I bought an ecopy of this book last year, thinking I could use it for the Color Coded Reading Challenge. Can midnight be a black shade? I didn't get around to reading it until this week. It's awful I hate to say. If I hadn't read the publisher's summary before beginning this read, I would have no idea what it is about.
The publisher's summary:
In the frigid summers of the Antarctic continent, the sun never sets, and Olivia Campbell has long dreamed of spending a sunlit night in this beautiful, remote place. So when her boyfriend—a high-powered art dealer with a taste for the finer things in life—decides to stage an ostentatious, career-making auction aboard a luxury cruise liner to Antarctica, Olivia can hardly believe her luck. That is, until the ship sets sail and her boyfriend is nowhere to be found, and she is left to manage both the auction and her own creeping fear of the open ocean entirely alone. And as though that weren’t enough, the first bodies turn up soon after.It seems like a terrible accident. This is the Drake Passage, after all, one of the most notorious bodies of water on the planet, and there are always risks in such extreme conditions. But as the situation deteriorates, it soon becomes clear that there is real danger on board—and that the closest help is hundreds of miles away. With tensions rising and temperatures plummeting, Olivia wonders whether she’s booked a fabulous adventure . . . or a one-way ticket to her own destruction.
The dialogue between the characters seemed to take precedence over plot action. Nothing really happened during the first half of the story. Also, Olivia is not an interesting character. She has PTSD from being on a ship years earlier with her father, who died on the trip. This could have been better written into her character but it wasn't. So why bring it up? As for the pace, I did not see any pace; just character dialogue that did not even move the plot.
The setting descriptions were spot on. I loved reading about Antarctica. I also enjoyed the cruise ship descriptions, including the activities onboard. Another aspect of the book that I liked was seeing how the art market works. It was informative.
This book fell short. I don't know why I didn't DNF it. As for the rating, I am giving it a 1.7, one of the lowest ratings I have ever given a book.
