Thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for this arc in exchange for my honest review!

I’m not super into gothic themed books but I wanted to give this one a try and just see if I could be persuaded. Unfortunately that was not the case,I had to DNF this one I just couldn’t get into it.

Actual rating 3.5/5 stars

Very atmospheric vibes with an intriguing setting and concept. I enjoyed this read for the most part, but felt the plot wasn't as enticing as it could have been and that the characters needed a bit more development to get attached to and emotionally invested in.

I was initially optimistic about this book but unfortunately, my expectations were not met. As I delved into the story, I found it to be quite slow-paced and at times, I was tempted to give up on it. However, I persisted, much like Orabella, in the hope that the plot would eventually pick up.

The Gothic and horror elements of the book had great potential, but ultimately felt underdeveloped and unsatisfying. I was left with more questions than answers, feeling confused and disappointed by the lack of resolution.

Overall, I was left feeling that this book had the potential to be a gripping and chilling read, but unfortunately fell short of my expectations.

Thanks Amistad and Netgalley for providing the ARC and opportunity to provide an honest review.

What in the heck did I just read? I am not sure how I feel about this book. I hated that Orabella was used for a sinister purpose. I hated that she was so weak and that it took her nearly at the end of the book to realize that something foul was afoot. While the book had a sinister overtone, it took too long to get to the point. It was all over the place.
I kept saying out loud when will she learn? Even with the help of Sloan and Cullen, even of what she saw through the keyhole(the incest), she still let herself be gaslit. It was too much to bear. The tea and the food, especially the sweet treats were clues that something was terribly off with the Blakersby's. She spent most of the book as if she was an addict experiencing delirium tremens and hallucinations. I hated that for my sister. I wished she was more spunky and spoke up for herself. And don't get me started with the epilogue. Does it mean that the horror she went through wasn't over? Was Elias back to dredge it up? Why didn't he die like the rest? I felt this could have been written better. Too confusing, weak heroine, and unclear motives regarding Elias.

Lyrical, beautiful prose. Slow burn with a action packed ending. For fans of Gothic romances in secluded crumbling mansions.

This was truly a strange, creepy and cringy gothic novel and I was into it from the get-go. The manor in which Orabella was brought to by her newly betrothed is as gothic as they come: dark, dim, dilapidated, and drafty. Many rooms have given way to the elements of a forest with visions of moss on wood throughout. This is a wonderfully atmospheric novel with beautifully described scenes, from the birds fluttering against the wallpaper, fawns with large doe eyes, growing mushrooms, and faeries abound.

That being said, I really and truly do not know what I just read! Was the Blakersby family fae? Were they shapeshifting animals? Were they VAMPIRES?! This is really what I was thinking throughout the whole novel but it never was revealed what this family actually was. They fully came out at night. They stayed in dim rooms. They talked about blood nonstop, talked of looking young again. In my mind, they were a type of vampire, but it was never said. And in a way, I absolutely love the "fever dream" concept of this novel (fever dream is not my own words but that of other reviewers). I loved that I was constantly guessing, looking for clues, never trusting many of the characters, but totally trusting others, even Elias most of the time! I love that Orabella was smart, that she spoke her mind and asked questions. She is a true strong FMC, not demure or timid or easily manipulated.

This was a strange and cringy reading experience that also happened to be a total blast! The plot and atmospheric descriptions were original and fascinating. A solid 4 star novel.

This was one of my top two most anticipated books of 2024 and I have mixed feelings…

Gothic horror is my favorite sub-genre, so I will always be excited for a gothic book! And this book definitely gave the gothic vibes! It was very atmospheric and reminded me of Crimson Peak in some ways. It was slow paced and eery. And while reading I really loved the mystery and intrigue. I couldn’t wait to find out what was going on with this family that our main character had married into!

However, I have now finished the book and I still have no idea what was going on. I was left with countless questions after finishing. There were so many mysteries that were a part of this story, but what was the point when none of the mysteries were solved?? I really thought I was going to love this book & the revelation of what was going on in the story, but the story ended with nothing but confusion… It was also lacking a little in scene description, I couldn’t always picture what was happening.

The whole book felt like one big fever dream, which was super intriguing at first, but since I never got any clarity to the story, I just couldn’t love this like I wanted to. I enjoyed the ride, but the conclusion wasn’t worth it. I do think the story could make a better movie though, if the story is fleshed out more. I’m giving it 3 stars based on the potential of what it could’ve been.

Thank you Amistad and NetGalley for this arc. All opinions are my own.

