Midnight Strikes

As a member of the maligned Proensans, a group of citizens who were colonized by the affluent Ivarea Kingdom, 17-year-old Anaïs Aubanel’s life has always been about marriage. If she weds a noble, wealthy Ivarean man, she could not only elevate her family to a higher, more comfortable station, but also improve the reputation of her people as a whole. The 400th Anniversary Ball is supposed to be Anaïs’s best chance at snaring a husband, but those plans are upended when an unexplained explosion kills every attendant, including Anaïs. When she wakes up the previous afternoon, she realizes she’s stuck in a time loop. Unsure about the origins of the temporal event or the explosion, she endeavors to uncover the plot and stop the disaster. The shaky time loop premise droops under the weight of a rotation too many, leading to slim character and relationship development. Nevertheless, Anaïs’s profound feelings of isolation and loneliness, and her repeated deaths, including her subsequent grief and trauma following each, are handled with complexity and gravitas alongside discussions of intersectionality in this elaborate debut. Ages 14–up. Agent: Claire Friedman, InkWell Management. (Mar.)