Midnight Strikes by Zeba Shahnaz is an explosive debut novel that takes readers on a thrilling journey through a cursed kingdom where a young girl is forced to relive the same night over and over again. Anaïs, a seventeen-year-old outsider, attends the kingdom’s glittering anniversary ball, where she meets the roguish Prince Leo. At the stroke of midnight, an explosion rips through the palace, killing everyone in its path, including Anaïs. The next thing she knows, she wakes up in her bedroom, hours before the ball. Anaïs soon realizes that she is stuck in a time loop, reliving the same deadly night again and again.

The novel's plot is intense and captivating, blending elements of fantasy, romance, and mystery. Shahnaz skillfully weaves together a complex story of power struggles, secret desires, and hidden agendas, creating a thrilling tale that will keep readers guessing until the very end. The character development is also noteworthy, particularly Anaïs, who is a strong and determined protagonist.

The writing style is vivid and descriptive, immersing readers in the cursed kingdom's atmosphere and keeping them engaged throughout the book. The world-building is intricate and well-crafted, transporting readers to a magical and dangerous world filled with dark secrets and hidden dangers.

Overall, Midnight Strikes is a gripping and entertaining read that will appeal to fans of fantasy, romance, and mystery. Shahnaz's debut is a promising start to what is sure to be a successful writing career, and readers will be eagerly anticipating her next novel.

Seventeen year old Anaïs is a reluctant attendee at this year's Anniversary Ball, tasked with landing an eligible bachelor to elevate her family's position in society. But as the clock strikes midnight, an unexplained explosion tears through the palace, killing everyone, including her. When she wakes up once again on the morning before the ball, she alone remembers the attack and her warnings are dismissed--and it happens again. As the day repeats over and over, Anaïs enlists the help of the insouciant Prince Leo to investigate the source of the attack, hoping they can unravel the mystery and end the time loop before it's too late.

First of all, I was super excited that this story has a Spanish inspired setting. We get to the action right away and the book manages to portray the idea of a time loop without tediously reiterating the same sequences. Still, the book did feel overly long at a certain point; she fails over and over and there are so many elements to the plot that it takes Anaïs quite a long time to figure everything out. While it speaks to her character and tenacity, I do wish things had wrapped up a bit sooner.

I loved Prince Leo and he was surprisingly afforded a character arc despite the resets, though his relationship with Anaïs was never fully developed. Still, that seems inevitable when dealing with time loops - how can two people form a relationship when one's memory resets every night? Ultimately, this story is far more fantasy than romance, which is not a bad thing at all as I did enjoy the story regardless.

Other pros: There is bisexual representation. The magic system is pretty cool. Doesn't glorify the monarchy.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[MIDNIGHT STRIKES is a time loop book, so there is a lot of violence and death for basically everyone, including references to Anaïs intentionally dying to reset the loop or requesting others kill her. Racism and colonialism are frequent topics as well.]

MIDNIGHT STRIKES is an immensely satisfying read. I love time loop plots but am also pretty picky about them—it takes a deft hand to keep the iterations of a time loop from getting boring or too predictable. Author Zeba Shahnaz did a fantastic job of deciding what to repeat, what to gloss over, and what to advance each time Anaïs woke up and had a new chance to figure out what was going on. It certainly helps that there is a lot that Anaïs needs to figure out, including why she’s even caught in the time loop in the first place. Anaïs would track down one plot thread, find out new information, recontextualize previous events, and then use that to follow a different thread further down its track. MIDNIGHT STRIKES is a truly well-crafted story in that regard.

And of course, what makes plot even better are great characters. Anaïs is an interesting narrator, and I appreciated her complexity. Being unhappy about the necessity of a political marriage is a fairly standard trope, but the layers Shahnaz added on to that really deepened both Anaïs’s character and the world building. I also appreciated that Anaïs wasn’t always positive and hopeful about being able to end the time loop—she had her rage and hopelessness and denial time loops, more than once. She did terrible things, often multiple times, and those decisions haunted her across the loops. I loved it.