This is an old-school type of Gothic story, which is a plus--mostly. If you're a fan of 19th century Victorian novels, or 20th century authors like Du Maurier, Victoria Holt, or Mary Stewart, or you like '80s movies like Labyrinth or Legend, you'll enjoy this. Coles's language is great. The prose flows well, and it was an easy read. Orabella is on the passive side, but I liked that. She was period appropriate for a character with her background and circumstances. The mood and vibe of the setting and novel is nice. My biggest issue was the ambiguity. Without any spoilers, I'm a reader who likes definitive answers. I thought in the epilogue, there would be more certainity, but the story ends with uncertainity in a way I wished I hadn't. I actually don't mind who showed up in the end and how the relationship resolves with Orabella, but I wanted to know more, to have clearer answers and explanantions. This is a personal peeve, however, and I still liked the novel. I assume the final version will correct the errors, so I won't factor it into the rating. Overall, don't expect a modern story in style and sensisibilities, and you'll be fine.

Orabella Mumthrope has been sold into marriage by an uncle who needs to pay off his debts. Her new husband, Elias Blakersby, has an estate in the country, far from the hustle and bustle of Bristol. Off to that estate Orabella goes, and there she will discover a house filled with servants and secrets, a place where family gather to chortle over hunts, to feast upon bloody kills, and indulge their animal appetites. Or is the weirdness the result of some kind of a one-two punch of gaslighting and sinister tea?

Her arrival marks the beginning of Orabella’s true journey, one that will deliver her to strange new territories indeed. There she will encounter things she cannot believe, strangers who do not care one bit for her humanity, and the occasional helper who may be far too common to take a real stand against the established power dynamic of this twisted family. Donyae Coles weaves gothic trappings and domestic horror in the lyrical, surreal, slow burn chiller, Midnight Rooms.

I don’t often encounter a book like this unless I’m turning back to novels that were popular in the past. Occasional contemporary stabs at this style of storytelling pop up, but they don’t often show the storytelling chops and lyrical prowess that author Donyae Coles seems to take for granted.

In many ways, Midnight Rooms is a throwback to the gothics of yore. Not necessarily a romance novel in the contemporary term, it shares quite a few qualities with the traditional Romantics of the 1800s. There’s a dread of nature and the natural world combined with a yearning to return to it. There’s a sense of the city as a prison. The world is a far stranger thing than science has room for.

The book reads like a companion piece to classic gothic novels like Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca or Anya Seton’s Dragonwyck (though without the latter’s pastoral moralizing). Here we have a woman sold into marriage coming to a strange place. There she is pampered but treated like a mushroom (kept in the dark and fed crap) as events spiral out of control around her, carrying her along. By the end, she has realized the games others are playing with her body, mind, and spirit, and she manages to escape the horrors. But she still carries them with her. We fully expect to find her years on, dreaming about coming to her husband’s estate once more.

The writing is often lovely and carefully wrought. The sentences are measured, composed with an ear toward that historic era’s classic style and cadences. As such, it can tend to flow right over a contemporary reader’s eyes. That Coles story often delves into hallucinatory terrain where the protagonist is witnessing events she is never quite assured of the reality around, the prose can veer into hallucinatory terrain as well (the term fever dream has been applied in other reviews, and it is apt). This kind of writing is potent stuff, and yet it can be a little hard to penetrate for readers unaccustomed to the florid qualities that dominated over a century ago. Still, Coles has a confidence that is admirable in composing the sentences, paragraphs, and chapters themselves.

One of the biggest challenges to overcome is Orabella’s passivity. She is an observer for much of the book, acted upon and taking cruelty and punishment. She is treated like a pet or a doll instead of a human being, and she seldom voices complaints. It’s not her place to complain. She is a prisoner who does not realize there is a release she can even seek out. This can be a little too much for the modern reader to swallow. In fact, she is rebellious but in subdued and subtle ways. And whenever her acting out is witnessed or caught, she is reprimanded, returned to her cell of a room or, sometimes, the witness to her helpers ruthless punishments. Reading the book, we must set aside our notions of protagonists who actively grapple with darkness for much of the work. Her strength is sapped by spiced teas, by creepy family behavior, and ultimately by her own resignation.

Whereas the supernatural elements are debatable, this passivity is the real source of chills and horror. Orabella is not a strong protagonist in the same sense as the kickassitude narrators of urban fantasy fiction. She is a submissive protagonist who grows a sense of moral outrage and then learns how to use it, leaving us to wonder if her efforts will come too late to save her.

This makes the book something of a novelty, appealing to a niche audience among contemporary readers. It trusts in our sophistication and reading experience to carry us along and through. My own experience with both the long standing gothics I mentioned before (Rebecca, specifically) as well as some niche stuff given new reading life by publishers such as Valancourt Books helped me immensely. I can only imagine that readers unaccustomed to such material will be left scratching their heads. Some readers may get the bug to see what Coles is riffing on and appealing to, but others will find such a book a little too much to take and set it aside (possibly unfinished).

There is a delicious playfulness in the language, however, that keeps the grim situation from becoming too much to bear. And yet that playfulness is subtle, it does not rob the content of the big emotional qualities the scenes and darker sequences are striving to evoke.

