Review: Midnight Dalliance

Title: Midnight Dalliance
Author: S.J. Frost
Publisher: Torquere Press
Publication Date: February 2010
Reviewed Format: ebook
Length: 29 pages

Rating: 3 out of 5

Review: Dalton sank everything he had into his Grand Prix dreams and a stallion named Midnight Dalliance. He may be in over his head, though--until his hero in a beige cowboy hat arrives on the scene.

Given that this was a short story, it's perhaps not terribly surprising that character development was thin on the ground. Dalton and Kelvin (the aforementioned cowboy hat-wearing hero) each have a voice, though thankfully not at the same time. Dalton's is the stronger of the two, but not enough to give much of an impression of his personality. This isn't a bad thing for the format, but a longer story would have been interesting to see, with more exploration of who Dalton and Kelvin were, both separately and together.

The supporting cast was comprised of one, plus the horses. Again, there's not much of a way around this with the story length, and really wasn't necessary; the horses were enough to carry the story along.

The chemistry between Dalton and Kelvin was well-done (again, given the story length). It was naturally a bit rushed from meeting to sex to commitment, but not so much as to be terrible. The sex (most of the point of a short story) was hot, which was a bonus.

There was a little drama in the story beyond the sex, mostly in the form of horses and an ex-boyfriend, but, really, it was just a vehicle for the sex. It's certainly an adequate vehicle, though, and enjoyable enough in and of itself.

Although I wish it had been longer, this was still a nice bite of story. It definitely helps satisfy a craving for horse stories with a dash of romance (or romance with a dash of horses).