“How does your soul feel these days?”

The premise is a classic one in L.J. Shen’s contemporary romance, Midnight Blue: innocent girl meets handsome devil. Indigo, aka Indie, is a blue-haired, free spirited L.A. native–a kind-hearted orphan looking to help provide for her brother and his family who have fallen on hard times. Alex is an internationally famous rockstar with a drug addiction, an ex-girlfriend obsession, and a baaaad reputation. Oh, and he also happens to be British.

So how do these two seemingly unlikely creatures meet? Desperate to score some serious cash, Indie agrees to become Alex’s “hanny” (hot nanny)–in other words, his sobriety companion–for the duration of a three-month world tour. If she can endure his bad behavior and manage to keep him sober, she’ll be richly rewarded by his agent. The only catch? Alex doesn’t want a babysitter. As he and Indie lock horns, the sparks begin to fly, and our hero soon finds himself becoming addicted to our heroine–

Pun intended.

As far as the tension goes, it’s a pretty fast burn. Alex hates Indie in the beginning, and the feeling is more or less mutual. There’s a good amount of bickering between the two at first, but their attraction to one another escalates fairly quickly. Considering the majority of the novel takes place over a three-month time period, I guess this is unavoidable, but to go from loathing someone to crushing on them like a schoolgirl in one week’s time did feel a little rushed to me.

Anyway, the sex scenes are hot stuff, if a little derivative. There’s nothing that crazy or deviant or particularly inventive–just some good ol’ fashioned finger-blasting, oral and P-in-V. The phrase “I’m coming” is a faithful companion in every such scene, but otherwise, the smut flows pretty seamlessly.

In terms of writing quality, I’d say it’s damn good for a romance novel. There’s a fair amount of cheesy phrases, especially on Indie’s part, and a few descriptions that are kind of WTF, for example:

Alex constantly looked like his soul was shattered, but his bravado was steel and metal.

Steel AND metal, you say?? Anyway, for the most part the writing is smooth and clear, and occasionally there are even some really poignant bits, like the quote at the beginning of this post.

So what are my thoughts overall? I give Midnight Blue props for its fun story concept, strong-willed heroine, satisfactory smut, and quality writing. The “twist” at the end of the story felt a little contrived, and the pacing did seem a little rushed at times, but at the end of the day it was a sexy, entertaining read. My final rating:

Rock on, L.J. Shen. Rock on.