Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Midnight Ash
SERIES: MM Fairy Tale Romance series Book 1
AUTHOR: Ana Ashley
PUBLISHER: Self-published
RELEASE DATE: October 30, 2020
LENGTH: 292 pages
BLURB:
If I didn’t know better, I’d think my life is a fairytale.
Orphan? Check.
Evil stepmom? Check.
The only problem with my theory is the lack of a dashing prince coming to my rescue.
That is until Xander comes along. He’s charming, gorgeous, and caring. With him my life doesn’t feel like a neverending list of chores.
After my stepmother does the unthinkable, my only hope is winning a publishing competition. But when I find who Xander really is, even that becomes a lost cause.
Midnight Ash is a sweet romance with a sexy kinky twist on the side, and a cast who don’t quite behave as you’d expect.
Midnight Ash is a contemporary Cinderella retelling, and part of the MM Fairy Tale Romance series. All books are completely standalone and are modern retellings of classic fairy tales with a gay romance twist.
REVIEW:
Midnight Ash is the first book in the MM Fairy Tale Romance series, which is a multi-author collection of retold fairytale stories centered on MM romance. Midnight Ash is brought to us through the always lovely writing of Ana Ashley, who, here, creates a modern MM riff on Cinderella.
Our MCs are Ashton (Ash) Cinder, who is struggling under the financial burden of keeping his family’s farm afloat while supporting his stepmother Victoria and his twin stepsisters, and Alexander (Xander) Blackwood, heir to the Blackwood Publishing Company. Despite their different stations in life, Ash and Xander find themselves immediately attracted to each other and have one very strong commonality: books. Ash is, unbeknownst to Xander, quite a talented writer. Xander, for his part, is being groomed to take over as CEO for his retiring father but would prefer to continue in his current role discovering and cultivating new and upcoming writers for his family’s publishing company. It’s this love of writing and reading that ultimately causes Ash and Xander’s two worlds to collide. Before that, these two met and fell for each other in a bubble, disconnected from the real world. The main ingredient in, as well as the product of, living in a world of make believe is lack of information and context. No doubt the affection and love that develops between them is real, but the relationship is based on a foundation of half-truths and assumptions. And therein lies the problem.
This setup is very faithful to Cinderella and, of course, sets up an inevitable reckoning where Ash and Xander’s relationship and love is tested in the real world with all their truths in the light of day. The relationship between Ash and Xander is heartwarming, sweet and sexy with some mild kink thrown in. Xander’s supportiveness and restraint in using his wealth to solve Ash’s problems really endears him to the reader, not that a lot of help is needed there though. Both Xander and Ash are developed as multi-dimensional characters with depth and emotions we can relate to. They are super-likeable and absolutely adorable as a couple. Both MCs have external and internal struggles that are handled deftly and believably.
The flaw in this story for me is, ironically, the result of really good writing eclipsing the premise. This is a Cinderella story modernized and the author does such a good job of taking all the elements of the Cinderella story and fitting them into the modern setting that the underlying premise – the mystery of identity – becomes untenable. We have two intelligent and independent MCs, Ash is running his farm and supporting his family, Xander is heir to a publishing empire and about to become CEO, yet we are expected to believe that they are oblivious when it comes to each other. These two are boyfriends, yet Ash doesn’t know Xander’s last name, doesn’t know what his job is and, so far as we can tell, has never even asked. Xander, for his part, reads a manuscript by an “Andrew Cinder”, but doesn’t even question whether it could be Ash or some relation to him; “Cinder” is not exactly a common last name. This becomes even more untenable when Ash says he has to go to a party on the same night and time as a ball Xander has asked him to attend, describes exactly the same party setup, tells Xander that he’s a semi-finalist in a competition, yet Xander doesn’t even ask what the competition is or make the connection that may be it is the same party.
The author also makes an effort to tamper some of the extremeness of the “evil” Cinderella characters (the evil Stepmother and the two witchy stepsisters) by making Victoria have more complex motivations and greater self-realization as to the harm she is causing, and taking the stepsisters out of the equation in terms of intentional conduct. However, I found Victoria’s turn-around to be abrupt and therefore not as credible. Perhaps a bit more time balancing her before and after conduct would have helped.
Overall, this is a light, fluffy, quick read with some sexy times and a definite HEA. Although it has some flaws, suspend your disbelief and go with it because it really is a fun, feel-good romance that will make you smile.
RATING: 
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