The information Anaïs gets from each loop and the decisions she makes help her dig deeper into the people around her, which allowed some characters to gain depth instead of remaining shallow extras repeating the same things endlessly. Prince Leo is the most notable example, of course, and I found myself really enjoying the way Anaïs’s relationship with him changed over the course of the book. Due to the shortness of the loop and the limited locations, the number of characters who could gain depth was limited, but it still made for some very fun and satisfying character interactions in conjunction with the world building and mystery solving.

Recommendation: Get it now, especially if you’re a fan of time loops. MIDNIGHT STRIKES takes the grand spectacle of a ball and turns it into a nightmare, and then traps our main character there. Author Zeba Shahnaz did a fantastic job of varying the time loops and allowing Anaïs to claw her way towards answers regarding the explosion and why she was caught in the loop. I had such a fun time reading it and was immensely satisfied by how the story concluded.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. Thank you NetGalley for this review copy.

Well, I was intrigued by the plot of this story. The premise felt very short. I'm not really sure how I felt about the time loop and I really can't stand Insta-love. I did however like how dark it was and how the author did not shy away from the feels of having to live the same night over and over.

I've never read anything like this book before. Fairy tale retelling plus time looping whooo! The mystery elements of it were great. And I absolutely loved the way time looping was explored. The characters were also awesome and developed throughout the book (and the time travel played into the development as well which was super cool.) However, I didn't think the magic system was super well explored or explained.

I feel like this type of story of looping time is a very interesting idea but it can be very hard to execute because it's repetitive. But the author did such an amazing job here! This is one of the chunkier books I've picked up and I could not put it down! Anaïs is such a great character to follow and I love how proactive she is. Every time she loops back felt important and I loved the mystery/investigative portions. She took steps I didn't expect and the revelations took me by surprise. Definitely enjoyed this one!

I thought this was a great take on groundhog day! Anais is reliving the same few hours over and over, and over again. I liked how even though Anais lived through the same day many times, it didn't get repetitive. Sometimes around we get the full scope of everything she did, and other times we just get a short summary. Each time she does something different and talks to people she might never have had conversations with otherwise. She learns so much about the people at the ball, including the Prince. She sees every side to him and falls in love with him over and over, while each new day erases all his memories, and she must start over by trying to explain to him, and everyone else what is going on. Thankfully more often than not they believe what she's saying.

I thought this book was fun and entertaining, I really rooted for Anais to save the day, and for finally getting a relationship with Leo. I loved the magical system and the explanation of how it came to be, and I really enjoyed trying to solve the mystery of who was behind everything and getting to know all the different sides of all the characters.

Thank you TBR and Beyond Tours for the chance to read and review Midnight Strikes by Zeba Shahnaz! I’m so happy to be on this book tour for a fantastic female Pakistani-American writer!

Most of us have encountered the time loop trope because of the movie Groundhog day, where a man relives the same day over and over again. Zeba Shahnaz’s story, told from the point of view of Anaïs, a young woman from a marginalized community from the edge of the kingdom, makes brilliant use of this device to illustrate the trauma of living and surviving catastrophic events.

There are many things to like about Midnight Strikes, we have interesting magic systems and even better characters. As Anais travels back to that night and meets them over and over again, sometimes having conversations she would never have had otherwise, she gets to know them and even love them differently. It was heartbreaking to see her at the end with Leo, she has fallen in love with all the sides of him she’s seen; this prince who believes when no one in their sane mind would.

I also want to talk about the arranged marriages in the book because it’s so intimately a brown girl problem. Anais makes it clear she isn’t looking for love and romance and all the things we should, ideally speaking, hope for. She’s just looking for someone bearable. Someone who can maybe turn out to be a friend in the long run. This theme also continues with Clara and her marriage; her father loves her, and his begging at the end made me feel like she would have been forgiven, regardless of all the havoc she wreaked. But despite all that she is, her worth to him and the kingdom, he tells her only after her marriage is arranged, as though she is a bystander and not a main component.

There are also more familiar themes; money isn’t all, breeding and nobility matters just a bit more. People want more than a police state, but that’s all this kingdom knows how to give them.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for this e-ARC. I loved the premise for this book, I haven't really read any "groundhogs day"-esque books, so this was a breath of fresh air! I loved the pacing and characters, I blew through this in an evening! Formal review will be available on GoodReads, socials & Amazon.

4/5

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review- thank you Random House and NetGalley!

