~ BOOK REVIEW ~ Midnight Devine ~ By Valerie Roeseler

Midnight Divine (The Helio Trilogy #1)

by Valerie Roeseler 

~Blurb~

Leaving her broken home and shady past behind, Ivy Harris is determined to make something of herself. Her new acquaintance, Jack Roe, is irritating and arrogant with a womanizing reputation. Despite his secretive behavior and constant pursuit of her, Ivy finds herself falling for him. When Jack’s secrets are revealed, Ivy discovers her life isn't her own as she's trapped within a conflict between beings of light and darkness.

After a series of dangerous encounters threaten her existence, she finds comfort from a mysterious stranger and gains the loyalty of unexpected forces. The walls Ivy has secured around her crumble in the wake of tragedy, and the devotion of her friends provide her with the family she's longed for. With their safety and her survival contingent on her actions, Ivy has no choice but to become the force of nature she's destined to be.

~My Review~

5 out of 5 Stars!

I have to say, after all of the things that Ivy was put through that were life changing, and in such a short period of time, I was surprised I never read “and then Ivy’s head exploded”.  This was an intense story from Ivy’s point of view, but this girl HANDLED it!

After reading this book, Ivy is my new hero.  She already wasn’t a typical girly girl.   She played the guitar in an all girl band, and KILLED it at racing and fixing cars.  She also decided that no matter how many bad things in life were thrown at her, she was going to college, and she took it very seriously.  Then, when her world got flipped upside down – several times – she didn’t let it break her. She fought harder, she got tougher, and she got rid of her own personal demons that got in the way of her real goals.  She’s a tough, super cool character, and I’d possibly beg her to be my friend in real life (in a super cool way, of course).

Another thing that stood out about this book was the detail the author was able to go into about many different subjects. For instance, the detailed explanation of how to race the cars, details about the music and equipment, and several other things I won’t give away.  Either this other is as awesome in real life as Ivy, or she did an exceptional job at researching every subject she wrote about, which I have huge respect for. It would have been easy to talk about the races without the details of how and when to shift, break, turn, accelerate, etc, but the details made me feel more like I was there driving myself.

I also really liked that the author didn’t make good and evil so obvious as I’ve read in so many other books.  There’s no black and white – if you’re one thing you’re good, if you’re another thing you’re bad.  She delves deeper, showing there is an incredible amount of gray area, and it’s possible for members to come together on common ground.  This is really what kept me on my toes the entire time.  I never knew who was REALLY good or bad, or who Ivy could trust.

If you’re someone like me who has a terrible habit of predicting who ‘mystery’ characters are, it’s likely you’ll figure one of them out pretty quickly.  As I kept reading, I was hoping to be surprised and proven wrong, but although I wasn’t wrong, I still wasn’t disappointed.  In fact, I think I was supposed to know.  It was all about the reveal of who they were – tricky, and I like it!

There was certainly more than one (or two) nights that I stayed up reading “one more chapter” until my eyes were burning.  This book kept me sucked in permanently, even thinking about it when I wasn’t reading it.  I will definitely be reading the next one, as things are really getting good!