Sleepless at Midnight by Jacquie D’Alessandro

The ladies in London are abuzz over Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, especially Miss Sarah Moorehouse. Her imagination is fired up, so when she spies Matthew Devenport, Marquess Langston, mysteriously sneaking home in the wee hours clutching a shovel, she simply must investigate. Impelled by curiosity, the adventurous lass steals into his bedchamber—only to be caught red-handed by the impossibly handsome and totally naked nobleman.

The Marquess Langston has more important things to worry about than a group of literature-loving ladies. But Matthew’s grand plan to rescue the family from ruin could be lost when he discovers Sarah hiding behind his bedroom curtain. What is this meddlesome woman up to? And why are his desires inflamed by a chit who is too inquisitive for her own good? Well, two can play at this game . . . and when Matthew captures the beguiling Sarah in all her naked glory, the night of mischief has only just begun.

The back blurb is a bit misleading, so for a more accurate synopsis of the story, you can read Isabel’s review here. Meanwhile, I’ll skip directly to what I thought of the book. Once again, I read book no. 2 of the series, Confessions at Midnight (that I’ll be reviewing later), before reading this book… in addition of Isabel’s review. So I knew more or less what was going to happen.

What I think was well done in this book was Matthew and Sarah’s interaction; they had a lot of chemistry. Sarah is not a beauty like her sister and considers herself off the matrimonial market, so she’s cast away caution and is quite out-spoken and direct, as well as naturally witty – this made up some very interesting and fun conversations. There were also many funny situations, the most hilarious of them is Matthew discovering Mr. Franklin N. Stein in Sarah’s room! LOL! And that was the main focus of the book, Matthew and Sarah. The rest of the plot was not very original, i.e. Matthew in need of an heiress, but falling in love with Sarah instead. The murder plot tied the whole story with a nice bow, but it wasn’t elaborated on much.

Although I enjoyed Matthew and Sarah’s interaction very much, I have to admit that three quarters in the book, I kind of lost interest. What was fun and interesting was Matthew and Sarah getting to know each, “courting” each other… but once they got into bed together, then the focus of the story shifted to the money and murder and I thought it was kind of dull… like something to fill up the pages.

I think it would have been more interesting if the author has focus on Matthew and Sarah’s day-to-day life and developed a bit more their personalities. I mean, we were given the events in their childhood that molded them and made them what they are as adults, but otherwise, we don’t know much about them at all… What has Matthew been doing all these years? Where was he? I’m also curious about Matthew and his knife and wonder where he learnt that interesting skill… What does Sarah do usually? She’s the daughter of a physician… and? You probably get my drift now.

So thumbs up for Matthew and Sarah’s relationship, their chemistry and the very witty and funny conversations and situations. Matthew and Sarah were also good characters. I didn’t LOVE them, but there was nothing that I really disliked about them… and I liked how the author also introduced characters for the next few books without putting too much emphasis on them. They were there to support the main characters and they didn’t take away the spotlight away. Finally, I liked how Matthew realized on his own that he loved Sarah. Sometimes, heroes, especially historical ones, are a bit thick in the head… but Matthew wasn’t one of them and chose Sarah even when his money troubles weren’t solved. So the only unfortunate element of this book is the lost of momentum 3/4 in the book. It doesn’t last too long, so it didn’t lose interest in it.

So 4 out of 5 from me 🙂

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