You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

3.56 AVERAGE

kitkat_84's review

5.0

Historical romances make me happy. Especially ones with twists and turns like this one. This is your typical steamy romance novel and I love it. Angst, mystery, sex. It has everything.

indylinda71's review

4.0

This book has so much of what I love about the best historical roms from the 80s/90s. Incredibly vivid, well-researched historical detail. I always learn so much about history from a Jennifer Blake book. A great setting (pre-Civil War Louisiana), a break from the same-old same-old Regency. (I love a good Regency, but I get tired of the lack of diversity in today's historical romance.) Well-drawn characters. Beautiful descriptions--Jennifer Blake writes lovely prose. Her love scenes are sexy and sensual. The natural disasters that occur at the beginning and end are terrifying and well-rendered.
One problem, though, is due to mores that have changed since this book was published. This book doesn't deal well with the issue of slavery. It's impossible to read a plantation-set romance today and just pretend that the slaves are all hunky-dory with their enslavement, which this book does to some extent. Blake tries to deal with it by including a subplot about a slave boy with a talent for drawing. He is shunned by the other slaves (and is not a productive worker) because of his clubfoot. The heroine struggles with an ethical dilemma. By encouraging his talent, she's rendering him unfit to live in his world. But letting his talent go to waste is a crime. Problem is, so is the system he's been born into. The subplot is a touching one but it never addresses the larger injustice of slavery. If you can get past that (I never could completely), it's a wonderful novel.

Amalie, the heroine, is in an arranged marriage to Julien Declouet. They live with Julien's mother and sleep in separate bedrooms, as was the custom in those times. Julien's cousin, the handsome Robert Farnum, lives nearby and is a frequent visitor to Belle Grove. He respects his aunt, Julien's mother, and will do anything for her.

Julien and Amalie have been married for three months, but still the marriage has not been consumated, although he has tried once or twice. One night, Amalie is visited by a man who she thinks is her husband. Their interlude is wonderfully sexual and romantic, but it's so dark that she can't see his face and assumes it is her husband. At breakfast the next morning, Julien acts as if nothing transpired between himself and Amalie the night before which puzzles Amalie. But that night again, and the night after that, she is visited by her lover and they spend rapturous hours together.

Jennifer Blake transports the reader to the bayous of Louisiana and the streets of New Orleans. "Midnight Waltz" has an intriguing, very dark side in addition to the romance. The story takes some surprising twists and turns which the reader really doesn't expect. The secondary characters are as vital to the story as the Amalie, Robert and Julien.