Thursday, October 2, 2014

Midnight Kiss by Sarra Cannon, Juliana Haygert, Alyssa Rose Ivy & Jennifer Snyder ~ Review


Midnight Kiss: Four New Adult Paranormal Romances


Source: e-ARC copy provided by the authors in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Midnight Kiss by Sarra Cannon, Juliana Haygert, Alyssa Rose Ivy & Jennifer Snyder

This Halloween, prepare to be haunted by a kiss…

Midnight Kiss is a limited edition collection of four BRAND NEW, NEVER RELEASED novellas, all set in New Orleans on Halloween night.


AFTER MIDNIGHT by Sarra Cannon
From the outside, Becca Goldberg looks like any normal freshman girl at Tulane, but she’s been keeping a terrible secret. She’s really Allison Moore—a young witch from Peachville hiding out from an evil coven of witches known as the Order of Shadows. She thinks she is safe until an unexpected accident occurs. Now, she only has until midnight on Halloween until her identity is discovered.

She must turn to the hottest, most elusive guy on campus for help. Will he help save her? Or will her life come crashing down around her after midnight?


THE MIDNIGHT TEST by Juliana Haygert
Being the weakest witch of her generation, nineteen-year-old Hazel is convinced she’s supposed to live a normal, human life—except for the occasional ghost hunting. When Hazel moves to New Orleans, the most powerful witch coven in the world grants her a chance to join them, but only if she passes a dangerous test on Halloween night. Everything is going fine until mysterious Sean steps in Hazel’s way, putting her entire test at risk.

Will she be able to ace the test and keep them both alive at the same time?


SEDUCTION’S KISS by Alyssa Rose Ivy
Never agree to a road trip to New Orleans with your roommate. At least not when your roommate is dragging you along while she reconnects with an ex boyfriend. Possible consequences of failing to take my advice:

1) Unknowingly going out with a vampire stripper.
2) Getting kidnapped by said vampire’s nest mates.
3) Falling head over heels for your winged hero.

Believe it or not number 3 is the worst one, especially when no one believes you that he exists.


KISS OF AWAKENING by Jennifer Snyder
With one kiss, everything will change…

When a mysterious letter arrives from her estranged mother, twenty-one year old Kenna Blake and her best friend, Bree, make a trip to New Orleans hoping for a little Halloween fun and to get away. The mystifying Crescent City has something else in store for her though.

Cryptic messages, a hot tour guide, and a new sense Kenna can’t seem to explain are just the beginning of this eye opening trip. Will Kenna accept what awakens with in her or will she crumble under its reality?


https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22874207-midnight-kiss?ac=1

http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Kiss-Collection-Paranormal-Romances-ebook/dp/B00NS1IK82/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412238889&sr=8-1&keywords=midnight+kisshttp://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/midnight-kiss-sarra-cannon/1120378707?ean=2940046240115

Review...

Midnight Kiss is a collection of four stories. All are pretty quick reads, and they all have paranormal aspects and plots that are intriguing. The stories all stand on their own, but there are some fun links throughout the collection, such as locations, that I enjoyed spotting. I'm going to break this down by story now, since (as I said) they are all their own, solid novella.

After Midnight by Sarra Cannon: I liked how this story built up. We started with knowing small details that escalated into a serious situation that I was honestly intrigued by. The main character, Becca (or Allison, depending on which of her names you'd like to use), wasn't a character I ever felt too close with, but I didn't dislike her. John, the love interest, however, started out bad. He was just such a jerk. He changed sufficiently, but too much of this story was spent with me not feeling good toward him. That took a huge hit on the romance. The storyline was interesting enough to keep me reading, luckily, and then the romance had some good moments. I didn't much enjoy the romance as a whole, because of John's behavior and because of the quick on/off/on thing that happens around the end of the story, but I did end up liking this story.

3/5 stars for this one. It's a good story to ease into the anthology, and it did have some moments I very much liked.

The Midnight Test by Juliana Haygert: This story had a bunch of witch aspects I enjoyed. The main character, Hazel, was a super cool chick, and all the magic stuff was her norm. I liked going through that with her, and seeing how her life was. Sean was the love interest in this one, and I liked him right from the get-go. He's a nice, attractive guy. A stand-up guy. The kind of guy that doesn't let a girl walk into a definitely dangerous house by herself. He had a crazy story of a past Halloween under his belt, and that tied into Hazel's story. This novella built up in a way I liked, and I was interested the whole way through. The romance worked for me, as well. Sean and Hazel started off cute, innocent, and casual. Then their relationship grew in such a cute way. He gets impressed by her badassery, and then she was his girlfriend and I was like AWWW. I loved these two together. That romance mixed with that premise, dipped with a touch of witchy elements made this story so enjoyable.

5/5 stars - Such a sweet, fun story!

Seduction's Kiss by Alyssa Rose Ivy: This story was my favorite of the collection. It started out with the most intriguing preface that had me so excited to read the story--which didn't disappoint! We have the MC, Daisy. She's confident and going about her life with those situations she gets herself into. They seemed kind of irrelevant at first, and I wondered when the mysterious OWEN would show, but everything made sense one the story got to a certain point. Specifically, once Owen showed up. There were some guy characters I kept wondering about. Whether they would be the actual love interests. But nope. That made the romantic elements seem delayed, but also not...in a way. Because I already knew about Owen. I just didn't know MUCH. But the plot of this story was solid. Every time I made a guess about how things would turn out, something would happen to shoot that prediction down with the quickness. On top of the fabulous story and swoon-worthy romance, there was also a great title tie-in. I love when the title ties into the story perfectly. 

5/5 stars - LOVED this story and I will definitely be checking out The Crescent Chronicles! I need to get my hands on more Owen!

Kiss of Awakening by Jennifer Snyder: Kiss of Awakening began with lots of backstory. The information was good to know, but it also slowed things down so that I wasn't drawn into what was going on until later into the novella. The information given to us at that point grew into the clear idea of the MC's life. I liked having that view of Kenna's every day situation. The premise of this story was mighty good, too, but it did take too long for things to actually happen. Kenna was a descriptive narrator, which could be helpful at times, but otherwise caused the story to drag a tad. Delvin turned out to be the love interest, and I so approved of him because he was nice, sexy bartender. That's always fun, right? I enjoyed him! His romance with Kenna started off with chemistry. You could feel it in their interaction. They regarded each other casually, but together they totally sizzled. Then, farther in the story, they got into a heavier romantic situation to which I say YUM. That romance paired with the fantastic twist (TWIST! Yes, a twist! And I loved it!) made this story one that worked for me in the end. And I'll also be checking out the Tethered Trilogy sometime, surely.

4/5 stars - Little drops of interesting info broke into Kenna's happenings in this story, making it hold my attention and ultimately work for me. Plus, TWIST. And Romance!

Overall: Midnight Kiss was an enjoyable collection of stories that I got through pretty quick. They were fun to read and have me interested in more from all four of these authors. If you're looking for a great collection of paranormal romance stories, Midnight Kiss would be an awesome choice!


4 stars - A fun collection of swoon-worthy paranormal stories that I definitely enjoyed!




1 comment:

  1. Sigh... I have read and enjoyed stories from a few of these authors, so I think I would really enjoy this read. Seductions Kiss is definitely the one that caught my interest!

    Naomi @ Nomi’s Paranormal Palace

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