Midnight Rain

Rating:
Summary: A great thriller, an excellent story
Review: A great story with excellent character developement. I found myself wrapped up in the story so much I read the book in one sitting, staying up till 3am on a work night! Just could not put it down. Interesting, and thought provoking, kept me guessing till the end. And the love story that is interwound through the entire thing was excellent. Great work Holly, keep it up, I cannot wait for your next book!

Rating:
Summary: Chilling And Riveting Reading!!!
Review: Holly Lisle is an author that after only one read I've added to my "must read" list of romantic suspense authors. "Midnight Rain" is a compelling read that is both chilling and riveting. I was totally absorbed into the fast paced read from the very beginning.

Phoebe Rain's life has never been simple, easy, and safe. She lives in hiding fearing that her abusive husband will finally finish what he started years earlier. Working as a tarot card reader for a phone network and living without friends or family is starting to take it's toll. Just when she thinks that maybe...just maybe she can start opening up she starts getting phone calls from her husband that should be in a coma. She knows that it's him and she knows it's only a matter of time before he makes good his promise to see her dead. If this was not enough on her already full plate she has developed a friendship of sorts with her next door neighbor. She finds herself drawn to Alan and hopes that she manages to live long enough to see what being truly loved and cherished feels like. Problem is she has been told that her husband has died and the person she's being stalked by could in no way be Michael. Does this mean she's being haunted and stalked by a ghost or is her nightmare truly a flesh and blood person?

This book offers the ultimate nightmare situation. This book was chilling and the evil element in this story is truly amazing. Phoebe and Alan are dynamic characters' that come with their own individual problems but at the same time are open and willing to trust. Their relationship is slowly built over the course of this read and therefore believable for the reader. It has been a very long time since I've read a book that made me want to keep the lights on after I put the book down. For spine chilling read I highly recommend "Midnight Rain" as your reading choice.

Official Reviewer for www.romancedesigns.com

Rating:
Summary: An awesome read - thoroughly engaging!
Review: I picked this up on a whim and got a winner!

I couldn't have asked for more - suspense with a little paranormal thrown in, a masterful plot that left me guessing till the end, romance fully fleshed out and emotionally satisfying, and truly great characters that will stay in my imagination as "real" people. Thanks, Holly Lisle, for a thoroughly engaging few hours. Please. Write more contemporaries. I'd love to hear more about Brig...

Rating:
Summary: 4.5 stars - Great, suspenseful, chilling read
Review: In MIDNIGHT RAIN, the writer deftly weaves a tale of paranormal romance and sinister earthly deeds that will leave your spine tingling - and make you check your locks and doors just one more time before bed.
This was my first Holly Lisle. When MIDNIGHT RAIN first started, I was a little creeped out - OK, a LOT creeped out - by the tarot readings, ghostly sightings and bizarre happenings with Phoebe and Allen. But I stuck it out - and was glad I did. If you're adverse to books with occult happenings, you probably won't appreciate this effort by Lisle. But for everyone else, this is DEFINITELY worth the read.

Rating:
Summary: dynamic romantic suspense
Review: Once she was in an abusive marriage to Michael Schaeffer, but when he threatened to kill her, Phoebe ran away. It took him three years to track her down. He entered her classroom intending to kill her and her students, but after he murdered a few she disarmed him and knocked him into a coma. He lies in a hospital not expected to awaken so when Phoebe receives the call from Michael that he is coming to get her she is horrified.

Her next door neighbor emergency room doctor Alan sees the ghost of his daughter Chick in another world with a different climate. Chick visits Phoebe and tells her to go see her father; not sure why she does as the ghost asked. Alan and Phoebe exchange stories, but fail to see the connection between them. Michael remains comatose but the calls continue to haunt Phoebe as now he threatens Alan too. As his daughter plays matchmaker and rescuer from beyond, Michael intensifies his efforts while Alan and Phoebe hope to stay alive long enough to fall in love.