17-year-old Anais just wants to make it through the season intact. Her family is viewed as second-class because of their nationality, and all she dares hope for is a husband who respects her. During the grandest ball of the season, hosted by the haughty and pompous royal family, she (and everyone else) dies in a terrorist attack. From that moment on, Anais is forced to relive the day leading up to the ball, the attack, and her death over and over again. She must enlist her friends and enemies alike to answer three questions: why is she stuck in this time loop, who is behind the attack, and what can she do to stop it.

I had a great time with this book! I really enjoyed the premise and the execution was unlike any other time loop stories I have read. Spoilers from this point on.

Things I liked:
-It was so easy to root for Anais. She was instantly likable, always brave, and very funny at times.
-The relationship with Leo was so interesting. The dichotomy between Anais falling for him over the course of her time looping and him not knowing who she is with each new (old) day was as heartbreaking as it was beautiful. I also liked that their relationship at the end open to the interpretation and hopes of the reader. I choose to believe that they eventually found their way back to each other.
-I did not see the twist of who was behind the attacks coming. It made the plot much more interesting than I thought it was shaping up to be.
-The themes of living a life that you are proud of and learning to live with your mistakes were evident in the storytelling without seeming preachy. It felt like the best version of a metaphor, in that I could both enjoy the story on surface level and be aware of the deeper meaning at the same time.
-The writing was beautiful. It felt like a modern day fairy tale and was very easy to read. I found myself completely sucked into the world.

Things I did not like so much:
-The many casual descriptions of Anais having to die by suicide or force someone to kill her was jarring. The trauma she was amassing was briefly mentioned a couple times but never specifically dealt with. I would have liked this to somehow be addressed in the ending.
-The middle third of the book felt much, much too long. The conflict of her figuring out how to get everyone to help her and all of that could have been cut at least in half.
-Even though I thought Anais falling for Leo while he couldn't remember her added a really interesting aspect, I also would have liked for him (or anybody really) to be time looping with her and be going through everything with her. It would have made her experience a little more bearable.
-I think that Anais loneliness and desperation were necessary to a degree, but it was extreme at times. I felt really really sorry for her past the point of it adding to the story. It felt a little like a trauma dump.
-The fairy ancestry felt a little thrown together. That's fine and all to explain Anais' magic, but what about the royal family's? Did I just miss that part? I honestly can't remember if it was ever explained, which bothers me.

Overall, I was so pleasantly surprised by this book. I went in with no expectations really enjoyed it. I do think some of it could be triggering, so some trigger warnings would be a good idea. I wouldn't go as far as to say that it gets a blanket recommendation to everyone from me, but I'll definitely be telling people I know would like it to give it a read.

I went into this book expecting non-stop action, a fun thriller-mystery, and maybe even a cute romance, but got hardly any of the above. In fact, after about 100 pages I felt bored and it took me just under three weeks to finish the remaining 300-odd pages of this book.

I think the problem with this book is that it falls into the major crutch that a time-loop story has to get past to succeed: making progress in spite of being stuck in time. There needs to be some variability or break-through on behalf of the main character so that the viewer/reader doesn't feel like they're reading the same day over and over and over again with no change. Sure, the minor events of the night change (i.e., what Anaïs does at the ball, who she interacts with, etc.), but nothing significant even happens until you're almost three-fourths of the way through the book.

Additionally, the mystery, although enthralling at points, was fairly predictable if you've read any YA dystopian book. The romance was lacking, mostly because the love-interest couldn't remember why Anaïs was important most of the time. Nobody wanted to believe Anaïs despite all the evidence to the contrary, which --considering the political tensions the author describes-- I found fairly unbelievable.

Time loop books are more often a miss than a hit for me, not because I don't like their concepts, but because they're so difficult to keep interesting. I really hoped MIDNIGHT STRIKES would be an exception, but even though I definitely liked a lot about it, it wasn't as engaging and gripping as I hoped it would be.

I do think Zeba Shahnaz has a lot of potential as an author, so I will be looking out for more books!

#MidnightStrikes was such an amazing book! Almost similar to a Cinderella retelling and yet wildly different. What do you do when you know that death is coming for you and all those that you love at the stroke of Midnight? Easy, you die over and over again repeating the same night relentlessly trying to find a way to put a stop the whole thing. Having to explain weird goings on and phenomena to a royal court and uppity noble people is not an easy task.

