While The Midnight Rose offers an intriguing premise and some beautifully crafted moments, it didn’t fully bloom for me. The world-building was interesting, and there were flashes of compelling magic, but I felt the pacing dragged in parts, and the characters didn’t always feel as developed as I hoped. Still, fans of slow-burn fantasy and enchanted mysteries might find some hidden gems here.

The book starts with a promising and intriguing plot, but as I dove deeper, I found it a bit tricky to follow at times. The frequent shifts in character perspectives added to the challenge—sometimes the POV changes weren’t clearly marked, which led me to backtrack to make sure I was following the story correctly. The memory flashbacks were a nice touch for fleshing out the characters, but they often popped up unexpectedly, giving the narrative a slightly disjointed feel. Despite these hurdles, there were definitely some enjoyable moments. With clearer transitions between perspectives and a smoother integration of flashbacks, I think the story could have flowed much better. Overall, an interesting read with a few bumps along the way!

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The world building was good, the magic system was also really interesting.
I have read many witch books so it was a fresh read for me.
I feel like that there was something missing with it but not 100% what.
Is it worth a read definitely!
Would I recommend I would if your a avid fantasy reader and not new to the genre.

fast pace, intense action but lacked something special to keep me hooked. overall good plot and characters were my favourite aspect so would recommend

I was interested in the magic system in the book and will be interesting to see where it goes. Has witches which is vastly become a favorite of mine. I did feel like there could be more character development and world building.

This is my first read by Catalina. I am a big fantasy/world building girl and love the extent of detail this can give a story. Maybe I read this at the wrong time but couldn’t get into it as much as I would’ve liked. Maybe the ending threw me off but it gave adventure and mystery throughout.

Flora is a witch who is searching for the whereabouts of her dad. She sneaks into a castle to find information about her dad, when she meets Lucien, an alchemist and the prince.

Leo is an alchemist who is told to flee when his home is attacked and ends up in a faerie realm. There he meets Lady Lisandre, a faerie. After Lisandre gets attacked Leo convinces her to join him on a search for a hidden scroll that can stop the dark alchemist. He promises to protect her in return

Eventually all four of them meet up and work together (or against each other). Will they be able to save the kingdoms from destruction?

I liked this book. It started a little slow, but picked up in the middle. I really enjoyed the romance between the characters! (Except for some parts that left me rather sad). I liked the drama in this book as well. It seemed like there was always something to keep me interested!

One thing that really confused me was the end, but this is likely because it is intended as a sequel. The end was a cliffhanger, but there is a plot twist, although the plot twist is rather confusing in my opinion.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes fantasy, romance, and adventure!

It was really hard for me to get into this book. I was also confused about what was happening especially in the beginning. I ultimately didn’t finish this book.

2.5 stars rounded up. The Midnight Rose is a high fantasy book, which set itself high standards to meet and I would say it didn't quite reach them, which is a real shame.

It's obvious how much care went into crafting this world and it's very thorough in its finer details and minutiae. There are some really in-depth and thoughtful parts, such as the fashions, languages, cultures and magic systems. I liked how these were often influenced or inspired by real world history, culture or folklore. However, they are inserted into the text at strange intervals, often when the reader is preoccupied with another current danger or point of intrigue. We have flashbacks to previous memories in the middle of unrelated conversations, to fill in blanks and explain connections but they don't smoothly slot into the narrative and can feel a bit jarring as a reader. I often thought I had accidentally zoned out and missed a location change, just to realise it was explained to be a memory or recollection further down the text. When on an urgent quest to retrieve an object or escape a foe, I don't much care for insignificant points like whether a tower was on the west or north side of a courtyard, that the character used to look upon it as a younger student or if the door they went through was second on the right etc.

Despite all these finer details being fleshed out, I think the characters and their motivations are not clearly defined by the author or understood by a reader. The alliances and identities of each individual were often changing and hard to grasp or connect with. I think the secret lineages and bloodlines were overdone in this, to the point it seemed a likelihood instead of a rarity. There were burgeoning (albeit chaste) romances dotted around but I couldn't connect with any of the characters well enough alone, to commit to enjoying them together as a couple. I don't think I will be continuing on to read any future books in this series.

Thank you Crimson Rose Publishing & Catalina Paris for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I enjoy fantasy however with this book I was left confused. The cover is beautiful but it didn't resemble what was inside the book. There was little to no character building and although there was only a few chapters, it felt so slow.