MIDNIGHT RAIN is a dynamic romantic suspense as readers' perceptions of reality is cleverly distorted by Holly Lisle. The audience goes back and forth between Michael reaching out from the other side to an associate pretending to be him, but whom. The romance eases some of the tension although for Alan, burned badly once before, opening up is difficult. His ghostly daughter coaxes him to give his heart freely as she as an otherworldly matchmaker brings hope to the beleaguered duo.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: A Must Read!
Review: This book is Holly Lisle's first attempt at mainstream suspense and she nails it right on the first try! Midnight Rain is a spine-tingling, tension filled, page turner. I read the whole novel in one sitting without intending to. I started and I just couldn't stop. Ms. Lisle's characters blossom on the page and her writing style is incredibly comfortable and easy to get absorbed in. I also like that she did tie everything up and didn't leave any loose threads hanging.

Her sex scens are both hot and necesary. She doesn't slow down the plot to show character devolopement, she just adds it to the ever increasing immediacy. One of the scenes with the tarot cards was so thrilling I had chills. And last night I had to sleep with the light on after finishing.

There were some passages I had to read more than once, but not because they were ackward or confusing but becuase they were just so well written.

I wanted to find something to nitpick about but I just couldn't. There are few gems out there like this book.

And if you enjoy Ms. Lisle's writing style I highly recommend her other books, which are fantasy, especially the Secret Texts Trilogy. Holly Lisle is one of the best little known authors of today and I eagerly await each of her new books including Last Girl Dancing and Talyn.

Rating:
Summary: A scary, thrilling ride!
Review: This is the first book of Holly Lisle's I've read. I'm looking forward to the next!

Rating:
Summary: Inventive Plot - FABULOUS Read!!!!
Review: This romantic thriller has just about everything you could ask for in an action packed story filled with suspense, intrigue, a broad brush stroke of the paranormal, and topped off with a great romance that makes it sizzle. Phoebe Rain had survived 8 years married to a sick psychopath. She evaded him for two years until the day he finally tracked her down showing up in her classroom to create total mayhem and killing two of her students before she was able to stop him. Struggling with the injuries she sustained from the gunshot that blew out most of her knee, Phoebe was ever vigilant just knowing that he still lived, even though he was still in the coma she'd put him in for the last two years. When threatening phone calls started, Phoebe didn't want to believe, but knew that the voice belonged to the twisted man who had vowed to never let her go.

Once before, Phoebe had ignored the warnings she'd heard from beyond and disaster had struck. She would not ignore the warnings again and when the apparition of a young girl appeared to her begging her to go and help her neighbor, Phoebe listened. At 3:00AM in the morning, she went and knocked on the door of her neighbor, Dr. Alan MacKerrie, to warn him of the danger. Extremely apprehensive of the warnings from a comparatively stranger, a young woman he'd lived next door to for two years, he found her story hard to believe except that he himself had received warnings from the same young child - and he knew that child to be his very own daughter who had died five years earlier.

Using an inventive plot the author pits these two wonderfully needy protagonists together to battle inexplicable threats from a psychopath killer lying thousands of miles away, in a coma, reportedly at death's door. Phoebe who hadn't dared to dream of a happy ending for herself, and Alan who had ceased to believe in living after the fiery death of his beloved daughter were drawn together by need and a mystical connection through his daughter's warnings. To put it bluntly, this was one heck of an absolutely riveting suspense/paranormal romance - totally AWESOME! Hello, Hollywood this could be a blockbuster! Frankly from Chapter 21 on I was having such an adrenaline rush, I could have jumped out of my skin for all the suspense and terror. BOTTOM LINE - This is superbly, fascinating ride of a suspense filled romantic thriller that culminates with a perfectly wonderful heart wrenching soggy tissue ending! Do yourselves a BIG favor and find this book for a FABULOUS read. --- Marilyn Rondeau, for www.allromancewriters.com ---