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Overview
A time to fear....Grace Hart seemed to have it all: a bright, beautiful daughter, a successful career as a judge, and a lovely home in an Ohio suburb. But beneath the placid veneer, darker truths lie waiting. Her fifteen-year-old, Jessica, is teetering on the cusp of drugs and delinquency. And someone is stalking the troubled teenager. Someone who has already violated their home and stolen their peace of mind.
A time to love....
Now the police are involved. Grace is relieved—and worried. Is Jessica in danger from a drug dealer who wants to silence her? Detective Tony Marino is on the case. He's too close for comfort, asking disturbing questions, probing into her long-buried past, igniting feelings Grace has tried to suppress. In Tony's strong arms, Grace finds comfort, protection—passion—as he tries to shield them from the evil lurking just beyond their door....
Synopsis
Karen Robards offers up another superb romantic suspense novel, with a slight touch of supernatural. The Midnight Hour is one of her best! Grace Hart is a single mother and a juvenile- and family-court judge in Bexley, Ohio -- and her daughter, Jessica, has gotten out of control. When Jessica goes into what might be diabetic shock, hunky Tony Marino thinks Grace should practice what she preaches as a family-court judge. But there's more to what's going on than either Grace or Tony realize. Someone is stalking Jessica and breaking into Grace's home.
Library Journal
In this latest work from a popular romance writer, Judge Grace Hart teams up with Detective Tony Marino to stop the stalker threatening both her and her daughter.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewRobards Makes Midnight Magic Karen Robards has been writing her best novels in recent years, and she's begun to take on the mantle of queen of romantic suspense with such page-turners as Heartbreaker and Hunter's Moon. With The Midnight Hour, she scores a personal best. Superbly plotted, wonderfully written, with characters that come alive upon your first encounter with them, this is Robards's best novel thus far. Grace Hart is a single mother and a juvenile- and family-court judge in Bexley, Ohio — and her daughter, Jessica, has gotten out of control. When Jessica goes into what might be diabetic shock, hunky Tony Marino thinks Grace should practice what she preaches as a family-court judge. But there's more to what's going on than either Grace or Tony realize. While the love story that gently interweaves through the pages of The Midnight Hour grows more and more powerful, it's definitely the bit of mystery and the thriller aspect of this novel that take over. What working mother hasn't worried about the well-being of her child? Robards takes this to the nth degree with suspense and action that rival that in some of the best popular fiction of our day. The love interest here, macho cop Tony Marino, has a very human side, too: Although he's overly judgmental of Grace Hart's ability to watch out for her own child, it's mainly because his own daughter died. That loss has colored his world; he has both built armor around himself and become empathetic to the plights of others. Grace begins to find evidence of a stalker — and someone has comeintoher home and gone through her things. Soon the threat of violence escalates, and Grace realizes that she and her daughter are no longer safe in their own house. Tony moves in to help protect them, and the novel steams up with his presence. But who is after Grace? Who would want to harm young Jessica? Don't miss this terrific new novel from one of the best romantic-suspense writers around. —Jessi Rose Lucas Jessi Rose Lucas's first romance novel, The Swan Prince, is forthcoming. She lives on the New England coast and is currently working on her second novel, The Tarnished Knight, a medieval romance about Lancelot and Guinevere.
Library Journal
In this latest work from a popular romance writer, Judge Grace Hart teams up with Detective Tony Marino to stop the stalker threatening both her and her daughter.Kirkus Reviews
Psychos lurking in the dark, steamy sex, and touches of the supernatural seem to be favored ingredients of romances these days, and Robards handles them better than most.Grace Hart, single mother and a judge in Ohio's juvenile and family-court system, has lost control of her teenage daughter Jessica, who's sneaking out at night, smoking marijuana, and getting drunk-something especially ill-advised for a diabetic. Picked up by narcotics officers Dominick and Tony Marino as she goes into shock, Jessica is brought to the hospital by Grace and the two sexy cops. Especially irritating is Tony, a "Mr. Macho" who appears in the contemporary hero's uniform of flannel shirt, Levi's, and beat-up bomber jacket. He accuses Grace of negligence but sticks around to protect the pair when it seems that someone's stalking Jessica. Tony is a divorced guy whose own daughter Rachel died of cystic fibrosis (get out the handkerchiefs), and he has never recovered from the near-mortal blow of losing a child. Of course, the reader knows he hasn't really lost her, since her ghostly presence (in the form of a white moth) keeps sad watch over her mournful dad. At home, meanwhile, Grace keeps finding signs of another sort of ghostly presence: some nutcase has left invisible writing on a mirror, shifted a teddy bear from one place to another, and stuck bubble gum on a door. When the same unknown person drowns Godzilla the hamster, leaving him on Jessica's bed in a plastic bag, Tony moves in to look after "his girls." While Grace and he have hot sex during lunch breaks, they also share sorrows. Thus is a new family unit born to fight a sick teenager who graduates quickly to slaughtering people (and whose identity is never a mystery).
Decently done work in the genre of the "now" romance.