Midnight on the Celestial by Julia Alexandra

Roe Damarcus has never been afraid of the dead. Her power to summon spirits has awed the guests of her esteemed family’s galas for as long as she can remember. Her future is certain, and her gift will be another shining jewel in the Damarcus legacy.
 

But when she fails her realm’s trial to keep her magic and is deemed too dangerous for society, she faces a harrowing give up her gift or serve a punishment sentence aboard the Celestial, a luxurious magical cruise ship where staff members compete for guest votes to earn a coveted retrial.
 

As a concierge, Roe juggles the demands of affluent guests, cruel bosses, and the suspicion that an infuriatingly handsome silks performer, Ivander, is determined to keep her from a retrial.
 

But the true dangers surface after her shift ends when the Celestial transforms into halls of nightmares that kill staff members after dark. Faced with the reality of serving aboard, Roe begins to question the ship, trials, and the system that put her there. But the moment Roe sinks into the ship's dark history, she's wrongly framed for a guest's murder. Vowing to conjure her own second chance, Roe will use whatever power she has to uncover the secrets of the ship, her family, and their entwined bloody past... before she becomes the Celestial’s next victim.

This review is based on a complimentary Advanced Reader Copy provided by Wednesday Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press via Netgalley.

Magically captivating while simultaneously dark and harsh, Julia Alexandra’s debut novel Midnight on the Celestial is a well-paced and solid YA fantasy story that effortlessly walks the line between the fantasy and thriller genres. Prominently featured on both the book’s cover and in its blurb, the focal luxury cruise line enchanted with opulent and imaginative magic immediately catches attention but there’s a lot more to this story than what meets the eye. A dark fantasy thriller featuring a likable group of found family friends paired with a great plot and excellent age-appropriate character writing, Midnight on the Celestial is a great all-rounder book that tells a compelling standalone story with dazzling visuals.

The land of Tamarynth is overseen by the elected Council and system that regulates those with magical powers. Referred to as morphia, this substance possessed by certain individuals grants them a variety of powers, in Roe Damarcus’s case the power of resurrecting spirits from the afterlife. As the famed daughter of one of the councilmen and only member with magical powers, her powers are largely used for show at high society events. However following a failed trial to evaluate the control of her powers, she is faced with either forceful loss of her resurrection skill or a four-year stint working aboard the luxury cruise liner the Celestial. Full of magic, demanding guests, but also unspoken horrors and danger, Roe must not only prove herself worthy of a retrial over all the other staff members competing for the available spots, but also survive both the suppression by the Bosses on board as well as the cruise ship itself.

I will be the first to admit that I picked up this book on the premise and cover alone, a fantasy thriller and mystery aboard a dangerous magic-filled cruise ship is an amazingly cool concept. Yet, as fascinating the Celestial ship is, this book has a lot more story and content to beyond its dreamy cruise line. While enchanted at first glance, Alexandra’s world has a lot of interesting framework and context surrounding the famed ship. While Roe’s family holds prestige and status thanks to her father’s position on the council and skills as an alchemist, the consequences for morphic users is dire when it comes to their mandatory trials that can result in the loss of their magic or sentence them to potential death upon the Celestial. Tamarynth’s society is one that thrives off the skills of select types of morphics (primarily menders and crafters) while others are feared for their power or potential abuse. As the reader follows Roe as she navigates her trial and service upon the Celestial, nothing in this book is as it appears. The Bosses she’s oppressed by, the stuffy family she is assigned to serve, the goal of a retrial and redemption in the eye of society, every narrative element of this book holds unexpected surprises behind a layer of rose-tinted magical whimsy.

Serving dual purpose as a high-end luxury vacation experience as well as a penal reformatory, the cruise is a fascinating concept. On-board the ship, indentured morphic users are subjected to an unfair and soul-crushing experience, subjected to the whims of both their wealthy clientele as well as the twistedly ruthless Bosses that run the cruise. Warned against venturing into the ship’s halls at night, staff are also at risk of death as the halls come alive with horrifying visuals, lethal traps, and psychological warfare induced on its inhabitants. The events and experiences on the Celestial initially seem contradictory, both shimmeringly magical while also brutal and threatening, but the end result works well. Additionally, the juxtaposition of the cruise’s opulent service sitting just above the disturbing system that facilitates it is creative and imaginative in the dastardliest ways. Violent and brutal at times, this is a YA book that skews on the older end of the reader demographics. The reformatory system, political agendas, and trajectory of the story also give the book an almost dystopian feel to it, though dystopia has never looked and felt more ethereal than in Midnight on the Celestial. The plot is polished and solid, very appropriately crafted for YA readership without dumbing down or dulling its more ambitious ideas.

