Review of Elizabeth Boyle's "Tempted by the Night"

I have to write a review of Elizabeth Boyle’s “Tempted by the Night”.

I loved reading this book, and I searched reviews online, and saw the other reviews didn’t do a good job of it.
I mean, the other reviews just said “it’s a historical romance book with paranormal elements, and it’s okay I suppose”. Pfft.
I’m fine with people not liking this book. Tastes vary. But I think it’d be a shame to overlook what this book was trying to do.

Boyle’s books are page-turners, certainly.
She writes smart, witty dialogue. Her stories are very fun, and surprising. Boyle’s stories are filled with hidden identities and plots/dialogue which play with that.
– I mean, saying it’s just a fun book with a silly story misses out on some of the smart storytelling.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.

It’s very good.

But I gotta admit.
“Tempted by the Night” is a difficult book to recommend.
In a sense, I’d call it “unrecommendable”.
As mentioned, it’s a historical romance with paranormal elements..

The first book in its series, at least, had a premise that sounds fun: the heroine makes a magic wish to “be the woman her crush loves”, and she wakes up as his mistress.
Whereas with “Tempted by the Night”? Still set in regency England, but the heroine makes a magic wish, and becomes invisible. And the hero fights evil monsters.

I might try and put it a different way instead:
The heroine has a crush on the hero, she’s certain that he’s secretly a good man even if everyone else thinks he’s a menace. She’s constantly anxious that her crush never sees her, though.
Her magic wish to know him gives her invisibility, which gives her a disguise (as such) which lets her flirt with the hero, without her having to expose who she is.
The hero? Indeed he does have a secret: He fights off evil monsters which come through portals. He has wicked, dangerous superhuman abilities that allow him to do this. He’s not sure he can find a wife who will understand.
Plot-wise? The hero tries to uncover who this mysterious woman who’s got his heart is. And there’s a big evil monster with plans to invade the realm who he has to stop.

I think that’s a really cute use of the paranormal aspects to enhance the emotional tension.
e.g. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” used fantastical elements to heighten a story of a woman with a strained relationship with her husband and her daughter. The film uses the surface-level narration with multi-verse tropes, as the story involves a mother trying to connect with her angsty daughter who’s struggling to find meaning.
Here? It’s a romance between a shy wallflower character and a bad boy. The paranormal elements complement the emotional storytelling.

Spoiler warning:
I don’t think the above would have spoiled my experience reading the story.
I’d like to ramble or elaborate on some of these points below.
If you’ve read that much and aren’t convinced it could be worth reading? You probably won’t have your enjoyment ruined if I discuss some more details about the story.

Rule of Fun

A well known rule in fiction is the “rule of cool”.

The “rule of cool” explains away all sorts of objections like “that’s dumb” or “that makes no sense”.

I reckon here, respect needs to be given to the “rule of fun”.

That is to say.. you can have a lot of fun if you allow the book to have fun. Even if some things about the story are dumb.

My Favourite Moment in the Book

Throughout the plot, the hero is trying to discover the heroine’s identity.

She doesn’t have control over her invisibility; she’s invisible from sunset to sunrise. – So, during the day, the historical romance parts of the story get emphasised, and in the evening, the magical and intimate parts.

My favourite moment in the book occurs at a party where both the hero and heroine are in attendance:
The gathering hold an archery competition among the women. The hero’s pretty hopeful to discover who his lover is, since she had bragged to him about being the best archer, even beating the popular mean girl.
When it came time to shoot her shot, the heroine chickened out, not wanting to risk the hero discovering who she is and rejecting her.
But as the sun sets, and no one is looking, she takes another shot and performs masterfully.
– It’s such a great moment; the hero sees the archer and knows it’s his heroine because he knows her capability.

That’s Not All

I have more thoughts on what I love about this book, Elizabeth Boyle’s books more broadly. – They’re not as widely read as they deserve to be. I’d like to write more on that later.

But I wanted to write this out first.