Coles has a knack for manifesting the elements of historical periods. It feels like a piece of old time history, and yet it does not feel particularly specific to an era. A few mentions might offer some context clues, of course. However, not much seems to be made (at least up front in the text itself) of Orabella’s mixed ancestry or of racial issues at all. And yet, that stuff is running along in the subtext, so when Elias’ relations are dressing her up, and cooing over her prettiness, and calling her “pet” we get a disturbance not only because a human being is treated this way, but because a woman with one Black parent is treated like a toy by privileged fiends. And since at least one character is an almost literal toy, broken to the point where she seems almost like a corpse when first introduced and turned into a smiling doll through much of the book, we get a sense of what this family seems to be doing. They may be collecting living Barbie dolls for some unsavory purpose.

Needless to say, there are triggers aplenty to be wary of. This is a good old gothic, which means plenty of taboos being smashed. Allusions to incest, assaults on bodily autonomy, gaslighting, murders, and other hideous behaviors are found throughout the text. It’s never actually gratuitous in the presentation of this material. Coles shows an enviable talent for leading a reader up to the brink and then fading to black or turning aside, but the negative elements are there for anyone reading closely to see.

In the final analysis, Midnight Rooms is a trippy read, overflowing with traditional gothic novel evils and understatement. While some supernatural elements are present, they are debatable as to their reality—this could all be fantasy evoked by a woman’s mind and senses rendered unreliable by narcotics. The writing style is delightfully archaic, the construction lyrical and somewhat obtuse. Still, for the reader accustomed to traditional gothic narratives, there is a driving sense of wonder and dread that gleefully carries us into the dark … and then out again.
#
A special thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review of the book.

Overall I would say I enjoyed this book but ultimately found it frustrating in the end. I was rooting for the protagonist the entire time, and I found the way that she reacted to what was happening to and around her to be realistic. The writing was great and perfectly captured the dreamlike nature of the narrative.

However, the reason I docked this a couple of stars was that too many parts were left without any explanation. While I enjoyed the ambiguity of the epilogue, I felt that I really didn't know what had happened in the last few main chapters and that this was the major weakness of the book. I'm generally fine with not knowing all the gritty details, but in this case I found it disorienting and dissatisfying.

I still think it is worth adding to the collection, but I would recommend it with reservations.

So, after I read this book was Set in a foreboding Gothic mansion and infused with the heightened paranoia and creeping horror of novels like Catherine House and Crimson Peak. I was immediately intrigued however as I read the book just lacked anything interesting in my opinion and I found myself contently wanting to look at my phone ect.

I think this book is the epitome of a fever dream. I was so confused yet entirely captivated page after page.

Orabella is a biracial woman who finds herself the ward of her white aunt and uncle as a child. One day, a mysterious man shows up at her uncle's house and makes an offer nobody can refuse: a marriage of convenience. What starts out as an innocent arrangement quickly spirals into a disorienting mashup of Beauty and the Beast meets Jane Eyre meets Crimson Peak, and it's all set in the Spring Court of ACOTAR.

And you're probably thinking, "That's a good thing?" Yes! I kept turning the page because no matter how cringed and freaked I was, I needed to know what happened next 👀

Orabella is one of my favorite FMCs ever. She is sassy, but she knows how to 'play the game,' and when to bite her tongue. I never felt detached from her or at odds; I was right there with her in every decision she made. I even found myself empathizing with Elias, sometimes, occasionally, okay, like, maybe once. But it happened.

The writing is truly beautiful, and if the author's goal was to ensure we are completely and utterly crawling in our skin for 300 pages, it's a success!

“…she wanted him and nothing else and she was a horrible, mad thing and maybe she had always been so”

Thank you, Net Galley and Amistad for allowing me to review this book!

Set in the late 1800s, Orabella, who was raised by her aunt and uncle, is married off to settle debts to a man she does not know. This man, Elias, is charming, beautiful and mysterious. After promising Orabella the world, she’s taken to his home, Korringhill.

Instantly, Orabella realizes that something is off about Elias, his family, and the happenings within the walls of Korringhill. But it’s the friendship between herself and her maid, Sloane, that the pieces start to fall into place and it’s clear that something isn’t quite right.

Orabella finds herself in the center of a scheme that has her trapped. She loses pieces of herself over and over again to Elias, his family, and the darkness that attempts to consume her; until she finally fights back.

Midnight Rooms is described as a gothic horror mystery and I found that it fits that description well. From the whimsical/flowery language the author uses to the eerie setting and terrifying themes, it screams gothic horror.

There were some creepy elements in the story, especially in the beginning when Orabella began experiencing strange things in her new home. But it isn’t really scary. If you’re looking for something along the lines of Winchester (2018) -what I was hoping for- this isn’t it. It’s a great starter for someone just going into reading horror and just wants some spooky, gothic vibes.

