Review: Midnight Enchantment by Anya Bast

This is my first book by Anya Bast, and I originally planned to continue my previous habit of skipping right past her work, but one thing led to another and I realized that I had been confusing Bast with another writer I didn’t enjoy. Awkward, right? The names weren’t the same, but the covers were similar enough in style that I kept confusing them and thinking they were part of the same series. Anyway, I decided to make up for my previous confusion and finally try her out.

This is apparently the last book in the Dark Magick series, which I didn’t realize when I started reading, but I wasn’t too confused. There are a lot of characters running around and a lot of comments about events that happened in previous books, but I muddled along just fine. The world is on the lighter end of the PNR scale, like Gena Showalter’s Atlantis series, so it wasn’t too hard to figure things out. I think the author did a good job of making this book accessible for those that haven’t read the rest of the series, so if you’re like me and haven’t read the rest of them, you should be able to jump into this with no problems.

I really liked the core conflict that the author set up between Niall and Elizabeth. It touched on who is really a “good” guy and who is a “bad” guy when you’re on the opposite ends of a conflict. Bast made the reasons for both of their actions quite compelling, so it was easy to sympathize with them both. I really enjoyed the way that Bast cast Elizabeth. Niall could not break her, which made me cheer. Romances have a bad habit (in my eyes, at least) of having the heroines easily trust and give into the heroes, even though they shouldn’t, only to get used or screwed over—but it’s okay because the heroes were justified in whatever they were doing. The heroines always forgive the heroes for treating them like roadkill on the path to whatever victory they’re aiming for. But not Elizabeth. She did not give in. No matter what. When she said she’d die for her cause, she meant it. I strongly respected her for that.

The whole beginning of the book is a big cat and mouse game between Elizabeth and Niall. Elizabeth has hidden the missing pieces of the bosca fadbh at the direction of the Summer Queen. She does not like the Summer Queen, but their goals temporarily aligned, so she was willing to get into bed with the devil to fulfill her goal. Niall, part of the Unseelie, is tasked to find her and do whatever is necessary to retrieve the pieces. Elizabeth and Niall are reluctantly intrigued by each other, but they are both serious about fulfilling their goals. She isn’t looking to hurt anyone, but she won’t tell them where the pieces are, no matter what they do to her. I found Niall’s capture of her and their subsequent struggle of wills the most interesting part of the book. The first sex scene came too easily, but once I found out the truth about that whole encounter, it made a lot more sense.

Although I loved the beginning, I found the later parts of the relationship repetitive and boring. Elizabeth and Niall kept rehashing the same thing and I found it irritating. Elizabeth eventually turned into the sort of wishy-washy, hot and cold heroine that drives me nuts. One second she’d be willing to work it out with Niall and the next she’d be freaking out and declaring that they could NEVER be together. It got old. Although Niall wasn’t quite as hysterical as Elizabeth, he was putty in her hands. I was disappointed to see such a compelling conflict turn into that.

This book ended up feeling middle of the road for me. I liked parts of it and didn’t like others, but overall I was left with a sort of “meh” feeling toward it. It’s not one I disliked, but I can’t really say I liked it overmuch either.

Rating: C
Midnight Enchantment by Anya Bast
February 7th 2012 by Berkley Sensation
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