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A Kiss at Midnight by Eloisa James
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A Kiss at Midnight (edition 2012)

by Eloisa James

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8554925,109 (3.71)21
Fiction. Romance. Historical Fiction. HTML:

"Eloisa James writes with a captivating blend of charm, style, and grace that never fails to leave the reader sighing and smiling and falling in love."
â??New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn

"Romance writing does not get much better than this."
â??People

The Cinderella story moves to Regency Englandâ??with more than a few twists and turns along the way! With A Kiss at Midnight, the remarkable Eloisa James spins a delicious tale involving a carriage, a godmother, a pair of rats...and a beauty with no interest whatsoever in getting marriedâ??and certainly not to a prince! Read A Kiss at Midnight and see why New York Times bestselling author Lisa Kleypas says, "Eloisa James is extr… (more)
Member:annie-b
Title:A Kiss at Midnight
Authors:Eloisa James
Info:Avon (2012), Edition: Reprint, Mass Market Paperback, 384 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:****
Tags:adult, romance, overdrive ebook

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A Kiss at Midnight by Eloisa James

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A Kiss at Midnight by Eloisa James is a reworking of the Cinderella story. In this version, Cinderella is named Kate, she has a nasty stepmother but her stepsister, Victoria, although rather spoiled and vapid, in in fact an ally. When Kate is sent off to a prince’s castle to cover for Victoria’s absence, she meets a prince who is anything but charming.

Prince Gabriel needs to marry a wealthy women, he has a lot of relatives that rely on him as well as the upkeep on the castle. He has a Russian princess on her way to him, but, meanwhile he can’t help but fall in love with Kate. In turn, it isn’t long before Kate realizes that she loves Gabriel as well. Luckily, she meets her godmother, Henriette, who decides to help Kate find herself a husband. The Russian princess arrives, but by that time Gabriel and Kate have consummated their love and although Kate leaves with her Godmother, it isn’t long before Gabriel turns up at her door.

The author provides Kate with a large dowry, provides the Russian Princess with a new love and even gives Victoria, the stepsister a happy ending. I felt that the book could easily have been 100 pages shorter as the last third of the book was mostly scene after scene of Kate and Gabriel rolling around in each other’s arms. I did like that in this book the heroine wasn’t the usual victim that Cinderella so often is but overall this was a rather boring retelling. My favorite characters were easily the three dogs. ( )
  DeltaQueen50 | Dec 4, 2023 |
I'm a sucker for anything that takes a fairy tale and rewrites it. A trashy romance that does it? I'm in.

This is definitely not 'historical' and it has sense of tongue in cheek to it which makes it a different sort of beast than the normal trashy romance.

I enjoy this Fairy Tale series because of the infusion of humor and sly winks that it takes to both the fairy tale genre and itself. A quick read, enjoyable (but ultimately forgettable) characters.

This is cotton candy reading - best for a quick escape or a pick me up when the world just seems too gray and cloudy. ( )
  kethrytemaire | Dec 31, 2022 |
2.3 stars

“I did it,” Gabriel said, conversationally. “I met the woman, the only woman for me. I met her, and now I’m going to meet my wife.”

This month's TBRChallenge theme was Fairy Tale, last year I did a Beauty and the Beast because my tbr is full of that theme as it happens to be a personal favorite. I wanted to switch it up this year so I went with a Cinderella inspired. I got this book from a garage sale around 6 years ago and since I've read James before, I figured I would generally like it.

“Why did Caesar bite Victoria, anyway? I never thought to ask.”
“She was feeding him from her mouth.”
“What?”
“Holding a piece of meat between her lips and encouraging him to take it from her. Foolish business, coming between a dog and his meat.”
Kate shuddered. “That is disgusting.”


Look, it was a bit rough of a start between me and the heroine Kate, she was pretty vocal about not liking her step-sister's three little doggies. I'm an avowed crazy dog lady, who, maybe this is too much information, could hold a treat between my teeth and let my Rottweiler take it out of my mouth. I never got bite once and, obviously, don't find it as odd/disgusting as Kate. She also said this about the doggies: She disliked her stepsister’s pack of little dogs, affectionately, or not so affectionately, known to all as the rats. Granted, I'm not big on little Maltese dogs but calling them rats had me growing cold towards Kate even more. I graciously read on and decided to give the heroine time to improve her attitude.

