To everyone who said the writing in this was good: Guys. Guys, c'mon. I have two whole pages of mistakes in my notes and highlights and I didn't even mark all of them. I mean, sure, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and continuity aren't the only elements that make writing good or bad, but they certainly play an important role. And I'm sorry, but a book that misspells "breathe" SEVERAL times, forgets to use dialogue quotations and question marks, misplaces commas all over the place, and never uses italics to convey inner thoughts simply can't be considered to be well-written. The bar needs to be higher.

That being said, I liked the story even if the editing left a lot to be desired and the world-building was a little confusing and chaotic at times.

If I understood correctly, the events of this novel took place in a territory called Arcadia, which was sort of a supernatural, one-way bubble inside the real world. Every 20 years or so, the forest of Arcadia spat out an indeterminate number of people, but no one has ever been able to traverse it to get out. Weirder still, this slice of supernatural world was divided into three areas: Dawn, Sunset, and Midnight; each region stuck in the time of day it was named after, and independently-run from the other two. Dawn was controlled by the White Wings, creatures that demanded people give up their free will in exchange for entrance into the sanctuary that was their area. And that was because Dawn and Midnight were affected by the scourge, something I'm imagining is similar to a zombie virus that randomly infected people and turned them into mindless, violent, dangerous creatures.

And our FMC, Serenity, just so happened to be a police officer in Sunset, which meant dealing with these creatures was routine work for her. But unlike the rest of the human population of Sunset, she was keeping a secret, an inner darkness that constantly hungered for energy (my first thought was succubus, and I wasn't far off). Before long, she got found out and exiled to Midnight, where the majority of non-humans resided, and welcomed into the Protectorate—the supernatural version of Midnight's police force.

Protector of Midnight was set up similarly to a pilot episode of a TV show: major players got introduced, some groundwork was established, and there was a major case that got resolved, while various others were left set up to further develop in the future. It was a great way to flesh out the world while including a smaller arc contained to this one book that provided a sense of completion.

Interestingly enough, for a series that will have to eventually develop multiple romantic relationships, since Chronicles of Midnight is categorized as RH, surprisingly little time was dedicated to that aspect. The romance and smut side of things took a seat so far back that if this book was a bus they would have been on the penultimate row, with action and mystery being front and center.

Anything physical was so far down on the list of priorities, that I'm struggling with the character casting for the Pinterest board I created since I have a better idea of what everyone's personalities are like than what they look like LOL But I kinda loved that more emphasis was allocated into creating solid, unique characters than gushing about how hot all of the guys are. It made the book feel deeper and not as juvenile.

And that's pretty much it for now. The book could certainly have been a lot better from a purely technical point of view, but I enjoyed the tone and the content and I'm curious to see how the story will continue developing and how many men will end up conforming Serenity's harem.