Title: Stroke of Midnight Series: One Night in South Beach #1
Author: Andie J. Christopher
Published: January 3, 2017
Genre(s): Romance: Contemporary
Page Count: 170
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:New Year’s Eve in Miami. Even workaholic Alana Hernandez can’t resist the call of the city, especially if it will get her little sister off her back. But a night of celebrating turns into a night of mischief when an alluring stranger catches her eye across the dance floor.
Former Navy Seal Cole Roberts isn’t looking for anything more than a good time in Miami. Since leaving the military and being betrayed by his former fiancée, he’s not interested in unnecessary complications. But the moment he sets eyes on the sultry beauty, Cole knows this night will be far from ordinary.
Neither Cole nor Alana are looking for a relationship, so they strike a deal: One night. No names. No repeats. But things get complicated when their night of passion becomes something neither can walk away from.
If you’re in the market for misogyny and chauvinism, hop on in! No, but seriously—the author was doing her best but she reinforced waaaay too many of the same ideas she was trying to confront. Stroke of Midnight tried but did not succeed.
Meet Alana, an overworked, introverted Cuban lady. Her manwhore brother is having a major spiraling depressive episode and has left her to do 80% of his work at the family business in addition to her own. Meanwhile Alana’s chauvinist father is browbeating her for failing to do the only thing a woman is good for: making babies.
Meet Cole, a self-indulgent, self-hating macho man. He thinks he’s trash because one woman humiliated him one time, so clearly he must be awful. He sleeps around in order to mask his massive insecurities. As Chbosky so famously said: “We accept the love we think we deserve.”
Alana and Cole have a one night stand. Then: surprise! It turns out Cole is one of Alana’s manwhore brother’s friends. Manwhore brother basically pees on Alana in some kind of nasty territorial display, sending the message that it’s okay to treat women like sex objects unless the woman is his sister. Right on. Obviously Cole and Alana continue to sleep together. Shit goes down. Supposedly they get a Happily Ever After. Supposedly.
Where do I start with Stroke of Midnight? So much to unpack, so little patience.
Firstly, this is probably the single worst iteration of the “best friend’s sibling trope” I’ve ever read. Alana’s brother, Javi, is an absolute Neanderthal. He’s beyond disgusting. And while it is brought up (at the very end of the book!) that Javi is clearly projecting his own manwhore issues into Cole, it’s still a big yikes. The Dark Moment of this novel is a scene in which Javi tracks down Cole and Alana, barges into their condo, drags them out of bed, calls Cole “trailer trash” and other delightful things, and proceeds to physically assault Cole while a naked Alana watches.
Like. What the fuck? No. (And if the author honestly expects me to read the next book in the series, which is about Javi? She better have another think coming.)
Beyond that, though, this book does a lot of other things that really got me steamed.
For one thing, Christopher fully buys into the combination of misogyny and “not like other girls” rhetoric that often go hand in hand. Every woman in this book is highlighted as a shallow, coke-addicted slut, whereas Alana is shy and introverted and purely beautiful in her minimal makeup. Fuck that. As I’ve said numerous times before and probably will have to say again: if you think that needlessly dragging down other women is the way to make your female protagonist interesting/special/whatever? KEEP THINKING.
And on a related but slightly different point: I hate books that fetishize “innocence” as if that makes your main character worthy of love or something. Alana is beautiful but she doesn’t know it! She’s a natural at sex but she has no experience! She’s amazing and interesting but has no clue! But she learns all this as soon as Cole arrives and tells her so. Nope. Women don’t need a man to be the vehicle of their own self-actualization. It’s entirely possible for a woman to be smart, beautiful, sexy, and worthy—and to KNOW that she is all those things without a single man telling her so. Women don’t need men to save their self-esteem; women need men to partner with them in the pursuit of further joy and fulfillment.
Again: I feel like Christopher was trying to convey all these points, but it doesn’t work. The misogyny displayed by the characters is subtly reinforced by the structure of the narrative itself, and the challenges to that harmful thinking come too late and without much resolution. For instance, I don’t think we actually see Alana’s brother apologize for being an abusive creep?
Stroke of Midnight is well-written, but it’s not a good book.
