It's Midnight!

Midnight: Dictionary definition: " The transition in time period from one day to the next."

I've always been fascinated by the word and the idea of midnight. When I was a child I used to lie awake on the night before my birthday waiting for the clock in the hall to chime 12. I loved all the stories with Midnight in the title – the idea of creeping outside into Tom's Midnight Garden and finding my way between vast hedges of yew by the light of the moon absolutely thrilled me. In The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner the midnight sky was alive with magic and I wanted to be running along that old straight track by the light of the moon with the children in the story.

In magic, midnight refers to solar midnight, the moment when darkness is at its height and light at its lowest ebb. This is the moment when the human world is linked to other worlds. Midnight is associated with chaos, death, the underworld and mystery. It is the time when visits from ghosts, demons and devils are supposed to be common and all the supernatural creatures of darkness have their greatest potency.  This is the time when vampires arise from their graves to suck the blood of mortals and it is dangerous to look in the mirror in case the devil looks back at you. But it is also the time to gather the ingredients used in white magic as various herbs were thought to be most potent when harvested at midnight.

 So I am hoping for a little bit of happy magic to be sprinkled on book 3 of my trilogy, Mistress by Midnight, which is out tomorrow. With a deep midnight blue cover I think it looks gorgeous! In Mistress by Midnight, Merryn faces her own demons when she is trapped with Garrick, the hero, through a long dark night and has to question everything that is important to her, everything that she believes in. The word midnight to me is rich and romantic and magical. I've done my utmost to make the book all those things too.

©2010 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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