I'd like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me a chance at reading this book.

Normally it takes about 15% to figure out if I'll gell with a book. I started this book, let it sit at 8% for a couple weeks, returned to it and finished it in one sitting.

The book started off innocently enough - playing on the gothic tropes of new bride to a mysterious man in a large estate.... but then it got bizarre, weird, and difficult to understand. The narrative began to get choppy, and the writing took on an unreliable narrator tone that had me not quite understanding what exactly went on in the house.

There is abuse, there is incest (?), there is strange ritualistic things that either have to do with a cult or faeries / animals pretending to be humans. Nothing made a lick of sense, and nothing was explained as to the reason that the husband wanted her in the first place.

Clearly I'm not alone since everyone seems to be having an issue with this book.

I loved the Gothic elements to this book, it had a great overall feel to this book. The historical thriller elements worked overall and it felt like it belonged in the setting. The characters worked well overall and loved the supernatural element during this book. Donyae Coles has a great style for this and can’t wait to read more.

This was a very different kind of book. Original for sure. Someone mentioned it being sort of like the old movie Labyrinth, I would agree.
Orabella is sent away to marry a wealthy man, Elias. The time is 1840. When she arrives at his fancy mansion, it is not what it seems. This is a gothic historical mystery. As Orabella dreams, weird strange things happen.

I felt this book was okay. Definitely different.
Thanks to Amistad, NetGalley and Donyae Coles for an ARC. All opinions are my own.
3 ⭐️

This book started out well but I ended up not finishing it. It reminded me too much of other books in its genre way too much. No originalality.

I was intrigued by the blurb and the cover is amazing, but I have absolutely no idea what is going on after reading so far, and that is a problem... The writing feels stilted, the characters oddly flat and forced. And I have no idea where the plot is going or why things are happening. I've tried but I just seem to stay confused, despite rereading sentences and whole paragraphs. This one isn't for me..

Set in a foreboding Gothic mansion and infused with the heightened paranoia and creeping horror of novels like Catherine House and Crimson Peak, a spine-chilling debut historical thriller from a fresh voice in the genre that will leave you questioning who, or what, you can trust . . . including your own sanity.

This book had so much potential but ended up falling flat for me. The ideas were there but the prose just wasn't it for me. I didn't hate it but there are better gothic horror/romance books out there.

Omg this book was so freaking good I didn’t expect for it to be this good. This kinda reminds me of “Crimson Creek” which was my favorite movie so reading this book brought back memories. It was creepy and all. Highly recommend.

A gothic novel meets a fairy tale meets a fever dream. I normally enjoy at least two of these things (fever dreams I could do without), but did I enjoy this book? Honestly, I'm really not sure ... but at least partially, I think? I mean, okay, so do you guys remember <i>Labryinth</i> (I, for one, will never forget David Bowie's, erm … pants), the scene where Sarah eats the drugged peach and then she's in the ballroom with the Goblin King and everyone is dancing and she's all dazed and confused and “As the World Falls Down” is playing in the background? That's pretty much this novel in a nutshell. Orabella spends a lot of time tea-roofied (seriously, why did she keep drinking the tea?!), there's lots of partying and dancing and other weird shenanigans while she's semi-conscious, and the next morning she wakes up in her room thinking that it must've all been a dream. Over and over and over.

There are parts of this book that I really loved. The beginning, especially, where she's meeting Elias and is whisked off to his derelict mansion to live with his bizarre family is really fantastic, and the sense of foreboding is tremendous. And some of the scenes, like the one where Orabella's hiding in the room with the stuffed fox, are delightfully creepy. There is a lot of repetition, however, and Orabella spends an extraordinary amount of time tea-roofied and wandering through hallways. I really loved the wedding night scene with the new in-laws (minus the bit about the fawn), but after the second or third time that I had to read through yet another chapter of “Orabella is drugged and everything is dream-like,” I was pretty much over it.

There is no denying, however, that Midnight Rooms is super atmospheric and creepy. I'm still not 100% sure what the deal was with Elias's family, but I really enjoyed “watching” Orabella try to figure it out. And I have to give it props for originality … well, as long as you ignore that that one scene from Labryinth exists, anyway. It's gothic-y and fairy tale-ish and Claresta is terrifying. I didn't always understand exactly what was happening (some parts of this book were really, really weird), but it was a wild ride.

