Midnight's Shadow (The Midnight Series Book 0)
About
Before the war began, danger had already found her.Â
Europe stands on the edge of war. Jessie Fordham, recently graduated from Cambridge and carrying more questions than certainty, travels into a continent already shifting beneath her feet. The newspapers speak of diplomacy and hope, yet on the streets and people's front parlours a different mood stirs, uneasy and sharp.
Jessie has been taught how to observe and how to listen. What she has not been taught is how to place her trust. Companions become strangers. Strangers become threats. Every conversation seems to hide another meaning. Every journey feels watched.
She must learn quickly. The world she knew is fading, and the one taking its place will demand more of her than she ever believed herself able to give.
Midnight's Shadow is a FREE novella prequel to The Midnight Series , introducing us to Jessie Fordham at the very beginning of her journey, before the war shapes her into the SOE agent she will become.
Praise for this book
5-Star Review
I am an ARC reader for Book Sirens and this is my honest opinion. I've read books 1-3 in Tom Kane's Midnight series. It is a brilliant series about a young girl, Jessie Fordham who seems extremely perceptive, more so than I was or any other girl I know now or knew when I was young. But maybe that's because back in the 1930s there was so much less to distract attention from what was actually happening in life around us. This prequel is set in 1939, in the spring before war was declared in Britain and book 1, Walking Away from Midnight began. It explains how Jessie started to become the exceptional young woman she grows into as the series progresses. This is an excellent series. Even my husband became engrossed when I had my echo dot reading it with kindle assisted reader. I am really looking forward to reading the subsequent books as they are published.
4-Star Review
The end of innocence and the beginnings of war. For a short novel this is intense. I think it captures the time period very well. Fear, uncertainty, whispers and shadows of war looming. Then there is a young woman whose future is changed by men and then herself when she begins to notice. An excellent origin story.
5-Star Review
A Poem, a Painting-of-a time period, a Dream. These terms are descriptive of the feel of this novella.A very beautiful rendering of a time just before WW II started, when all the pieces of the war are taking their place for the coming conflict. In the midst of this time, a young woman about to graduate Cambridge, is drawn into the twilight world of diplomacy and spying by her father. Sent from England to France, and back, on missions that are vague and full of danger, Jessie reluctantly is forced to learn the craft of espionage. Despite feeling resentful for being asked to do these things initially, she accomplishes her missions, and is being prepared for the coming conflict.
I have already read books 1 - 3, and found this book fit right into the series as an introduction to it. There was continuity of the 2 main characters, Jessie and her father, and we meet Rose, who will play a much bigger role in the books 1-3. I especially enjoyed the ambience of this novella, as it was so carefully painted by this author. I look forward to reading more books in this series.