With that personal huffiness aside, the beginning of this was chaotic, we get the basic set-up of Kate's mother dying when she was in her early teens, her father remarrying two weeks later, and then her father dying pretty soon after to leave her with a step-mother and step-sister a couple years younger than her. Leaning into the Cinderella inspiration, the step-mother doesn't share any of the inheritance the father left her with Kate, gives it to her daughter Victoria as a dowry and does her best to bankrupt the estate. Kate gets moved to the attic and basically treated like a servant. Kate wants to leave to start her own life but feels guilty leaving the tenants to fend for themselves. What starts off this whole story is that Victoria's lip is infected from the dog bite and she was supposed to travel with her betrothed to meet his uncle, who just so happens to be a prince. They can't postpone the meeting because Victoria and the betrothed have been anticipating the wedding night for three months and Victoria is pregnant, they planned on getting married after meeting the prince, the betrothed's mother won't let them get married until the prince approves. For some reason that didn't quite make sense to me, Victoria's lip can't be seen in public so the mother concocts the plan that Kate will take her place and pretend to be Victoria. They sort of resemble each other because, GASP!, they are actually sisters, Kate's father was cheating on her SICK mother and after the SICK mother dies, marries his mistress. This plan really made no sense to me.

Gabriel Albrecht-Frederick William von Aschenberg of Warl-Marburg-Baalsfeld

Our prince, of the many fabulous names, has his own trials going on. His oldest brother is going through it back in the home country and has decided to lean in hard to the teachings of a religious zealot. Because of this, he has kicked out anyone not willing to become devout and Gabriel has taken the heathen relatives, friends, and workers with him to England. He feels guilty leaving them on their own, I guess. Personally, he's always wanted to be an archaeologist but the callings of duty. However, he's a poor prince and must marry a rich Russian princess, who is making her way to England, where if everything goes according to plan, they will become betrothed at the Ball.

She turned around, mouth open. “You can’t go about trying to seduce young ladies!” she squeaked.
“If I weren’t betrothed already, I would consider marrying you.”


You can probably tell where this is going, but it wasn't quite as predictable as I thought it was going to be. Kate and Gabriel meet and have an instant attraction but by 30% Gabriel knows who Kate really is and why Victoria isn't there to meet him. We learn that Gabriel's majordomo is his illegitimate half-brother and along with how he feels responsible for everyone, connections are there for Kate and Gabriel to bond. The problem was that with the chaotic beginning, we don't really get to sit with characters, Kate and Gabriel especially together, and that ruined some emotional connection between them.

“Oh damn,” he said, and there was a kind of hoarse hunger in his voice that spoke of truth, “I wish you were my Russian princess.”

The first half also introduces us to Kate's godmother, Henry. Kate didn't know about her and due to Henry loving Kate's father but him choosing an heiress over her and then Henry being barren and Kate's father not understanding her grief and thinking naming Henry godmother would make her feel better, they never connected over the years. But what is Cinderella without the godmother? Henry played her part well and helped to give love, life, and fashion advice to Kate. Around the midway point, Kate and Gabriel finally start to spend sometime together and while they have some nice conversations, this couple was really more about the teasing and foreplay. I do like how they didn't just jump to sex and some of the teasing seduction scenes were played out well but I kept wishing some of the side characters and their stories had been pushed to the side more so that we could have gotten to know Gabriel more and Kate and Gabriel as a couple could have shown me more of the mental emotional reasons they were falling/in love. They were really more of a bedroom couple.

And then she knew what the emotion in his eyes was. It was despair, and rage—and love. Love. “Gabriel,” she said, with a little gasp.

With his Russian princess arriving any day, Gabriel makes a bet with Kate that if he restores the reputation of a girl Kate has befriended, she must let him kiss her. They've kissed and fooled around at this point but both keep saying Kate can't give up her virginity to him. The night of the Ball, Gabriel organizes things to have Kate up in his turret room and they have a fairly steamy seduction sessions with Gabriel having to go downstairs to be with his Russian princess and then sneaking up to continue the seduction with Kate. It starts to feel like, Gabriel, my man, Stop. But we need that ending angst. At 80% they have sex and still think Gabriel will marry the princess and Kate will go with Henry to London to find a husband. Of course when Kate is leaving, she loses one of her “glass” slippers.

His foot brushed something. He bent down. It was one of Kate’s glass slippers. It shimmered in his hand, as delicate and absurd as any bit of feminine nonsense he’d ever seen in his life. He said it aloud, because there was no reason to be silent. “I am—undone. She has undone me.” And his hand closed around the glass slipper.

