Leah’s ARC Review of “Marry Me by Midnight” by Felicia Grossman

By: Leah

Marry Me by Midnight

• Author: Felicia Grossman
• Genre: Romance
• Publication Date: August 8, 2023
• Publisher: Forever
• Series: Once Upon the East End #1

Originally posted on Leah’s Books.

Thank you to Forever for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

CONTENT WARNING: grief, death of a parent, violence, mention of antisemitism

Plot Summary

Isabelle Lira may be in distress, but she’s no helpless damsel. To save her late father’s business from the wicked Berab brothers, she needs a powerful husband—and quickly. Her solution? Host a series of festivals, to which every eligible Jewish man is invited.

As the synagogue custodian, Aaron Ellenberg is too poor for wishes and too jaded for dreams. Until bold, beautiful Isabelle presents him with an irresistible offer: uncover her suitor’s secrets, and she will provide him with enough money to start the family he’s always wanted.

Yet their bargain creates an unexpected bond, as Aaron falls for the brave, loyal spirit behind Isabelle’s charm—and Isabelle for Aaron’s kindness and courage. But with her family’s future at risk and the last festival approaching, can Isabelle find it in her heart to trust that nothing, not even love, is impossible before the clock strikes twelve?

Overall Impression

I didn’t know anything about this book until it arrived on my doorstep, but reading the blurb got me psyched to read it. I’m always excited about reading Jewish books, but this one wasn’t just Jewish. Nope, it’s a gender-bent Cinderella retelling, set in 1830s London. It’s also the one physical book I brought with me to read on my vacation. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much reading time, so I ended up taking a long time to figure out what happened in the end.

To start with, Grossman has quite possibly created two of my favorite Jewish characters in this story. Isabelle is a woman ahead of her time—she’s determined, brilliant, and very much a feminist. She’s focused on keeping her father’s legacy alive by maintaining his half of the business, but their partners, the Berab brothers, are making that difficult by demanding that she get married ASAP, and if she doesn’t find a suitable match by their deadline, she’ll have to marry one of them, which she doesn’t want to do. On the other hand, Aaron is kind, sweet, and brave, but his financial circumstances and his lack of book smarts make it impossible for him to maintain a respectable position in the community. He works as a janitor for the synagogue, but he dreams of one day having a wife and children, dreams that his circumstances prevent him from achieving.

The connection between these two was off the charts. It’s glaringly obvious to anyone that there’s an attraction between Isabelle and Aaron, and keeping their interactions secret is another struggle throughout the story. I loved watching their bond deepen from attraction and mutual benefit to a genuine connection, affection, and a deeper emotional relationship, even as he’s helping Isabelle to find a suitable husband.

Since this is a historical romance, it’s clear that Grossman has done her homework. There’s an additional layer of pressure on Isabelle—the fact that she is viewed as a leader in the Jewish community. There’s a divide within the Jewish community itself, between the Sephardi Jews, who lived in Spain and Portugal, and the Ashkenazi Jews, who lived in Eastern Europe. Sephardi Jews like Isabelle and her family came to England as soon as they were allowed to, while Ashkenazi Jews were more recent immigrants. The Jewish community worked with some leaders in the gentile community to ease tensions and encourage that protections be passed to protect England’s Jews. As such, her upcoming betrothal plays an important role in placating the gentile community with a match that everyone will view as suitable, which is especially important to Isabelle since her business also deals with gentiles.

The parallels to Cinderella are obvious, and made the reading so much more enjoyable to me. Even though I went into this with a basic understanding of what was going to happen, just like in most other romances, I still found it exciting to read. There was some action, plenty of scheming, and some surprising alliances and revelations that were made. I found this to be one of the best romances that I’ve read in a long time, although I did take off half a star because the ending felt a little bit rushed. However, that still didn’t take away from my enjoyment of this book, and I’m already excited to read the next book in this series!