Overall rating: 3.45 stars, rounded down. If you like fantastical gothic-y fairy tales (and can handle some repetition), you'll likely enjoy this one.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Amistad for providing me with an advance copy of this book to review.

Really great concept for a book, but the writing itself was a bit stilted.

Most of it felt very choppy, as opposed to flowing sentences and paragraphs. I almost wonder if it would've helped to have written this in first person.

Again, great concept, and I'm sure there will be upwards growth from this author!

Bridgerton meets gothic horror in this historical romance novel. Set in a crumbling country estate, we follow Orabella Mumthrope as she navigates her new married life with her husband Elias Blakersby, and make sense of his strange family and even stranger house rules.

There is mystery and red herrings all throughout this story. As the reader, I often tried to make sense of the strange lyrical descriptions and odd events unfolding, finding it both confusing and intriguing. Orabella is a very naive main character, slow to catch on, but her story arc was fun to follow. If you like gothic fantasies and haunted houses, you’ll love this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Amistad for this ARC.

So I really like this book it starts off with the main character named Orabella and she is going to become a governess so her uncle and aunt sent her away to the sky who basically appears kind he takes her to the garden so she automatically assumes that he’s nice. Her and Uncle want to send her away because they need money since they’re in debt and she is mixed so she’s got a white dad and a black mom but they passed away so she never sees them aunt and , uncle, and when she goes to this mansion that her new husband owns it’s basically a Gothic mansion that is the cake and there’s overgrown shrubbery around it. The people that work in this mansion his or his family his mother died but he has still has his dad and his aunts the weirdest thing I read when I read like around chapter 3 or four, is like when his aunt was what she was meeting his aunt and she was also meeting her husband and he was a corpse and he was the king. They were flies around him. So as I read this book through the book, she has like a friend named Sloan, who is also like her ladies made the goals, and like helps her out and forces her all the time to drink this tea in this wine, and every time she’s with her husband she basically doesn’t remember half the stuff that happens to the night before I really had so while I was reading this that the husband was a vampire but now that I think about it, there’s some really strange stuff going on that mansion if you really want to I want to read something like this this has sci-fi elements to it. there’s also a strange beast that comes out in the car husband tells her to lock her doors. I thought it was really weird that her husband is asleep in the same room with her. He sleeps like in this phone room and makes her sleep by her self, and tells her to lock her doors . This story was very weird. There was a lot of things they were rooms that she was not allowed to go on attended because of the rooms are supposed to be locked, but she was most of the time sneak out and they will be like cobwebs in the rooms look like they were never touch for years. I really enjoyed this book i wish the ending was better but I loved everything else about this book and the cover is just stunning, I can’t wait for it to come on stores so i can buy it.

Thank you Netgalley for giving me this book. 4 stars!

This book was interesting to read. The story unfolds as Oradella is married to a wealthy stranger to pay off a debt. She is whisked away to his decaying mansion ad strange things happen. The cover is what drew me to request the book. I was confused reading this book because I wasn't sure where it was heading . So I will give it a 3.5

4.5 stars!

This book is beautifully written first and foremost. The writing is poignant and lyrical. I was so quickly immersed into this dark and twisty story. The atmosphere was claustrophobia at times and I feared for our main character’s life viscerally.

We follow Orabella as she’s married off to a mysterious stranger named Elias and is swept away to his decaying mansion in the middle of nowhere. I love a gothic mansion as much as the next girlie but this one gives me the creeps.

Things are weird from the get go. I don’t trust anybody, I’m looking for clues, I’m screaming at Orabella not to drink the damn tea and wine. There were so many times where I wanted to reach into the book and shake this girl because lord have mercy. The red flags were a-wavin and she was colorblind.

I spent most of the book trying to figure out where this plot was going and the further I got into the story the more confused I became. It all comes to a head in absolute madness that I honestly couldn’t have called in a million years.

I enjoyed this a lot! If you’re a fan of lush gothic imagery, secrets around every corner, and hints of magical elements, I think you’ll really enjoy this book and unraveling its complex and intriguing mysteries.

I can’t wait to buy a physical copy of this when it comes out! The cover is absolutely stunning.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book!

3.5 stars. Thank you NetGalley and publishers for the ARC. I liked this story. It was definitely interesting to see the story unfold. Had me wondering what was going on the whole time and slap some sense into some of the characters. The author keeps you on your toes and guessing the whole story. There's some NSFW spicy goodness and some cringe-worthy parts, but all in all it was a good story and I recommend it if you like some dark fantasy.