The Other Side of Midnight

By: Simone St. James / Narrated By: Mary Jane Wells

Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins

Oh PHEW! Got the bad taste outta m’ mouth from The Haunting of Maddy Clare…!

Okay, so!

Like, I’m verrrry fond of author Simone St. James—think she crafts marvelously spooky stories with great character development and some fairly good outcomes/twists. Add to that her fondness for the post-war eras, mostly WWI, with all the horrors that being back from the Front can entail, and Dude! I’m sooo there!

-However-

My last jaunt with her was The Haunting of Maddy Clare, and oh my good golly gosh! Spooky, yes. Good twists, yes. And great character development, uhm, okay. But, like, the romance that blossomed between the heroine and the Hero? Oh GOD! Toes Curling RIGHT AWAY! Nipple Sucking (Yup, the word Nipple is entering another of my Reviews, and I greatly resent that!), Engorged Member Grabbing, you name it and our Developing Characters were doing it. Holy Egadding Cow!

THAT said and lamented about, lemme say that I was deeearly hoping that St. James learned from the Reviews left by other inCREDibly shocked people who just wanted a CreepFest, and NOT a Bed Tumbled Into over and over and over again.

Huzzah, she DID! And The Other Side of Midnight has all the excellent crafting withOUT the Rolls in the Hay. Well, there’s a bit, but St. James made it farrrrr lower-key with mostly a noticing of broad shoulders, and muscular thighs.

Oh. Thank. GOD!!! I was able to enjoy it all!

We see heroine Ellie Winter as she works her trade, which just happens to be as a psychic who specializes in finding lost items. Once upon a time, she hunkered behind a curtain when her psychic mum was losing abilities, and Ellie whispered to her aaaaalll about the Dead that she was Seeing.

A dour man is her client, and she gets that he’s pulling her leg, and he’s come to see her for other reasons. Peeved, she sends him angrily away, only to discover that this man is the brother of one Gloria Sutter, the only other true psychic Ellie knows, once a boon-companion, but then there was a falling out over Ellie’s mum being debunked with Ellie herself being tagged as a: Could be for real, but all is inconclusive. Ellie wants nothing to do with ex-pal who set the whole thing up, until… Dah Dah DUMMMM: The brother tells her that Gloria is dead, was murdered, and she left a cryptic note before heading off to her death. Ellie is to find her. And dear brother, who’s an absolute prig, gets preeeetty toad-ish about Ellie HAVING to become involved (No offense to toads).

The whole story is of Ellie’s involvement, using her psychic powers, or, more to the point: Her psychic powers using her. When Ellie touches people or objects, she gets visions and knowledge of their pasts, of what has been. Plus, she still sees the Dead. There are frauds, and investigators, and ne’er do-well rich boys, and mysteries run amok.

And there’s the man who debunked her mum, and wouldn’t you know it: He’s just totally a hunk. He also is, however, inCREDibly damaged by the War (WWI), and ooooh, Ellie feels his pain cuz she’s kinda sorta not someone who fits in either.

The two are rather thrown in together, and thank GOD their relationship is slooooowly developed through positive joint action and faith and trust earned. Yeh yeh yeh, Ellie is FREquently noticing the way his shirts stretch over his powerful shoulders, and yeh yeh yeh, a roll in the hay. But St. James did NOT make it something that hindered the flow of the story -OR- make it go off the rails entirely. Soooo, PHEW!

And can Mary Jane Freaking Wells do ANYthing poorly?!? Seriously, yup, Helen Taylor shall forEVER be m’ Fave Narrator, but Good COW Ms. Wells is just wonderful at portraying a wide variety of characters, using accents properly and consistently, even when there are the rapid back and forths in the dialogue. She makes things warm but never disGUStingly steamy, and she does juuuust the best slow creepy-crawl-ishness that a good ghost and murder story requires. Suspense built, all moving quickly when crud hits the fan, a brooding Hero, and a plucky and emotional heroine who feels sad without getting all maudlin and boring; just fanTAStic I tell you. I wish she’d ego-surf to find that I’ve raved about her, but alas: I’m fairly certain that she’d never think to search for Mary Jane Freaking Wells.. Outside her ken…

Just marvelous narration of a fun, fun story with twists and turns and a Whodunnit that’s all tense and not what I was expecting. A Mystery where I see that, once again, I’m just a novice when it comes to looking for clues and for detangling the various threads, comes to casting aside the occasional red herring thrown in.

Awesome, awesome, just exACTly what I needed to feel that Simone St. James learned after throwing waaaay too much “romance” and went on to plot thrillers and CreepFests galore.

Sooooo looking forward to another of hers. And to Ms. Wells Googling “Mary Jane Freaking Wells”…

AND? I did NOT have to use the word Nipples OTHER than as a point of historical reference! HUZZAH!!!