Its a bit like Twilight or it turned out to be. ( )

I’m a long-term fan of Lynn Viehl’s work, so when she released a young adult novel, I figured I’d give it a try. I was not disappointed.

After Midnight offers the reader a complex tale centered around Catlyn Youngblood, a teenager who lives with her two brothers because her parents were both killed in a car accident. After years of moving around and rarely finishing a year of school at the same place, her brother and guardian Trick declares they’ll be staying in some tiny, backwards town in the middle of nowhere.

The novel starts with more traditional high school issues, and offers those throughout, but a deeper, darker even, story unfolds when Cat defies her brother’s dictates to blow off steam in a midnight horseback ride.

As a sophisticated reader, I was able to pick up on cues about Jesse, her “dark boy,” long before Cat has clue, but at the same time, this is Lynn Viehl we’re talking about, so don’t expect things to be what they appear to be.

The story Cat and Jesse find themselves in offers surprises not only to the readers, but to the characters as well. No path this book takes is straight and obvious. There are twists and turns in the many plotlines that are seeded, but some in such a way to guarantee the “oh of course” reaction without a hope of figuring it out on your own.

I’d love to say more, but I keep running into the issue of spoilers, and I don’t want to disrupt the unfolding of the story for you. Suffice to say it offers a glimpse of the dark side of high school, and the light side; where family and love can conflict; and the moment when a young girl has to make her own decisions, and make good ones.

After Midnight is a delightful read, and I look forward to the next one showing up on my doorstep soon. ( )

I think if this had been any other author, I would have accepted the stereotypical modern vampire romance story as something fun if formulaic, but to be honest I expected something a bit more from Lynn Viehl. If you're not looking for something really innovative or fresh for young adults, this is nice enough, but it's just not what I was hoping for.

(If you *are* looking for something fresh in the urban vampire genre, the best I've read lately is Scott Westerfeld's "Peeps") ( )

I was left begging for the sequel by the end of this book! Also, so many twists and turns to keep me on my toes. At no time did this book ever get completely predictable. The ending was a TOTAL shocker! Any book that I find so hard to put down and literally get sucked into (reading this I WAS Catlyn - and she was badass, 'specially at the zoo!) so hard that when I look up I'm surprised to find the real world, deserves five stars for sure! ( )

This was a book once I picked up I didn't want to put it down until I was finished. When I was finished my first thought was I loved it and was so bummed this book just came out because that means probably a long wait for book 2. After I went to bed I kept thinking about it and there are so many questions about things that didn't make sense to me and I am not sure if I missed something because I was so anxious to finish the book.

We don't see too much of Jesse as we follow Catlyn around but I liked that while he's totally hot he has this vulnerable side andso far wasn't too much of an emo, brooding vampire. I definitely hope we get to see more of him in the next book and see a little more of his personality as well as more about his past. I loved Catlyn's character. She was the perfect mix of spunky, naive and savviness. While I am normally not a fan of the love at first site with the main characters going goo goo gaga after each other with no real basis to the attraction I still was really rooting for the two of them. Cat's brothers were interesting and I haven't really decided how much I like them. Gray was just too brooding for my tastes and seemed pretty one dimensional. At the end I finally see why he might be the way he is but of course we only get a taste of that before the book ends. Trick on the other hand was great although a bit over protective. Then the ending had me re-thinking how I felt about him. Granted I can understand some of his reasons for his actions but I don't know if I agree with his attitude.

The story is what really had me intrigued. There were so many little things going on that had me scratching my head wondering what was going on and then at the end the revelation made me go "oh wow, so that makes so many things make sense." I love when a story totally takes you surprise with a twist that makes you go over everything you just read looking for clues and with a new perspective on everyone's actions. The only thing is like I mentioned above is as I was lying in bed thinking about the story there were a few things that didn't make sense. I don't want to ruin the end so I'm going to put my questions below.

And I can't end this without commenting on the cover. The main reason I let this one sit on my shelf for so long was the cover. I'm not a huge fan of the girl but it was the guy model that totally creeped me out. So not how I was picturing Jesse and I am not seeing the whole handsome vampire thing going on. Hoping the next cover has different cover models.

Spoilers

I don't understand why Trick and Gray were messing with Cat's memories so often before they moved to Lost Lake. It seems like she couldn't have stumbled across that trunk often enough to need to keep wiping her memory and there is no other mention of strange happenings in Chicago to warrant the memory wipe.

Then I also didn't really get why they moved to Lost Lake. It seemed like Trick new there were vampires there because of the iron fence and garlic but they didn't seem to really be hunting the Ravens so why live near them when they were deliberately trying to keep Cat in the dark about who she is? It just seems to be tempting fate. ( )