I want to thank #Netgalley for giving me the chance to read #MidnightStrikes in exchange for a honest review.

Zeba Shahnaz's MIDNIGHT STRIKES is basically Groundhog Day meets Cinderella, but more political intrigue and explosions. I never felt super drawn to any of the characters, but I was also surprised by who the true villain of the story is. The pacing drags at times, which I think is because the time loops continue a little too long. The ending isn't too abrupt, but does leaves things a little open. The only way I can really describe how I feel about the story is that it's like a movie you can watch on the airplane. Is it entertaining? Sure. Is it necessarily going to be your favorite? Probably not. But will you regret reading it? No. That being said, this is still a creative take on Cinderella, even if it's a super loose retelling.

great book and such great characters. I enjoyed the mystery and some romance. I also enjoyed the journey of the characters. I didn't know what to expect with this book but I enjoyed it .

This impossible to put down time-loop fantasy is Groundhog Day plus blood and magic.

Lady Anaïs needs to find a husband at the ball, at least according to her mother. But after dancing with a series of boors, she catches Prince Leo’s eye. His reputation as court flirt precedes him, so Anaïs shocks herself when she agrees to accompany him to the garden. She’s sure he’s not the husband she’s looking for, but when they return to the ballroom, bombs go off, killing almost everyone instantly.

Anaïs finds herself stuck in a loop of dying over and over again unless she can figure out what trapped her in the time loop and who’s attacking the palace. This time loop continued longer than I thought possible, with so many days and different scenarios!

I loved Anaïs and Leo’s chemistry. Whether he’s being flirty, moody or heroic, Prince Leo delights as the bad boy with a heart of gold. I love how they always seem to find each other and end up wanting to kiss in almost every storyline.

The magic is woven through these character’s lives, but some of them have more power than anyone knows. This ends in a spectacular clash of magicians as several sides struggle for control of the palace and the kingdom.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and TBR & Beyond Tours for the advance review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book had such an interesting premise that I was instantly intrigued. The setting was easy to picture and I was able to insert myself into the story easily. I enjoyed seeing the plot unfold through the eyes of Anais and how each time the day restarted she learns a little more about the plot to endanger the king, his family, and those in attendance of the Anniversary Ball. She is a strong, female lead that while struggling with her inner turmoil & her wants, she ultimately puts her country and others before herself. She is willing to make whatever sacrifice necessary to ensure that the others survive the night.

I did dnf this one. I don’t know what it was but I just couldn’t get into the plot. I made it about 20 (????????) pages in and my brain literally shut off and I was going ‘huh?’

It’s a great premise and the finished product probably looks very different but I just couldn’t do it.

3 Stars

I like seeing how Anais approaches the situation each time — it’s a great way to develop the world and side characters giving them the needed depth to keep the reader engaged. She explores that she doesn’t have to follow what’s been written out for her since birth. I really enjoyed Anais’s determination and ability to adapt as she tries to save people’s lives while also escaping the time loop. The commentary on the position of women and how often time they are seen as inferior, forced to make decisions for others rather than themselves, is done quite well. I really enjoyed how at the end the author connected Proensans' and Ivareans’ magic. It shows the growth and how two groups of people can work together regardless of their backgrounds.

While I liked the potential of the relationship between Leo and Anais, its borderlines the “falling in love at first sight” trope and seems unrealistic at times. I enjoyed how this story took a more grim and darker tone — this often isn’t seen in Young Adult literature, so I appreciated it here. While I did like the magical system in this story, I wanted more from it! The magic was defined vaguely as we aren’t explicitly told the limits of said magic systems. Oftentimes, it wasn’t clear how the blood magic worked and I found myself confused. I like the time loop concept, they became more repetitive over time. I feel like they needed to be longer, or Anais needed to make more progress each time she started over.

Midnight Strikes is a coming of age time loop novel. This debut novel of Zeba Shahnaz was provided by NetGalley.

Will Anais, at court to find a husband, continue to be willing to repeat the same day over and over? When the clock strikes midnight will everyone die again? Can she find a way to save herself and her country? Will she be willing to break the loop and live with the consequences?

All these questions and more are answered in this novel.