Midnight Secrets by Rita Stradling

The Vampire Legacy #1

Midnight Secrets

Publish Date: June 11th, 2019
Format: Ebook
Series: Blackburn Academy
Author: Rita Stradling
Author’s Goodreads
My Goodreads Review

Introduction

January has some problems: her mother is an addict, food in the house is scant, and their house is run down. But that’s not her most prominent problem – she was killed and woke up as a vampire. Calling the number provided to her when she woke up, she gets hooked up with blood. And a boy, Justin. He’s aloof, secretive, and handsome. He’s in the elite school that January has a chance to attend, if she can pass the tests. Said boy is adamant that she doesn’t go to said school, can’t tell her why, and she is determined to make her own decisions.     

Story

The story and the writing are great for older teens. Yes, it is a book about vampires, but it is also a lot more. January and her mom struggle with the very real problem of addiction and the consequences of it, family, classism, and toxic relationships. She also has more to prove to other people than regular people do.

Cover/Title

The cover is great! It conveys January's demeanour fairly well. She's a vampire but she's not out to murder everyone. She looks like, and is, a girl next door, with some problems she tries to take care of. 
  

While the cover is nice, it’s misleading. She isn’t enrolled at the school yet. This book is her prepping for the trials/tests/living as a vampire. Probably would have been more suitable for book 2. Also, January has blonde hair, but doesn’t dress like that, at all. She’s poor, she can’t get leather corsets. As for the title, I don’t know how to explain it. Sexual, yes, and needlessly so. The book is way more than sexual tension/relationships. If I were to be reading a physical copy of this in public, I’d be a bit embarrassed. It isn’t smut (hey, if you’re reading smut, that’s fine, be proud! But this isn’t smut yet it comes off as smut). My husband had some questions about what I was reading because the title is so sexual.

Ending

I knew it!

Final Verdict

I was very into this book. To say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book would be an injustice. I believe I read almost half in one night, then I couldn’t devote as much time to it. I assumed there’d six books in this series that I could devour at that instant, but alas, the second isn’t out yet (I actually didn't realize how so very new this book is!). It is a very nice change of pace for vampire fiction. There’s a set of three trials which I haaaaaate in books, especially because I’ve never heard of schools doing what this one does, so that gets an eye roll from me. However, I highly recommend this to older readers who want vampires, teens, and high school.

Update

Looks like the title and series title for this has changed. When it read it, it was called A Bite at the Cherry, in the Bite Me series or the Blackburn Academy Series. It now says Midnight Secrets in the Vampire Legacy series. Better titles, and have edited the review accordingly. Below is the original cover: