The Shadow Hour (The Girl at Midnight #2) - Melissa Grey [Review]

Book: The Shadow Hour (The Girl at Midnight #2)

Author: Melissa Grey

Published: 12th July 2016

Publisher: Atom

Pages: 368
Source: eArc provided by the publisher via NetGalley

Rating: 3/5 stars

The second in The Girl at Midnight series, this book follows Echo & the gang as they face the consequences of their actions from the last novel. As before, there are a lot of good parts to this book, that I definitely enjoyed, but, as with the first, there are a few parts that felt a little disjointed.

In terms of the writing, as usual, Grey manages to weave a picture of the world that is truly bursting with colour: every setting feels decadent and vibrant, and there is a real diversity in terms of settings - from Scotland to China, the characters definitely go on a journey. The general writing style is one of my favourite parts of the book, especially the descriptions of the locations, such as Avalon. 

Moving on to the characters, I definitely have my favourites. Echo is a fairly likable heroine, although even she does make the occasional dumb decision that has me thinking 'what are you doing??' - but, she has had to grow up fairly quickly, so she's bound to make some errors, in all fairness (although sharing is caring, and she should definitely share her inside thoughts and feelings with the other members of Team Echo). Overall, she is fairly consistent in her character and I especially enjoyed the parts concerning the background of her mother as this really helped to add more depth to her character.

With regard to her companions - the main male characters of the novel (as in the first) are Caius and Rowan. They are both enjoyable in their own ways - Caius is brave, loyal, and his relationship with his sister is intriguing and engaging. On the other hand, Rowan is funny, sassy, always has a quick retort and is definitely more likable (to me) in this novel. However, do I think either of them are a suitable romantic interest for Echo? No, I don't. There are so many issues with their respective relationships (the Rowan/Ruby incident and the Caius/Rose saga), and therefore both potential love interests seem unattainable to me. Personally, I would love Echo to just end up with nobody, and live for herself, although I doubt that will happen (but a girl can dream). 

The crowning glory of this book, for me, comes from the peripheral or supporting characters, particularly - you've guessed it - Jasper and Dorian. I love their unlikely relationship and in this book we finally get a bit more closure regarding their will they/won't they status. I swear to all known (and unknown) deities, if either of them die, I will be absolutely livid.

Another enjoyable character is Ivy; she's absolutely more proactive in this book, and has a good amount of character growth continuing on from the events of the previous novel. Her relationship with Echo, and The Ala is sweet and very familial, her and Echo are definitely reminiscent of sisters, and I liked their concern for each other. 

However, some characters I felt were a little underdeveloped or definitely had a lot more to give (and I hope this will be rectified in the final book) - and specifically, I'm talking about both Caius' sister, dragon prince & altogether kick-ass woman Tanith, and a new character Quinn. Quinn is a warlock and when we are introduced to his character, there's a lot of mystery and intrigue, and he absolutely has the best dialogue consisting of snide remarks and a heap of sass. However, as the story progresses, he is slightly relegated to the background, and I really do hope he will appear more in the final book as there's definitely more to explore there.

In terms of Tanith, I am so fascinated by her and Caius' relationship, however throughout the book she comes off a little ~pantomime villain~ for me, and I'm still rather unsure as to her motivations - for instance, it's mentioned several times by Caius that he doesn't believe her to be evil, yet her actions follow the classic villain narrative; she is also predictable and rather shortsighted. Again, hopefully this will be illuminated a bit more in the next book. 

Finally, the plot pacing is slightly uneven. The beginning and the end of the book are solid, however the middle wavers slightly in terms of direction - there are a lot of good scenes, don't get me wrong, but the narrative feels less focused, and some major plot points can be seen a mile off. There's a lot of varied scenery, however it feels a little like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (the movie), in that the characters in The Shadow Hour visit a bunch of a different and interesting places, but tend to go through the same procedure whilst there - i.e. arrive, look for something, leave, and repeat. I would have enjoyed slightly more variety in the plotting, although, this is not necessarily uncharacteristic of the majority of second-in-a-series books. 

Overall, this is an engaging, colourfully written book with lots of potential, and although it falls slightly short of its aspirations, there is a lot of promise for the final installment.