Night of the Phantom by Anne Stuart is a 1991 publication.

When a terrible crime comes back to haunt her father, Megan is asked to speak to the man who has threatened to ruin him- to go to his home in his stead. She agrees, despite the reputation of the reclusive Ethan Winslowe. Upon her arrival at Ethan's unusual estate, she soon realizes he plans to hold her captive- refusing to allow her to leave in return for his backing off his threat against her father.

Meg never gets a look at the elusive Ethan, only communicating from his loyal assistant. But as time passes Meg finds herself living in a dual complexity. By day she longs for escape from her gilded cage, but by night she is seduced by a phantom- falling under his spell...

This story is obviously inspired by “The Phantom of the Opera”- a book I’ve have yet to read- but get the gist of, nonetheless.

The story has a tortured hero, is creepy and atmospheric, with ghosts and scary townsfolk who view anyone who is different as evil. The story also has strong fantasy and sensual elements- with a tame erotic feel to it.

This would be a good Halloween pick for romance readers. Keep in mind that the book was originally published back in 1991 and this is a digitized version released in 2016. The romantic elements were popular fantasies during that time and this book actually helped to spawn an entire line of books by Harlequin called ‘Harlequin Shadows’- perhaps a precursor to the super popular paranormal romance/ Urban Fantasy trend to come.

Overall, this is a good solid paranormal/fantasy romance for its time. Anne Stuart is a seasoned author writing across several genres. I’m so happy to see that she took the initiative to digitize her out of print books. Many fans would like to read old favorites or ones they might have missed out on- and can introduce these books to new audiences as well, which is a good thing. But it is also very important to preserve the work- and I hope other authors who have rights to their books will follow Stuart’s lead.

*Steamy

*Note: I don’t know if I have a copy of this book- but I do have a collection of the ‘Shadows’ novels in paperback. They are stored in a box somewhere. I mainly keep them because they are out of print and somewhat of a novelty. I'm glad I decided to collect these! I’ll have to see if I can find more of them in digital format- which is easier for me to read. I’m not sure the quality will match Anne’s work- It would still be fun to check them out, though. ( )

Night of the Phantom has all the gothic melodrama you could ever wish for. It manages to be a bit tongue in cheek about this, while still remaining dark, twisted, and very sexy. Megan Carey works for her father's building firm. Ethan Winslowe is the reclusive, mysterious genius who designs a lot of their buildings. She finds out her father is a criminal who's wronged Ethan and cost people their lives in the process, but she agrees anyway to drive out to Ethan's home to plead on her father's behalf when Ethan threatens her father with ruin. Upon arriving at Ethan's mansion, Megan gets trapped in a weird, almost otherworldly nightmare straight out of a horror movie, and she gets to play the Victorian virgin. Ethan, bent on revenge, or simply seeing something that he wants, imprisons Megan in his mansion, and the games begin.

Night of the Phantom offers an interesting blend of edgy eroticism, gothic horror, and undermining facetiousness. The latter is mostly thanks to Megan, who's very aware, and in turn makes the reader aware, of the gothic parody playing out. She can't believe she's actually acting the Victorian virgin in Ethan's manipulations, derides herself and the melodrama, and even gets to puncture Ethan’s posturing and angst a bit. At the same time, she can't help but fall under the thrall of Ethan and his seductions. And, though the sex isn’t explicit by today’s standards, Ethan is very enthralling. He's tortured and scarred, literally and psychologically. He's ruthless and borderline diabolical, a very over the top character who instantly grabs my interest. His over-the-top nature is both a good thing and a bad thing in this book - bad in the sense that he sometimes seems like a cartoon or caricature, and doesn't get much of a chance to progress beyond the overblown dramatics that define him. For one thing, his history, his reasons for being a recluse, for living in the dark (he only comes out at night - so we get a beast, vampire, and phantom of the opera all rolled into one,) remain kind of vague. He really doesn't belong in the real world, and this detracts from the credibility of the supposed romance between him and Megan.

Megan, for her part, becomes a gothic heroine in the fullest sense of the role - even to the point of doing a stupid thing at the end so that some bad things can happen to her. But since, as I read, I'm going along with (i.e. devouring) the book as a homage to the gothic, I expect this behavior from her. So I don’t find her as irritating as I would have within a different context. I also have to keep in mind this is a pretty short book, so there's not much chance for really in depth character development - and Anne Stuart does an amazing job with what she has to work with here, regardless. Despite taking the story with more than a few grains of salt, I really enjoyed The Night of the Phantom and would recommend it to any Anne Stuart fans, die hard or otherwise. ( )