While the story almost resembles a thriller at times, even a horror on occasion, the book is filled with wonderful fantasy visuals that balance out the darker elements of the narrative. From fancy enchanted cocktails, to shapeshifting staff and experiences, to dazzling interior decor, and finally aerial silk performances; yes, Ivander the main male character is not only handsome and muscled but is also a graceful silk dancer. In short, this book has no shortage of magic and beautiful visuals. Alexandra’s visuals are not only striking when in sparkly aesthetic moments, but also in darker scenes as well. Roe’s swirling and mysterious forms of resurrection, the graphic descriptions of the dead, deathly scenes on the Celestial including mild body horror are all handled and presented vibrantly. Another area that’s handled well is the descriptions and intimidation factor of the Bosses. When extracted from people with powers, the morphic substance is portrayed as a volatile, powerful, and mysterious material. The Bosses that run the Celestial who use and are drawn to the morphic substance are portrayed like addicted drug users, both behaviorally and physically (the visual descriptions are unsettling to great effect).

Another one of the book’s strengths is its character work. I really enjoyed Roe as a main character narrator who at the start of the book, feels a little trying, too confident and entitled with her pursuit of a retrial. But that’s completely by design given her sheltered upbringing and her abrupt fall from grace. Over the course of the book, her character grows not only more confident in herself and powers, but also in her understanding of others. I was particularly impressed with Alexandra’s character logic that feels age appropriate and embodies that specific teenage angst, drive, and sense of righteousness (aka, also relentless stubbornness). That YA touch also extends to the story’s themes of freedom and loss of choice, confronting one’s fears, and found family following the loss or conflict with one’s nuclear family. I thought Ivander was a nice foil to Roe’s personality, as both the charitable, mature, yet frustratingly put together protector of the ship’s friend group and elegant aerial performer. The other characters are quite varied in terms of personality and powers, particularly Roe’s assigned mistress Asralyn. Their fraught and strained stewardess-guest acquaintance is well written and dynamically shifts as Roe’s investigation into the ship’s history progresses. Despite being a story focused on Roe and to a lesser extent Ivander, you really start to care about the rest of the friend group by the end of the story and are rooting for them to survive. The characters’ challenges, backstories, and dreams are all effectively built on and brought full circle by the ending, the Celestial being the catalyst for change in unplanned and unexpected ways. It’s worth noting that although this book is sometimes tagged as a romance novel, the romance is very light and plays a supporting act to the main fantasy thriller/mystery storyline. Ivander adds a bit of abrasive eye candy turned mentor ally, but the romance is not the focus and shouldn’t be why one reads this book. In fact, romance shouldn’t be a listed genre for this book at all and is likely only there for marketing purposes.

Ambitiously crafted and very well plotted, if I had to critique anything in this book, it would be that the start of the story isn’t quite as exciting compared to Roe’s time on the Celestial and that early chapters slightly suffer from mild info-dumping. Understandably, the book is well aware that the magical ship is the big draw for the book and wants to get Roe on to it ASAP, but the scope of the story requires a good amount of world-building and narrative purpose to be established prior to Roe’s service. While it’s far from being poorly handled, the morphic and council politics of Tamarynth are breezed through a bit too quickly and densely to fully stick, which becomes a mild concern once the story gets into its final act. Roe’s extended family members aren’t quite given enough time and familiarity for some of their later emotional beats to hit quite as hard as they could, though again, it’s understandable as YA books need to be snappy to satisfy younger readers with shorter attention spans. The same could be said about the prose which is generally simplistic and merely serviceable, but is appropriate for a YA read. Even milder nitpicks are that the alchemy power is sort of used as a catch-all a bit too often as a convenient plot mechanism and the evening horrors on the Celestial don’t really have much rhyme or reasonable explanation apart from being a poorly understood phenomenon. However, these points do not actively hinder the story nor are they very noticeable for more casual readers.

Featuring a creative and engaging story with characters relatably written and age-appropriate, Midnight on the Celestial is a very solid and well-rounded YA fantasy novel. Balancing its macabre elements with magical visuals and splendor, the ship and its surrounding narrative are perfectly set up for its appealing characters to move around in. Applying elements of thriller, mystery, psychological horror genres complimenting a dark fantasy story, the book has something for everyone. While some adult fantasy readers may find the characters or story to be a little juvenile, the book’s plot twists and world-building complexity will likely catch them pleasantly by surprise. And if all else fails, the magical Celestial cruise ship is the stuff of childhood fantasy dreams, the crucial element the book certainly delivers on!