Disclaimer: I received this e-arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: Midnight Strikes

Author: Zeba Shahnaz

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 5/5

Diversity: BIPOC coded MC and characters, Bisexual BIPOC coded character

Recommended For...: young adult readers, fantasy, time travel, groundhog day

Publication Date: March 14, 2023

Genre: YA Fantasy

Age Relevance: 15+ (racism, terrorism, violence, gore, alcohol consumption, cursing, sexual content, romance, suicide, death, grief)

Explanation of Above: There are moments of racism being mentioned or expressly said/acted upon in the book. There is a terroristic event that, because this is a groundhog day book, keeps happening over and over again. There is violence in the form of bombs, guns, and knives and there is a lot of blood gore. There are scenes of alcohol consumption. There is some cursing. There is some very vaguely referenced sexual content and a slight romance that doesn’t overpower the plot. There are a couple of incidents of suicide vaguely mentioned, death is shown and mentioned, parental death is said and mentioned, and there is a lot of grief.

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Pages: 448

Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Anaïs just wants tonight to end. As an outsider at the kingdom’s glittering anniversary ball, she has no desire to rub shoulders with the nation’s most eligible (and pompous) bachelors—especially not the notoriously roguish Prince Leo. But at the stroke of midnight, an explosion rips through the palace, killing everyone in its path. Including her.

The last thing Anaïs sees is fire, smoke, chaos . . . and then she wakes up in her bedroom, hours before the ball. No one else remembers the deadly attack or believes her warnings of disaster.

Not even when it happens again. And again. And again.

If she’s going to escape this nightmarish time loop, Anaïs must take control of her own fate and stop the attack before it happens. But the court's gilded surface belies a rotten core, full of restless nobles grabbing at power, discontented commoners itching for revolution, and even royals who secretly dream of taking the throne. It's up to Anaïs to untangle these knots of deadly deceptions . . . if she can survive past midnight.

Review: I really really liked this book! The plot of this book revolves around my MC who is attending a fancy ball that she’s not really looking forward to but participates for her parent’s sake. There it’s quickly seen she’s an outsider, her peers looking down on her because of her country of origin. She has a dance with the prince and things start to look up, when bombs go off. She’s quickly thrown into a terrorist attack and, after surviving the initial blast but then getting killed by other means, she wakes up in her bedroom and it is hours before the ball. Our MC finds themselves trapped in a Groundhog Day like scenario and makes it her mission to stop the terrorist attack before midnight strikes. The book was so well done and, having a love of Groundhog Day like media, I was immediately in love with the premise of this read. The book was extremely well written and an amazing read overall, with interesting characters, a not-so-steamy romance that didn’t overpower the plot, and political intrigue.

The only thing I didn’t like about the book is that it was a tiny bit confusing but I think that was because my book accidently wasn’t saved on the correct page and I ended up reading some pages over again. I was having my own Groundhog Day moment LOL.

Verdict: I highly recommend this book!