Midnight Strikes

"With whip-smart worldbuilding, spectacular twists, and the angsty romance of my dreams, Shahnaz’s debut is guaranteed to keep you up reading until midnight.”--Allison Saft, In this explosive fantasy debut with a time-loop twist, a provincial girl must work with a roguish prince to stop an attack on the royal family and escape a nightmarish curse that forces them to relive the same night over and over again. 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.;

Autorentext
Zeba Shahnaz writes fantasy full of political intrigue, twisted romance, and a healthy dose of existential angst. A proud Pakistani American, she translated her love of storytelling into a graduate degree analyzing national identity, culture, and cinema in South Asia. She grew up in New Jersey, which she has yet to fully escape (though not because of a time loop). Midnight Strikes is her debut novel.

Klappentext

**In this explosive fantasy debut, a provincial girl must work with an infuriatingly handsome prince to escape a nightmarish curse that forces them to relive the same night over and over.

"The time-loop fantasy you never knew you needed, where the fairytale ball is bloody and Cinderella is the Final Girl."—Gina Chen, New York Times bestselling author of Violet Made of Thorns**

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.

Leseprobe
I

Chapter One

One night. You just have to survive here one more night.

Unfortunately, for a Proensan nobody in the royal court of Ivarea, that’s easier said than done.

Tonight is the crown jewel of the social season, the most important party the provinces of Ivarea have ever seen: the celebration of four centuries of the Cardona dynasty’s reign. The Anniversary Ball is the opportunity my family has been waiting for ever since our people were first conquered by the Ivareans--the reason my parents dragged me seven hundred miles across the sea and over land to the capital. If they can defy the odds and arrange my marriage into a prominent courtly house, our family will be launched to the highest tier of Ivarean elite society. To a position of respect and power that our people, the Proensans, have not had since the Cardona conquest. This is a prize more than worth the cost of my future.

Or so I’m told.

Eight weeks ago, when I was first shoved through the grand double doors of the palace for my debut, I thought that the rigors of this historically grueling season would get easier to endure with time. I used to hope that each dazzling ball, each refined tea party, each perfunctory dance, would feel a little less like a living nightmare, because each one meant that the season was coming that much closer to an end. I hoped that each moment was bringing me that much closer to home.

But it never got easier. It never will get easier in a royal court that looks down on Proensans just because we’re Proensans, regardless of our titles or lands or wealth. And now that I’ve finally made it to the Anniversary Ball, I’m not at all sure I’ll make it out intact.

Tonight, I throw myself into the centers of gravity within the grand ballroom of the Alcazar Real de Marenca as earnestly as any of the hundreds of grandes from every corner of the kingdom also in attendance. Beneath shimmering chandeliers that float across the elaborately painted ceiling, ladies in voluminous gowns clash with lovers and enemies alike from behind fluttering fans, and gentlemen bearing ceremonial swords that have been passed down through storied bloodlines for centuries shout gaily to their fellows in privilege and glory. Each and every one of them is desperate to emerge at dawn with something--or someone--they didn’t have before, but then again, so am I. So I smile at them like I’m deranged and flirt with them until I feel sick. When the dancing begins in earnest, I even manage to snag a minuet with young Don Fernando Pelaez, who is everything I’m supposed to want in a future husband: well-connected, wealthy, a real Ivarean. He smiles at me as we take our places on the dance floor, which my foolish heart takes as a good sign.

Maybe this one will be different. Maybe this one will finally put me out of my misery. Maybe this one will look at me and not find me wanting.

“You look absolutely enchanting tonight, Dona Anais.”

Fernando twirls me by the arm, and the satin skirts of my gown flare out with me. My mother designed it to match the depths of my red opal locket, with gold and garnet beading down the bodice and a blood-red brocade underskirt. Contrary to what some of the grandes who dominate the capital might assume, I’m no stranger to overwrought ensembles, but I have never hated one more than this--less because of what it looks like, and more because of what it means for my family’s future. What that future will demand of me.

“And by the saints,” Fernando adds with a quicksilver grin that matches his celestially spangled waistcoat, “you’re a surprisingly great dancer.”

My lacquered lashes flutter as we trade steps like feints in a duel. “Why is that so surprising, Don Fernando?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I didn’t think you Proensans paid attention to dance crazes here in the capital.”

I bite down a grimace. To people like Fernando, who hail from the central heartland of the Ivarean peninsula in the province of Castara, us Proensans are not real Ivareans, not even two hundred years after we were absorbed into this kingdom. People on the peninsula see us as barely domesticated country bumpkins whose inclusion in elite Ivarean society makes for an amusing trifle at best and a bewildering insult to their cu…