What do you think?
Rate this book
After Midnight
The drama and intensity unfold in this spellbinding collection as the heroines in each of these 3 novels unravel the mysteries that surround them and find true love!
Includes:
Miranda's Viking
Kiss of the Shadow Man
Out-of-This-World Marriage
- GenresRomanceAnthologies
699 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 1, 2000
2 people are currently reading
122 people want to read
About the author
Maggie Shayne
289 books2,561 followersI live in the teeny, tiny town of Taylor, NY, (Alliteration Alert!) though my mailing address is Cincinnatus, my telephone exchange is Truxton and I pay taxes and vote in Cuyler. All of these are at least in the same rural county in the southern hills of New York State; Cortland County. There are more cattle than people here. The nearest “big” cities are Syracuse and Binghamton and they are an hour away, in different directions, and not really all that big by most standards, though they both seem humongous to me. I look out my window to see rolling, green, thickly forested hills, wildflower laden meadows and wide open blue, blue skies. My road is barely paved. The nearest neighboring place is a 700 acre dairy farm.
My house is a big, century old farmhouse. I moved in here after my divorce in 2006. Just a little over a year later, the house, which I had named, SERENITY, burned. It was 99% gutted, and I lost my two dogs, Sally, an 11-year-old great Dane, and Wrinkles, my 14-year-old, blind bulldog. This was the culmination of my Dark Night of the soul, which had seemed to hit me all at once in 2006-2007. My mother died that year, after a 14 month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was only 60. The youngest of my five daughters had left home that same year, and while that’s not a tragedy at all, it felt like one to me. Then came the divorce. And finally there was the fire--it seemed my darkest night wasn’t quite finished with me after all. I had lost almost everything before that point, and as I poked through the wet ashes and soot the next day, I realized that I had now been stripped all the way to the bone.
No better time to start over. (And no, I didn’t come to that realization that day--there were a few days of wallowing in pity first, particularly the day after the fire, when I hit a deer and smashed up my car, which I was practically living in!)
That’s when I started to laugh. Just sat on the side of the road as the deer bounded, uninjured and carefree, out of sight, and laughed. It was just too ridiculous at that point, to do anything else!
And from there, I picked myself up, and brushed myself off, and said, okay, there’s only one way to go from here. Forward. And that’s what I did. There I was at the age of harrurmphemmph, living in my one, mostly undamaged remaining room, with a dorm-sized mini-fridge, a futon, a TV, my cat (nine lives!) and a laptop. And not much else. (Though thank goodness the room that survived the fire, was a room that had its own attached bathroom!)
Since then I have rebuilt my beloved home, which really has become my haven, my “Serenity.” I share it now with my fiancé, Lance, and we have accumulated quite the little family together. “Little” being a relative term. We have a pair of English Mastiffs, Dozer and Daisy, who weigh 203 pounds and 208 pounds respectively, and a little pudgy English Bulldog named Niblet, who is bigger than both of them, inside her mind. We also have the aforementioned cat, Glorificus (“Glory” for short,) who adores her canine pups and keeps them firmly in line. And we've acquired a pair of stray cats as well, a mother and son, Luna (Lulu for short) and Butters aka Buddy. Lulu showed up pregnant during a lunar eclipse, had a litter, and vanished again. We found homes for all the kittens except one. Butters. We got him fixed and kept him. A few months later, Lulu returned, again expecting. This litter was born on the "Monster Moon." Again, all the kittens were spayed and neutered and placed in homes, and this time we got Lulu to the vet in time to spay her before the cycle could repeat.
Glory is not amused.
She has a story of her own, my old Glory cat, having been with me before the Dark Times descended, she went through it all with me, moved with me, survived the fire, and remains with me still. She's tolerating the newcomers. Barely.
My partner is an artist, a mechanic, a welder and an inventor, and the rumors are true, he is much younger than I
My house is a big, century old farmhouse. I moved in here after my divorce in 2006. Just a little over a year later, the house, which I had named, SERENITY, burned. It was 99% gutted, and I lost my two dogs, Sally, an 11-year-old great Dane, and Wrinkles, my 14-year-old, blind bulldog. This was the culmination of my Dark Night of the soul, which had seemed to hit me all at once in 2006-2007. My mother died that year, after a 14 month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was only 60. The youngest of my five daughters had left home that same year, and while that’s not a tragedy at all, it felt like one to me. Then came the divorce. And finally there was the fire--it seemed my darkest night wasn’t quite finished with me after all. I had lost almost everything before that point, and as I poked through the wet ashes and soot the next day, I realized that I had now been stripped all the way to the bone.
No better time to start over. (And no, I didn’t come to that realization that day--there were a few days of wallowing in pity first, particularly the day after the fire, when I hit a deer and smashed up my car, which I was practically living in!)
That’s when I started to laugh. Just sat on the side of the road as the deer bounded, uninjured and carefree, out of sight, and laughed. It was just too ridiculous at that point, to do anything else!
And from there, I picked myself up, and brushed myself off, and said, okay, there’s only one way to go from here. Forward. And that’s what I did. There I was at the age of harrurmphemmph, living in my one, mostly undamaged remaining room, with a dorm-sized mini-fridge, a futon, a TV, my cat (nine lives!) and a laptop. And not much else. (Though thank goodness the room that survived the fire, was a room that had its own attached bathroom!)
