Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing this book, with my honest review below.

Like many who will be drawn to this book, I enjoyed The Coldest Winter Ever and had read some of Sister Souljah’s follow up books set in the same world, but had been eager for one focused on Winter (I did not read the first return to Winter book as the plot didn’t seem to my tastes). Love After Midnight focused on Winter as she gets back into the world she ran as a Brooklyn princess in her teens, complete with her father by her side, and I was eager to see if she had grown during her time in prison.

While Sister Souljah writes Winter in the same style for the character I got to know in The Coldest Winter Ever, the general writing and story felt disjointed and at times confusing. While some of that may just be my own tastes (as an example the first chapter opens with writing that seems to emulate the rhythm of a song, but it just didn’t work for me), others would apply for any reader (the last few chapters). On the positive side, I would view this as the promise of a good story emerging about Winter’s childhood friends betraying her and her continued shallowness despite a near death experience. Ultimately though, some of the chapters (see previous notes) just didn’t work for me and this felt very surface level throughout. Perhaps this is getting the reader ready for the next book (we end on a bit of a cliffhanger) which will dive deeper, but with so many places Love After Midnight could have taken me, I felt there was more than enough story available that could have been developed more deeply in this book alone.