The next chapter jumps to 41 days have passed and Kate is depressed in London but of course, Gabriel shows up and does a romantic thing and happily ever after with an epilogue. The money problem gets solved with a book advance(??????) (have to remember back to Gabriel wanting to be an archaeologist) and Kate's dowry wasn't as stolen as she thought. This is definitely not a leave your family on pilgrimage to find this book and read it, but it had some nice moments. The step-sister not being evil/mean was a nice turn and Henry as the godmother was a treat but I never felt like Gabriel was a full character, would have loved more of him and his half-brother Wick, and Kate and Gabriel's relationship was more in the teasing seduction than feeling romantically complete. There were some odd/uncommon additives in this (a lion who maybe eats dogs who eat pickled food, all the secondary character probably/maybe not needed side-stories, and I can't let this go, a butler named Cherryderry) that made it feel chaotic and stole away from the romance of the main couple. You probably won't be bored because of the “what's that now??” quality but I can't say you'll be romanced either.
(I know you all are wondering and yes, Kate sort of changed her mind about the doggies, at least one of them anyway and became a dog lady herself :) ( )
  WhiskeyintheJar | Feb 16, 2022 |
I was slow to read this series, despite enjoying other work by James, because a retelling of fairy tales in this genre just seemed bound to be cloyingly sweet and fairly predictable. I can't speak to the others yet, but this one was considerably more interesting than I expected. A very loose interpretation of the tale, so even if you're quite familiar with previous versions, there will still be new twists here that you wouldn't have predicted. Overall I enjoyed it. ( )
  JorgeousJotts | Dec 3, 2021 |
First, this series can be read in any order. They're connected by a theme, but none of the characters overlap and none of the stories have a connection in time or place. They also belong solidly in the rom-com section of the romance genre.

While there is an obvious fairytale atmosphere to this story and plot points with their origins in the classic tale of Cinderella, it's not really a Cinderella retelling (for the record, the second book in the series is not really a Beauty and the Beast-retelling, either). The Prince is from a fictional German-like principality, but the book is set in Regency England. All the details of the Prince's culture and country are deliberately muzzy. Suspend your disbelief and enjoy the story--it's not meant to be terribly realistic.

My preference is definitely for a serious, restrained, and historically accurate (-ish) romance, but even I couldn't help liking this story. The premise is ridiculous! Absolutely absurd. Yet, I didn't mind it at all, not even the cherry-red wig. Our heroine is sent to impersonate her half-sister (Victoria) at a house party so that the sister's fiance can get the approval of his uncle (the Prince) for his impending marriage. Right away, it's made very clear that our heroine doesn't actually resemble her half-sister and they're 5-years apart in age (which, at 18 and 23, is likely to be pretty obvious). So I had trouble with this plot point. Curiously, while it might have given the author some great opportunities for hilarity as Kate hobnobbed day after day with people who KNOW her sister and are becoming increasingly confused by her dramatic change in appearance, the story breezes past those possibilities. It's only referenced in passing and we never see our heroine conversing with anyone who questions her identity (except the Prince and her godmother who are just preternaturally clever enough to recognize she isn't Victoria).

There are several subplots to this story and so many side characters that I was frustrated by them. Too many characters who never speak or are rarely mentioned are given names. When a character is introduced with a name and backstory, I rather expect them to play a role in the main plot. In this story, however, the side characters pop up and then fade into the background, hardly garnering a mention and rarely (or never, in some cases) speaking a line. They have purpose, to an extent. In the case of Kate's longstanding servants who are given names but no lines and no plot, they serve to show her sense of loyalty to others and the loyalty she inspires in them. In the case of the Prince's many eccentric relatives, they serve to fill out the party, are part of the Prince's backstory, and give the prince his sense of duty and responsibility. Beyond that, however, none of them ever really interact with the protagonists in a meaningful way or drive the plot forward. For that reason, it's really hard to keep them all straight.

As in the previous Eloisa James book I read, the author chose to play games with the characters' names. In the previous book (the second in this series), there were doctors named Kibbles and Bitts, and her aunt was Zenobia, and so on. Silly nonsense. In this book, we got Biggitstiff, Toloose, an Algernon called Algie, and a woman named Henrietta who goes by Henry. I hate the cheap humor of the silly names and I super intensely hated Henrietta-Henry because every time the name Henry was mentioned, I had to remind myself that she wasn't one of the Prince's erstwhile male relatives, but the godmother. I just could not keep it straight. I saw other reviewers had complaints about the Prince's long dramatic given name, but that was actually correct for his royal heritage and the loosely-regarded time period, so no complaint there. But Biggitstiff and Toloose? Not funny. Every time one of these moronic name choices appears, it pulls me out of the story for a moment.

