Dragon by Midnight by Karen Kincy || Review

I received an eARC from BookSirens in exchange for a review, this doesn’t affect my opinion of the book, all my thoughts are my own and are honest.

‘When the clock strikes midnight, Cinderella turns into a dragon.’

Prince Charming vows not to marry her, but to kill her. Cinderella's only hope? Sikandar, a sorcerer banished from a faraway land, who promises to break the dragon curse. Even at her most beastly, he finds beauty within her. But he's hiding his own dark past, and saving Cinderella might be his last chance of redemption.

Together, Cinderella and Sikandar must untangle dangerous secrets and deadly magic before happily ever after is forever out of reach.

It’s the premise that got me to request this book even though I wasn’t accepting any more review books at that moment in time. Cinderella retelling where Prince Charming isn’t the hero, yes, please. It was so different from any retellings I had heard of. It also had a few elements from Aladdin which I wasn’t accepting whatsoever going into this book.

Sikandar was my favourite character, he is funny, kind, gets very flustered easily. It was his attitude and mystery that drew me to him. But as we got so to learn more about him we discover he doesn’t believe he is worthy of any love, and that really plays on how he acts throughout to novel.

Not remembering how the original Cinderella from the fairytale was like I can’t compare you to each other. But she was kind, caring, generally a seriously nice person to read and be around. She was smart and knew pain with what she went with her stepfamily.

The romance was so sweet and fluffy, which isn’t my favourite type of romance but I really liked it in this book. The two characters didn’t know how to admit their feelings towards each other and would get flustered very easily with each other. They truly cared for each other just didn’t know how to show it.

This book was fasted paced from the first chapter and kept up the pace for most of the book only slowing down when it needed to. The book was very engaging which suited the style of the book. My favourite part was the banter between Cinderella and Sikandar.

The book just felt lacking in-depth, like the whole book everything was skimmed over and never took the time to slow down and just dive into the world, or into the characters making them fleshed out or the history like Cinderella’s back story. I liked the writing style but sometimes it seemed like it was told like a fairytale (I understand this is a retelling) which when that happened I wasn’t the biggest fan of, I am coming to realise that I just don’t like the writing style of fairytales.

Overall it was a fun quick read. I am not sure if I will pick up the sequel as I was happy with how it ended. I would recommend this book to people who love retelling’s, fantasy, or fluffy with not smut romances.

3 ⭐️

Thank you to BookSirens, Karen Kincy and the publishers for approving me a copy.