burrow this one from the library. Cheers.

What a charmer! This was a pleasant surprise in a world of stereotypical strong macho men romances. I won't go over the story because the other reviewers already have but suffice it to say that the characterisation is wonderful, the heroism is not overblown and the human flaws are honestly and openly dealt with. Lovely.

She is cynical and tormented and strong. He is romantic and gentle and loyal. The swap of the typical run of the mill romance characterisations make this a compelling read. As usual, Ms Kinsale delivers something not only special, but unique. Can't wait for Allegreto's story!

I read Laura Kinsale's "Flowers From The Storm" which blew me away and instantly resolved to read everything else she'd done. If they were anywhere near as good as Flowers, I'd be delighted.

The Prince Of Midnight was the first that I found and I settled down to read it with great anticipation. I was surprised how different it was to Flowers - initially set in France with a strange man, S T Maitland, and his pet wolf. The heroine Leigh Strachan was throughout aloof, changeable, confused, and this was written well. She searches out Maitland to ask him to train her in his skills (he was a hugely successful highwayman known as the Prince of Midnight) so that she can have revenge on the man who started a cult in her home village and eventually caused the deaths of her family.

Unfortunately for Leigh, once she meets S T Maitland she soon discovers that he is a shell of his former self with problems of physical balance and deafness in one ear. She almost gives up immediately but falls sick with a fever and ends up stuck in his house with him tending her. Eventually they travel back to England with him still unsteady on his feet in order for him to help her with her revenge - for what it's worth.

Laura Kinsale writes well when she describes human weaknesses and failings. We see into Maitland's mind, his devastation at the loss of his skills in swordplay and riding because of his problem with balance; we also see into his heart as he trains a pony to do tricks in order to make her valuable and save her from the knackers.

On their return to England the sea crossing, whilst nearly killing Maitland, seems to clear his head and he suddenly becomes all Alpha Male and leaves Leigh on the South Coast, travelling up to her home village in the North of England to do his highwayman/revenge act. It was at this point that I felt the book slightly lost its way. Maitland's character changed back to the confident highwayman who doesn't need other people (although he insists he loves Leigh) and when she follows him (which was always going to happen) he spends a lot of time trying to protect her. But he seems to be able to travel in and out of the village surprisingly easily, he seems to be almost omnisicient about people in the village, and the story rather loses its way here.

The resolution of the story did not come where I expected - the revenge/denouement at the village; usually at this point the aloof heroine would have fallen into the arms of the hero who had rescued her and caused the death of the evil man. But no - he has to flee for his life, and won't take her with him.

They finally meet again in London society and with the requisite confusions and misunderstandings, eventually everything is resolved. We are treated to a final scene in Italy where his Horse Whisperer skills are being used.

This book was certainly not run-of-the-mill, it had interesting locations and interesting people, but it didn't live up to Flowers In The Storm for me and because I read it immediately afterwards, I was disappointed. Perhaps if I had read it first I would have enjoyed it more. Still, worth a read.

Prince of Midnight in the Kindle Edition has all the delicious descriptions of Laura Kinsale's work, all the heart stopping plot twists, all the tenderness, toughness and charming eccentricity of character that Ms. Kinsale's readers have come to expect and love. The book is one that I was glad to read, and since I have so enjoyed my Kindle, I was thrilled to find it in the Kindle Store.

What a disappointment. What a desecration. What despoliation. What defilement. I was horrified to find Ms. Kinsale's work so poorly translated into an eBook that it was at the edge of unreadable. The editing mistakes were so thickly sown in the text that it became difficult at times to comprehend the author's intent. Gradually I began to read "bur" as "burn," or "corer" as "corner," or "femrple presence" as "female presence." I puzzled for a while over "I can't hear and I can't ride and I can fight and I can barely walk down this hill..." Finally I realized that the original text must have said "I can't fight." However, to say the least, the disruption of having to wade through the plethora of mistakes detracted from the story. One reviewer the Kindle Edition of Prince of Midnight thought Ms. Kinsale should sue whoever had translated her book into the mess that was this eBook. I sympathize with the sentiment.

At first I cursed the unknown person who was such a careless editor. I decided he was like a secretary I once knew who claimed to use Spell Check as though that absolved him of culpability for the mistakes in every piece of writing he produced. I called him "Mr. Spill Chuck." He didn't get it.

The real culprit was revealed when I turned the last page of the book. The notice proudly proclaimed that "This eBook was created using ReaderWorks Publisher, produced by OverDrive, Inc." Well, how convenient. Having the mistakes be the fault of a software program absolved every human of culpability.

I, dear Amazon, do not believe this poor excuse for an eBook deserves a place in your Kindle Store. I further think that I deserve a refund of the purchase price of this book. Finally, I think that Amazon should post a notice in the description of any book that was converted to an eBook with this defective software, so that any unsuspecting reader could be forewarned about the quality of the product offered for sale.