Title: Midnight Jewel
Author: Richelle Mead
Publisher/Year: Penguin Young Readers 6/27/17
Length:   416 Pages
Series:  The Glittering Court #2

Overview

he Selection meets Reign in this dazzling trilogy of interwoven novels about three girls on a quest for freedom and true love from #1 internationally bestselling author Richelle Mead.

Mira is not like the other Glittering Court girls. She is a war refugee, cast out of her home country and thrust into another, where she has learned to fight against the many injustices around her. For some, the Glittering Court offers a chance at a life they’ve only ever dreamed of, one of luxury, glamour, and leisure. But for Mira, it’s simply a means to an end. In the new world, she plans to earn off her marriage contract price, and finally be free.

Mira pitches herself as an asset to one of the passengers on board the ship: the sardonic and aloof Grant Elliot, whom she’s discovered is a spy for the prestigious McGraw Agency—and her ticket to buying her freedom. His cover blown, Grant has little choice but to take her on. Mira applies herself by day, learning the etiquette and customs that will help to earn her anonymity. By night, she dons a mask and slips into the city, fighting injustice and corruption on her own terms—and impressing Grant with her extraordinary abilities and insights into a brewing rebellion. But the rebellion isn’t all they’re fighting…

Neither of them can ignore the attraction burning between them—an attraction so powerful, it threatens to unravel everything Mira’s worked so hard for. With freedom finally within her grasp, can Mira risk it all for love?

My Thoughts

After getting to see the full depth of Adelaide’s story in the first book, you knew that the story we would see for Mira would be amazing.  She was such a mystery and we got glimpses of the interesting life she led while in the court – so it’s definitely no disappointment to see what happens in this story that’s focused on her.

The summary above gives us a good idea of what we’re going to get, but there’s so much more.  We recalled from the first book how the journey from one land to another ended in catastrophe, and i have to admit that i didn’t remember all the sad and troubling details since it’s been a while since i read book 1, so it was a nice surprise to me to recall it all.

On the ship, when we had a different perspective during book 1, we get to see how Mira really lived her days there. We still met Mr Elliot, but his role was completely different here, seeing as how the attention that we saw put on Adelaide before turned into something much more devious with Mira.

Then once we got to the house, and the season started, where we saw Adelaide being pursued by so many people, we saw Mria’s different approach to it all, knowing that she was there in Adoria to find her brother and get him released from his contract and hopefully get herself out of a contract.  Where the story gets even more complex is seeing that all the times we knew that Mira snuck out of the house before, it was really because she  was an ‘asset’ in a spy network, and that she also ended up working double time for Tom Shortsleeves, who’s essentially like Robin Hood.

you can imagine how things are kept moving at a fast pace especially since Mira’s got so much motivating her that others don’t.  She’s given an out of her contract through a pairing with an elderly gentlemen and to see how that friendship grows and what the resolution there is towards the end makes you want to have faith that not everyone is motivated by money or ‘mad’.

Then there’s Grant – there’s clearly a connection between them, and it reminds me of how kids are when they have a crush but act as though they hate each other.  There’s so much animosity between them that you wonder what’s going to be the point that makes a change and forces a turning point in their relationship .

There’s more death, angst, coming back from the dead, killing, attempted killing and bits of romance peppered into this story that make it a must read.  Ms Mead does a great job of giving us two very different and dynamic installments to the series since these characters and their motives are quite different and it makes it that much more enjoyable.  Now what we need is Tamsin’s story since she’s really the one that got under the radar and under my skin.  I feel like there’s so much more to get from what she went through that it’ll make that next story so amazing.  Enjoy!