"Terrific historical romantic suspense"

While Queen Victoria grieves the loss of her beloved Albert and the members of Polite Society emulate her wearing mourning jewelry, psychical research is the rage. When Adam Hardesty enters medium Elizabeth Delmont's home, he finds her dead, her skull crushed by a poker. She is wearing a wedding veil and brooch with a broken pocket watch nearby stopped at 12 o'clock.

The next day Adam visits Caroline Fordyce who attended a séance at the victim's home just hours before the murder occurred. He asks Caroline if she took a diary that belonged to the medium because he does not want secrets about his past to come out. Caroline insists she does not have it and fears her secrets will become known. She persuades Adam to allow her to join him on his investigation. When a second medium is murdered, the broken watch left behind at the crime scene has Adam's name on it. Caroline provides Adam an alibi. As they continue to make inquiries, they become lovers and try to keep the other safe struggling with the case.

Amanda Quick is deservedly respected for her terrific Regency romantic suspense novels, but in WAIT UNTIL MIDNIGHT, the talented author switches settings to the Victorian era yet maintains high quality of her previous historical romantic mysteries. Her latest tale has a gothic feel to the plot, but as expected the hero and heroine are likable characters whom readers will become absorbed in their investigation as much as their evolving relationship that ultimately turns to love, danger, and risk. Regardless of the time period, Ms. Quick provides a fabulous tale that seems always to land on the keeper shelf.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted January 1, 2005

First Time in Print

Summary

Murdered psychics, mysterious séances, and a man with a dangerous past. Welcome to a world of shadows, fog and gaslights Victorian London. Adam Hardesty intends to do whatever it takes to protect his family's secrets. He can handle murder and blackmail but an inconvenient attraction to Caroline Fordyce, a scandalous author of lurid "sensation" novels complicates his life in ways he never imagined....