Now, the romance in this story gets no complaints from me. It was sweet. I loved that Kate arrived carrying a heavy burden of presumptions about how the Prince would behave and how he must look at the world. When they see one another for the first time, Kate glares him down, refuses to approach him for a greeting, and says nothing. She interprets him as arrogant and superior. While, privately, he was wondering why she was glaring at him and if she disapproved of his long hair. When they are seated together at a dinner en famille, Kate repeatedly asks the Prince questions about himself. She's so convinced the Prince is a conceited, manipulative royal that she insists he wants to talk only about himself, but in actuality, she's the one who keeps bringing him up as a topic. The first half of the book is filled with Kate's misinterpretations about his character and she's constantly telling him how she sees him, in a very unflattering light. He takes it with good grace and even considers whether any of what she says about him is true.

In contrast to Kate's assumptions, the Prince is a good person. He is responsible and caring and considerate. He can be high-handed--insisting she go boating with him, despite protestations; pulling off her wig without permission; kissing her once after he had promised not to. Kate calls him out on these behaviors, and there are moments of introspection where he considers whether he is behaving badly. It's excellent writing and excellent character development. The Prince says "please" several times. God, yes. Perhaps I secretly want men to grovel, but it is a pet peeve of mine that the men in romance novels rarely apologize properly and rarest-of-all, rarely or never say please, even when they desperately want something. This man, for all his purported arrogance, says please. And I loved it.

What made this story great for me was the character's choices. At no point did either character make a terrible decision or say anything horrible or cruel to one another. They were both good people, both aware of the reality of their time period/situation, and made the choice to be together and love while they could. This story could easily be rewritten by another author into a tragedy. That they get their happily-ever-after in the end makes it all the better.

( )
  hlkate | Oct 12, 2020 |
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
James, Eloisaprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Cruz, DomingasRevisĂŁosecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Desthuilliers, CĂ©cileTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Duerden, SusanNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Griffin, JamesCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Santos, Maria Manuela Novais dosTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Carol Bly. She didn't care too much for the genre of romance — or so she said. But she read my sister and me fairy tales over and over, enchanting us with princes who swept in on white chargers and princesses whose golden hair doubled as ladders. She gave me my first copies of Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, and Pride and Prejudice. In short, Mom, it's all your fault!
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This story begins with a carriage that was never a pumpkin, though it fled at midnight; a godmother who lost track or her charge, though she had no magic wand; and several so-called rats who secretly would have enjoyed wearing livery.
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Please do not combine with the single title book or any anthology book containing this story. Thanks.
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Fiction. Romance. Historical Fiction. HTML:

"Eloisa James writes with a captivating blend of charm, style, and grace that never fails to leave the reader sighing and smiling and falling in love."
â??New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn

"Romance writing does not get much better than this."
â??People

The Cinderella story moves to Regency Englandâ??with more than a few twists and turns along the way! With A Kiss at Midnight, the remarkable Eloisa James spins a delicious tale involving a carriage, a godmother, a pair of rats...and a beauty with no interest whatsoever in getting marriedâ??and certainly not to a prince! Read A Kiss at Midnight and see why New York Times bestselling author Lisa Kleypas says, "Eloisa James is extr

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Miss Kate Daltry doesn’t believe in fairy tales...or happily ever after.


Forced by her stepmother to attend a ball, Kate meets a prince...and decides he’s anything but charming. A clash of wits and wills ensues, but they both know their irresistible attraction will lead nowhere. For Gabriel is promised to another woman—a princess whose hand in marriage will fulfill his ruthless ambitions.

Gabriel likes his fiancée, which is a welcome turn of events, but he doesn’t love her. Obviously, he should be wooing his bride-to-be, not the witty, impoverished beauty who refuses to fawn over him.

Godmothers and glass slippers notwithstanding, this is one fairy tale in which destiny conspires to destroy any chance that Kate and Gabriel might have a happily ever after.

Unless a prince throws away everything that makes him noble...

Unless a dowry of an unruly heart trumps a fortune...

Unless one kiss at the stroke of midnight changes everything.
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