I really was enchanted with this books blurb and the beautiful cover art. I thought that it would be a wonderful fairytale like adventure.

Sadly the book is not what I thought it would be. The characters although well written don't really change or develop through the story. They swap and change between views and view points leaving the reader feeling lost and just wondering what the point of things was.

It was only twelve chapters long and I felt that that was to much. I didn't enjoy this read at all.

I would consider myself an avid fantasy’ reader and I can usually keep up with details given and the history of new cultures and following along with different realms and plot lines, however this book had me so beyond confused and lost and I took notes the entire time.

My first issue was there was barely any world building for the very many realms we jumped through. There was so much talk about what each character was wearing. I loved the descriptions of the outfits but it overshadowed the plot by a lot

My second issue was the characters and the pov in which the story was written: according to my notes that I took, we time jumped a lot but with no warning really. In one chapter we go from Lucien to to queen ivana to flora to lady alaia and then have soooooo many perspectives, we have queen katya and Lucien and elenora and cosimo and lorelai. Why are there so many names? You can hardly keep track of anything. In my opinion it should have been that each chapter was a different character. Why are we jumping realms and character perspective mid chapter? Multiple times?

Another issue with characters is many of them had several different names?

My head was spinning by the end of this and I’m still confused.

This book was just not for me however I do thank NetGalley for the Arc in exchange for an honest review

The mixture of The alchemist and harry potter. The story starts with a dark wizard looking for a talisman and the young man is given a task to find the scrolls and talisman to keep it away from the dark wizard. Then we see a change in POV to Flora, who is a which hiding her powers. The concept and storyline were interesting but i think this book lacked character building. Some of the detail wasn’t really needed and I would have liked a bit more editing. It felt like we were given more background information than the motivation and reasoning behind their actions. I liked Lucian, only character I wanted to read more about.

As a concept, the plot of the book is interesting and the four main characters are all intriguing. However, I feel like this could have been better executed with some time. The switching of viewpoints was choppy, and it made it hard for me to follow who we were following at the moment. Sometimes, it seems like it switched midway through to where it was following both characters involved in an interaction, but at others it exclusive followed one until there was a break. This made it very confusing for me at times. Again, great conceptually as a story and I hope the next will be easier to follow.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this eARC of 'The Midnight Rose' by Catalina Paris.

'The Midnight Rose' is the first in a trilogy by Catalina Paris. I feel like this book and series has the potential to be perfect but it needs more time to develop - that's what book 2 is here for I guess. The thing that lets this story down is the actual story, I just didn't find myself drawn to it. However, the characters were the reason as to why I continued reading and I definitely would read the sequel for them.

Unfortunately this was a DNF for me, I had a hard time getting into it and I felt the pacing was off. I really tried to understand where the direction of the book was going and I tried to connect with the characters but I just was not feeling it. I do think it could be someone else’s favorite though!

I requested this book because of the cover. It is so beautiful.
So far I liked this book. I have things to say so a detailed review is coming. :)

A big thanks to NetGalley and Crimson Rose Publishing for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a sucker for pretty covers.

The Midnight Rose by Catalina Paris is a YA fantasy novel about sixteen-year-old Leo, who is an apprentice at the Alchemical Court until one night changes everything. When the castle is attacked and Leo is told to flee, he creates a new portal using the strange runes left behind in his missing master's notebook. Arriving in the mysterious Realm of the Fey, a place long forgotten by mortals and Alchemysts alike, Leo meets the enchanting Lady Lisandre, a young faerie in need of his help. Together they quickly learn both their worlds are under threat from the elusive Dark Alchemyst; unless they find the mythical Talismans of Atlantica before he does. . Along the way they encounter Flora, a charming witch on a search for the truth of her family, as well as Leo’s former classmate, a warlock with questionable intentions, Lucien. The four of them are soon drawn together as they face numerous dangers and challenges to find and retrieve the talismans.

I really wanted to like this book, given how intricate it deals with alchemy and other general magic and the fae. But I just wasn't connecting with it. I feel like I didn't get to know much about Leo, save for he likes to learn languages. I just found the plot to be too rushed at points, and didn't allow the characters to breathe all that much. I don't really see myself picking up the next book in this series.

This was a good book. It was not my favorite book every. But I think that other people would enjoy this book. I liked the writing and the cover is beautiful.

Unfortunately this was a DNF for me. I couldn’t get into the writing and the story just wasn’t for me.