A Ph.D. candidate with a background in religious studies,
Sophie Aubrey has been exchanging messages and emails with
a like-minded Olivier for quite sometime. When he asks her
to meet up at a local bar, her curiosity leads her to a
meeting. Initially intrigued by Olivier, Sophie soon finds
herself with the need to distance herself from him.
Olivier, believing that Sophie is his truelove from a
thousand years ago, tracks her down but in her attempt to
get away from him, Sophie breaks her neck. In order to
save her, Olivier turns her into a vampire.
Surprisingly forgiving for making her an immortal and a
bloodsucker, Sophie quickly embraces the vampire ways and
without asking Olivier for all the details about being a
vampire, she returns to her apartment to turn her roommates
into vampires. She manages to turn Norah but Suki has
disappeared and the only clue they have is a cryptic
message she left on the answering machine warning Sophie
not to talk to any strangers.
When Norah, with some help from Sophie and Olivier's friend
Lucien, sets out to enthrall Paul, a colleague at work who
caused her to loose out on a promotion, they manage to
unleash an evil fairy that has a very old grudge against
Sophie. Sophie knows that they must re-capture the fairy
because not only will she and Olivier not get another
chance at love if they don't, Sophie also knows that the
world she knows won't be the same if the fairy is left free.
In THE MIDNIGHT WORK, Kassandra Sims has taken an old story
line and creates her own path to it but at times, it's a
bit hard to follow. The heroine is not your typical hide
in your room, wait for the hero to come and save you type.
But at the same time, I didn't find her to be all that
likable either. I found her quick acceptance at gorging on
humans for blood and going on killing sprees a bit hard to
take. Olivier is a submissive hero and I found I didn't
connect with his character anymore than I did with
Sophie's. The story was disjointed at times but I found
that it did keep me interested enough to want to know how
it would all end. Though not a book to fill you with
romance and good cheer, Sims creates an imaginative debut
novel with a distinct style and voice that holds promise
for the future.
Christmas is a time of forgiveness -- so when Sophie
Aubrey's date, a sexy and mysterious artist named Olivier,
turns her into a vampire, she decides to forgive him.
Especially since being a vampire is just as cool as she
always thought it would be. But there are a few drawbacks
she never expected, like zombies, sleazy French alchemists,
inexplicable and contradictory fairies -- and her roommates:
one has abandoned Chicago and her cat for the Fairy Lands,
and the other reacted to vampirism by embracing it with both
hands (and fangs) and gorging herself on human blood.
Ick-o-rama.
Plus, Olivier seems to believe that Sophie is his true love
from a thousand years ago. Sophie can forgive that too,
because when Olivier touches her, the whole world falls away
-- but what she can't forgive is that he didn't tell her the
whole story, like how a crazy death fairy has a vendetta
against her. This has Sophie vacillating between
entertainment at the fairy's pretensions and being scared
out of her mind that someone who calls himself the God of
Death has got it in for her soul.
With the help of Olivier -- and the sleazy French alchemist,
who turns out to be a vampire's best friend -- Sophie thinks
she can defeat the death fairy. And if she can't, not only
will she and Olivier have no future, she's pretty sure that
the whole world is doomed.