Samhain Publishing, $2.50, ISBN 978-1-60504-853-6
Contemporary Erotica, 2009

It is New Year’s Eve. Claire Crater is at a party, obsessing like a neurotic tick over her determination to get laid before the night is through because she’s one of those heroines. With her neurotic attitude toward sex, I bet you won’t be surprised if I tell you that Claire is an erotic romance author. Romance authors are the first to portray romance author characters in the most neurotic light as possible, and Ms McKenna is determined to do one with a bang come New Year.

Mason Ledbetter and Hunter Morris were former not-so-hunky nerd kids who have grown up to become hunky nerd guys and they want to double team Claire just in time for the fireworks to take to the skies come the big one. You see, during college they decided that they liked sharing their women and the fun, as they say, has never stopped since. Luckily for them, in the ten years since they last saw Claire, she hadn’t become morbidly obese or something. Instead, she is gorgeous and sexy. Sigh. Don’t ask me why Claire then acts as if she can only get laid when she is drunk. This is one of those “only in romance novels” thing.

Her nipples “pebble” and their pee-pees simultaneously “harden” when they see each other, and so, a grand love story is born. Throughout it all, Claire acts like she’s the most hideous butt-ugly pig that has ever existed, to the point that I can only roll up my eyes and wish that she will knock off that self-pity act. Ms McKenna already stated clearly early on that Claire is gorgeous, so it is ridiculous to have Claire’s insecurities as the sole paper-thin pretense of a plot in this story. If the author has just ditched that nonsense and have Claire enjoy her two creepy boyfriends with gusto, Make Mine Midnight would have been a far less tedious read.