Orabella is not a likable character. Some things happen to her over and over and she continues to allow them to happen to her. Maybe it has to do with her upbringing and the way her aunt and uncle treated her but it was annoying to witness.

She was raised by white "parents" in a white society even though she was mixed race. She even mentions being treated differently while living in Bristol. Then she's married into this family that treats her like a "pet", "thing", or basically as property. After all, she endured, the ending was extremely disappointing. I get that she loved Elias (which is why I chose the quote that I chose). In regards to the ending, the epilogue felt rushed and disjointed from the rest of the book.

Yes, there are some errors throughout but what affected my reading experience most was that there were quite a few times where it wasn't really clear at all what was going on in certain sequences.

I do get Crimson Peak vibes. I think if you are new to the horror genre, this is a good option as it's not too scary but has the right amount of spooky vibes. As is, I wouldn't pick this one up again. I would love to see some updates made on this because the plot is solid and it has so much potential. And that cover is gorgeous.

2.75 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Amistad for this opportunity to read rate and review this arc which will be available 7/2/24!

Do not let the gorgeous cover fool you into a false sense of “this is going to be a fluffy love story” Oh no this is a haunting atmospheric gothic read that channels the gruesome story of Crimson Peak. I was ENTHRALLED. I loved it. I’m buying it.

4.5. Impressive horror. t points it goes to weird places but this gorgeous gothic fever dream of a book always wins out in The end. Thanks for the arc!

DNF at 42%

Originally, Midnight Rooms had caught my eye because of its cover. And then, it's promise of an atmospheric and bewitching tale caught my heart. But after having spent almost two hours reading it, I know i don't want to read any more. There's just a disconnect between me and the story. I don't care about any of the stories, and very little is happening to the plot. The narration itself is very disconnected and disembodied, which may be intentional, but it didn't tempt me to continue reading.

This is a hard book to rate. Much of the prose is lovely and evocative, and early on I was very invested in Orabella’s life, hoping she would find safety and happiness despite everything. That said, the middle part of the story was difficult to parse and felt incredibly repetitive. I can handle ambiguity and chaos in narration so long as enough things keep happening to hold my interest, but that wasn’t really the case here.

The other issue was the copy editing. Hopefully some changes will be made before final publication, but copy edits typically get done before ARCs are released, don’t they? That didn’t seem to be the case here. Comma splices and run-on sentences abounded, as did obvious typos, such as misspelled names and a sentence that ended with a period followed immediately by a comma. Odd for a book published by HarperCollins. Most of the self-published ARCs I receive are much more polished than this.

The prose was pretty and promising enough that I will check out the author’s future works, but this particular book just did not land for me.

(I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Thank you to netgalley and Amistad for allowing me to read this book. This book had all the gothic vibes and I loved every moment of it.

Now THIS is how you write a Gothic!

With dark, decadently rich prose, Coles delivers the ultimate gothic novel. Our heroine, Orabella, is an abject people-pleaser due to being an orphan who was raised by an aunt and uncle who never wanted her. This makes her a perfect bride for the eccentric Elias, who whisks her away to Korringhill Manor, the ultimate Victorian gothic setting. Its dilapidated state brings Crimson Peak and Mexican Gothic to mind, only with more vivid descriptions and a huge maze of hidden passages and rooms that you can smell.
The mysterious secrets the husband, staff, and family keep from Orabella rival those in the novel, Rebecca, and I really felt for her as she wrestled with her compliant upbringing and rage for the constant efforts to control her. The darkness, decay, and cloying teas and wines envelop both the heroine and the reader as we're taken through a fever dream that's both compelling and frightening. But, just as Orabella can't stop exploring the dark maze of the manor, the reader can't stop turning the pages, compelled by eerie mysteries and vivid storytelling all the way to the end.

Oh my gosh. I have no words for the absolutely perfect last page of this book. First reaction was just a "Shiiiit." For this book, I'm feeling Ann Radcliffe crossed with Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca. I am absolutely going to need to buy a physical copy of this book when it comes out.

Ok. This is a Gothic novel. And I'm not sure how many of the other reviewers are also Gothic fans, because I saw Goodreads reviews from people who were creeped out by the Gothic tropes. Like the house, this book was heady and dark and fantastical.

Orabella is married off to a man she's only just met, who promises to take care of her. He brings her to his family home which turns out to be covered in mold and rot. She's expected to do as the family tells her to do, and she must never leave her room unaccompanied. As time goes on, the house gets stranger, Orabella seems to be losing track of time, and the family feels more inhuman. Has she married into a family of beasts or is it all in her imagination?

CW: none of this is new for a Gothic fan, but casual readers may be distressed. CW for gaslighting, threat of sexual violence, implied incest, ritualistic death

Thank you to NetGalley and Amistad for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.