Since then I have rebuilt my beloved home, which really has become my haven, my “Serenity.” I share it now with my fiancé, Lance, and we have accumulated quite the little family together. “Little” being a relative term. We have a pair of English Mastiffs, Dozer and Daisy, who weigh 203 pounds and 208 pounds respectively, and a little pudgy English Bulldog named Niblet, who is bigger than both of them, inside her mind. We also have the aforementioned cat, Glorificus (“Glory” for short,) who adores her canine pups and keeps them firmly in line. And we've acquired a pair of stray cats as well, a mother and son, Luna (Lulu for short) and Butters aka Buddy. Lulu showed up pregnant during a lunar eclipse, had a litter, and vanished again. We found homes for all the kittens except one. Butters. We got him fixed and kept him. A few months later, Lulu returned, again expecting. This litter was born on the "Monster Moon." Again, all the kittens were spayed and neutered and placed in homes, and this time we got Lulu to the vet in time to spay her before the cycle could repeat.
Glory is not amused.
She has a story of her own, my old Glory cat, having been with me before the Dark Times descended, she went through it all with me, moved with me, survived the fire, and remains with me still. She's tolerating the newcomers. Barely.
My partner is an artist, a mechanic, a welder and an inventor, and the rumors are true, he is much younger than I
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 30, 2022
Three books in one:
Miranda's Viking: Although I am not a fan of people from the far past trying to survive in our present, this one was handled well, if not believably. Miranda's Viking is frozen and vacuum packed by events in his time, nine hundred years ago. Miranda is an archeologist who discovers him frozen and keeps him that way to study until something goes wrong with the temperature mechanism. Their relationship is touchy to say the least, but it is a fun read and mentions that the Vikings got to North America long before Columbus or the Spanish.
Kiss of the Shadow Man: Someone is trying to kill Caity and she thinks it's her estranged husband, but can't remember. The last attempt has caused her to crash her car and hit her head. Now she must struggle back to where she was before the accident while living with her "loving" family. Only now she isn't the same person and doesn't think she will ever be that person again. What could happen next?
Out of This World Marriage: Okay, we've run the gamut. A book about a nine-hundred year old man, one in the present, and now one with an extra-terrestrial. Janella lands on earth, manages to get out of her ship, and it blows up. Nothing but a black scorch mark left. Thomas sees the blast and goes to investigate, only to find the girl he had met years before. He still wears the amulet she gave him when he was a kid, and she still has his slingshot with his initials that he had made himself and was the only thing he had with him to give her. The fun begins when highly advanced Janella meets disillusioned doctor Thomas.
I guess I'd have to say I have mixed feelings about all three of these books. It was interesting and well-written, but I kept asking myself if I would react in the same way and why or why not. Frequently, the answer was that the hero or heroine wasn't behaving in any sensible way, and I hoped I would have more sense. But then the story would have been different and perhaps not as much fun.
Miranda's Viking: Although I am not a fan of people from the far past trying to survive in our present, this one was handled well, if not believably. Miranda's Viking is frozen and vacuum packed by events in his time, nine hundred years ago. Miranda is an archeologist who discovers him frozen and keeps him that way to study until something goes wrong with the temperature mechanism. Their relationship is touchy to say the least, but it is a fun read and mentions that the Vikings got to North America long before Columbus or the Spanish.
Kiss of the Shadow Man: Someone is trying to kill Caity and she thinks it's her estranged husband, but can't remember. The last attempt has caused her to crash her car and hit her head. Now she must struggle back to where she was before the accident while living with her "loving" family. Only now she isn't the same person and doesn't think she will ever be that person again. What could happen next?
Out of This World Marriage: Okay, we've run the gamut. A book about a nine-hundred year old man, one in the present, and now one with an extra-terrestrial. Janella lands on earth, manages to get out of her ship, and it blows up. Nothing but a black scorch mark left. Thomas sees the blast and goes to investigate, only to find the girl he had met years before. He still wears the amulet she gave him when he was a kid, and she still has his slingshot with his initials that he had made himself and was the only thing he had with him to give her. The fun begins when highly advanced Janella meets disillusioned doctor Thomas.
I guess I'd have to say I have mixed feelings about all three of these books. It was interesting and well-written, but I kept asking myself if I would react in the same way and why or why not. Frequently, the answer was that the hero or heroine wasn't behaving in any sensible way, and I hoped I would have more sense. But then the story would have been different and perhaps not as much fun.
March 1, 2018
Love Maggie Shayne, these are great for your out of this world romance. Her grammar is impeccable which is unheard of these days.
June 28, 2012
Miranda's Viking-
I was totally amazed by this book, I absolutely LOVED Rolf and Miranda it was an emotional book, and I LOVE books tht I literally laugh out loud, or cry or get angery at a character, it is an amazing story tht I will no doubt read over and over.
Kiss of the Shadow Man-
This book was interesting to say the least, at first I didn't get into it, and I know it was because I didn't like the synopsis I read, but after actually getting into the book I liked it alot. To me the whole book is about the TRUE love tht I think all women want, A love tht will last through just about anything and everything. It was an amazing read.
Out of this World Marriage ( Dr. Duffy's Close Encounter)
This book was very hard for me to even want to start. I don't like science fiction books, usually with anything space wise I avoid, I am certainly glad I did push through and read it. It was a great read and NOTHING like I thought it would be. Dr. Duffy was simply a great guy tht had a bad experience and didn't want to try to care about anyone which to anyone tht has had a bad experience you know how tht is. I LOVED Janella she actually made me laugh through out the book with her unusaul beliefs. To me this book was simply a breath of fresh air tht I am not used to.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews