Delorme populates Amelie's world with a diverse cast, each playing a unique role in showcasing her adolescent trials. Her interactions with counselors and teachers, including a particularly lascivious vice principal, emphasize the distance between her desire for a normal teenage life and the necessity to control the powers she possesses. Amelie's relationship with her unfeeling parents and uncaring friends spotlights the isolation she feels in her quest to find her place in a world that often fails her, and her yearning for a real friendship. It is this need in her life that the arrival of Clovis—whom she first thinks could be a hungry werewolf—might begin to fulfill. Touchingly, she finds in him a friend, a guide, and the object of her desires.
Bright Midnights offers a remarkable exploration of the experiences of desire and love. Through Amelie’s struggles to make sense of her new, unfamiliar feelings and knowledge, readers are sure to find themselves irresistibly drawn into this enthralling journey. Delorme’s steady, compelling pace makes the novel’s epic length less daunting, making it a solid read for lovers of relationship-driven urban fantasy.
Takeaway: Compelling fantasy of a teen, an incubus, and keeping the world at a distance.
Comparable Titles: Amanda Hocking’s Switched, Nadine Brandes’s Wishtress.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A-
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A-