ARC Review: "Midnight Sun" by Rachel Grant

A woman on the edge…

Museum collections specialist Sienna Aubrey is desperate. A prehistoric Iñupiat mask in her client’s collection is haunted, and it wants her to return it to Alaska…now. Tormented to her breaking point, she steals it. But when she arrives in the remote Alaskan village, the tribal representative refuses to take the troublesome mask off her hands. Even worse, the manipulative artifact pulls the infuriating man into her dream, during which she indulges in her most secret fantasies with him.

A man in search of the truth…

Assistant US Attorney Rhys Vaughan came to the Arctic Circle to prove someone tried to murder his cousin. When Sienna shows up at his cousin’s office with the local tribe’s most sacred artifact, she becomes his prime suspect. Then the mask delivers him into Sienna’s hot, fantasy-laden dream, and his desire to investigate her takes an entirely different turn.

An artifact seeking justice…

But the mask has an agenda, and it’s not to play matchmaker. If Sienna doesn’t do what the artifact wants, she may pay the ultimate price, and only Rhys can save her.

I love Rachel Grant’s work.  Her books are creative, complicated, and sexy and she writes the best heroines.  I appreciate that they are smart career women with intelligence, courage, a strong sense of integrity and a bit academic.  So, I was interested when I saw her name as a contributor to the Twelve Shades of Midnight anthology.   How will one of my favorite romantic suspense author fare in the PNR genre? My concern was needless.  Rachel Grant seamlessly incorporates supernatural elements into her story. You can expect the trademark nail-biting suspense; a smart, attractive, intense alpha (think Harrison Ford, see my reference below); and panty-melting intimate scenes all wrapped within a story about a mystical mask trying to find its way back home.  It reads like a Raiders of the Lost Ark story.

Because many of Ms. Grant’s stories revolve around an aspect of archeology, this book is also educational. I enjoyed learning more about First Nation people in Alaska and the important role of artifacts to their culture.  Also having worked in a museum, I’m familiar with the work of archivists and curators, so this story speaks to me. Museums exist to preserve those things that are too precious to lose.  Who knew that a person with a museology degree could get into so much trouble?

In a Nutshell:

This is not a long story, but there is a lot packed into it.  It’s a perfect one-night read when you’re looking for a little adventure.

Four-time Golden Heart® finalist Rachel Grant worked for over a decade as a professional archaeologist and mines her experiences for storylines and settings, which are as diverse as excavating a cemetery underneath an historic art museum in San Francisco, survey and excavation of many prehistoric Native American sites in the Pacific Northwest, researching an historic concrete house in Virginia, and mapping a seventeenth century Spanish and Dutch fort on the island of Sint Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles.

She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and children and can be found on the web at www.Rachel-Grant.net.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.