Review: Born at Midnight by C.C. Hunter

Title: Born at Midnight

Author: C.C. Hunter
Publisher:  St. Martin's Griffin
Publishing Date: March 29th 2011

Pages: 398
Genre:  YA Paranormal Romance

Series: Shadow Falls #1
Source: Audio

  

One night Kylie Galen finds herself at the wrong party, with the wrong people, and it changes her life forever. Her mother ships her off to Shadow Falls—a camp for troubled teens, and within hours of arriving, it becomes painfully clear that her fellow campers aren’t just “troubled.” Here at Shadow Falls, vampires, werewolves, shapshifters, witches and fairies train side by side—learning to harness their powers, control their magic and live in the normal world.

Kylie’s never felt normal, but surely she doesn’t belong here with a bunch of paranormal freaks either. Or does she? They insist Kylie is one of them, and that she was brought here for a reason. As if life wasn’t complicated enough, enter Derek and Lucas. Derek’s a half-fae who’s determined to be her boyfriend, and Lucas is a smokin’ hot werewolf with whom Kylie shares a secret past. Both Derek and Lucas couldn’t be more different, but they both have a powerful hold on her heart. 

Even though Kylie feels deeply uncertain about everything, one thing is becoming painfully clear—Shadow Falls is exactly where she belongs…

Slowly getting through my long list of TBR, this one has been on my list for a long long while. I have had the book sitting on my shelf, I just never had the chance to fit in my schedule. Finally I did and I am very happy to have finally started this wonderfully talked about series. I really really liked this book. It was a bit slow in the pacing at times for me but there was a lot of building of relationships and laying of puzzle pieces to create a very mysterious paranormal story.

Kylie was in the wrong place and the wrong time and ended herself up in a heap of trouble. Kylie's parents believe that she needs some help dealing with their divorce and that is why she is acting out. They send her to a camp for troubled teens that Kylie's counselor recommended. In only takes a short bit before Kylie realizes she is in a camp for paranormal teens not troubled teens. She is told she herself must be a paranormal but Kylie is positive she is not. She would rather believe she is just nuts or has a brain tumor. What Kylie doesn't expect is to make some great friends, fall for two gorgeous boys, and undercover some dark deep family secrets.

This was wonderfully written story. I am so excited to start another paranormal story that has some of the great aspects of a paranormal read with a very fresh story line. The plot is only just started in this book and it seems to me that its only going to get better. I am happy that all the books are currently available and I can just keep on keeping on and read all about it. 

The story is definitely one worth reading. The pacing was a bit slow for me at times, but the author did a wonderful job of building the characters and the story. I am just a little bit ADD and when the pace slows I have a bit of a hard time with continuing. I am glad I did though. It really picked up towards the middle and the story went from good to great. So many secrets, so many stories, so many great characters.  Every time I thought I had things figured out the story took another turn. It was great. 

The characters were pretty awesome. I liked the main character. She was in denial for most of the book but she was pretty level heeded, in fact that is probably why she was in so much denial. She was way to level headed to believe anything paranormal existed and she may be one of them on top of that. I also liked her roommates very much. I loved Della and Miranda, their constant bickering was a real comediac act. They were both really loyal characters. I love loyal characters. 

The love story wasn't the entire focus,which was good for me. I love romance in my books but I do get tired of them being the total focal point. It is still very important to the story and a big part of Kylie's new life but there was so much more going on. There was a bit of insta-love but not the oh my I can't live without you type of insta-love but the kind of insta-love that is clearly insta-attraction. There is a love triangle of course and argh when will these stop. I really don't think it was needed in this story but it's there and I do love both boys already. I know this triangle is going to break my heart one way or the other. Lucas is the brooding bad boy full of passion and Derek is the sweet can't resist you kind of boy. I really did fall for both of them. I am hoping there will be a clear winner for me later on in the books. 

It was a great read and I will for sure carry on with this series.