Midnight Strikes Audiobook By Zeba Shahnaz cover art

Midnight Strikes

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection of titles.
Yours as long as you’re a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for $8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Midnight Strikes

By: Zeba Shahnaz
Narrated by: Nikki Massoud
Try Standard free

$8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $24.75

Buy for $24.75

In this explosive fantasy debut, a provincial girl must work with an infuriatingly handsome prince to escape a nightmarish curse that forces them to relive the same night over and over.

"The time-loop fantasy you never knew you needed, where the fairytale ball is bloody and Cinderella is the Final Girl."—Gina Chen, New York Times bestselling author of Violet Made of Thorns

Seventeen-year-old Anaïs just wants tonight to end. As an outsider at the kingdom’s glittering anniversary ball, she has no desire to rub shoulders with the nation’s most eligible (and pompous) bachelors—especially not the notoriously roguish Prince Leo. But at the stroke of midnight, an explosion rips through the palace, killing everyone in its path. Including her.

The last thing Anaïs sees is fire, smoke, chaos . . . and then she wakes up in her bedroom, hours before the ball. No one else remembers the deadly attack or believes her warnings of disaster.

Not even when it happens again. And again. And again.

If she’s going to escape this nightmarish time loop, Anaïs must take control of her own fate and stop the attack before it happens. But the court's gilded surface belies a rotten core, full of restless nobles grabbing at power, discontented commoners itching for revolution, and even royals who secretly dream of taking the throne. It's up to Anaïs to untangle these knots of deadly deceptions . . . if she can survive past midnight. Science Fiction & Fantasy Fantasy Literature & Fiction Emotionally Gripping Action & Adventure

Critic reviews

“Midnight Strikes is pure, high-octane fun. With whip-smart worldbuilding, spectacular twists, and the angsty romance of my dreams, Shahnaz’s debut is guaranteed to keep you up reading until midnight. A masterclass in YA fantasy.”—Allison Saft, New York Times bestselling author of Down Comes the Night and A Far Wilder Magic

"Intricate and swoony, Midnight Strikes is the time-loop fantasy you never knew you needed, where the fairytale ball is bloody and Cinderella is the Final Girl. I'd gladly follow Anaïs until the end of time."—Gina Chen, New York Times bestselling author of Violet Made of Thorns

"A twisty, glittering and breathtaking fantasy romance that will ensnare you and refuse to let you go."—Tasha Suri, author of The Jasmine Throne

"Shahnaz’s gripping debut is a twisty story...slowly unveiling a plot full of courtly intrigue with a determined lead character whose personal agency is the focus. Riveting, time-looping fun."—Kirkus Reviews

"Anaïs’s profound feelings of isolation and loneliness, and her repeated deaths, including her subsequent grief and trauma following each, are handled with complexity and gravitas alongside discussions of intersectionality in this elaborate debut."—Publishers Weekly

“…Anaïs is a heroine well worth rooting for: resourceful, clever, and rarely one to indulge in self-pity, she enters each night with a gritty determination to stop the violence and put things right.” —The Bulletin

"Shahnaz has created an entire world of rich cultures and history....A perfect choice for fans of second chances, also third, fourth, etc." —School Library Journal
All stars
Most relevant
This is a difficult book to review. My feelings on it are complex and hard to articulate. But I’ll try my best.

This book was so boring. I barely made it through even on 2x speed. I love a “Groundhog Day” story line, but this felt tedious and repetitive. Even though it was clear the effort the author took to keep it from being so. No two days played out the same way and the author skipped days and just gave one or two sentences summaries of them. But barely any of them felt exciting or interesting. They all just felt like work to sit through.

It’s well written and well performed. It feels original in its own way, but still, the whole thing just fell flat. The characters felt like part of the background. There was nothing wrong with the MC, but I didn’t feel anything towards her. None of the characters were particularly interesting or worth rooting for.

The narration was pretty good. Some voices sounded lisp-y and were hard to get use to. But she didn’t add anything to the story.

I feel pretty indifferent in regards to the book. I’m bummed because it seemed like a fun story. It just lacked that oomph. That special something that makes a story good.

My only real beef with the book though is the random and completely unnecessary swearing. It was jarring. Im not against swearing at all. I swear like a sailor and f*** is a regular part of half of my sentences. But I know when and when not to swear. Here, it was so unnecessary in this book. It added nothing, but did take away. Each f-bomb and GD took me out of the story. They didn’t match the tone of the book at all. So just warning for those who hate swearing!

Meh

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It’s so interesting it’s a time loop spin on a Cinderella story of sorts. Instead of the spell ending at midnight everyone dies and she wakes up on the very same afternoon dying over and over again at midnight with everyone around her while trying to discover who and why they are behind the massacre. It’s really cool! I was worried it would get repetitive or boring but it never does. The author does a good job of not repeating anything so there’s no redundancy but you feel the exhaustion of the MC still while enjoying every iteration and the new clues it uncovers. I really enjoyed it. Ate it up in one day.

Loved!!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The easiest way to describe the plot of this story is Cinderella meets Ground Hogs Day but, honestly, the story is a bit more nuanced than that. Our main character Anaïs is a girl whose family is pressuring her into a match that would raise their family into a more comfortable and powerful position. She is an outsider, trying to find her place with the Ivarian’s who have treated her people poorly for hundreds of years. While at the ball marking the seasons end there is an explosion and everyone around her is either killed immediately or killed when rebels storm the palace, Anaïs included. Only she wakes up and it is the afternoon before the ball again.

Through the story, Anaïs must try to figure out why she is the only one that can remember the looping of time and what she is supposed to do about it. There is a mystery to solve, and she partners with an unlikely person to try to end the bloodshed so that the night will finally end. In my opinion, the mystery is a good one, and I appreciate how hard Anaïs fights to keep her head on her shoulder even as she is losing her mind.

The characters are complex and throughout the narrative there are characters you can’t help but side-eye and accuse the characters around her of being a part of the plot against the crown. While I do enjoy most of the characters, the king is who I liked the least. Anaïs tried more than anyone should to warn him and save him from certain death, but he refused to believe her for nearly the entire story. I truly believe he is one character that got exactly what he deserved in the end.

Now, the biggest complaint I had about this story was the ending. Throughout the story, the audience watches as Anaïs falls in love with Leo and for the most part, he seems to share those feelings with her. However, in the end, they do not end up together and it feels like a letdown. Yes, I understand that the ending is left ambiguous, but Leo tells her goodbye, making it clear he knows her intent is to not see him again though he was hoping for more. After all that lead up, there should have been more.

This was a debut novel and honestly, I am pretty impressed in the end. I think that if you are interested in time loop stories, this is one that you should give a try.

Cinderella meets Ground Hogs Day

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.