As the Sarah Midnight trilogy reaches its conclusion I can’t help but reflect on the journey the author Daniela Sacerdoti, has taken herself.
Born and educated in Italy she comes from an ‘interesting family’; she became a Primary School teacher and lives near Glasgow with her husband and two young boys. Having become a full-time Mum, she turned to writing and in just a few years has produced the Sarah Midnight trilogy as well as two books for adults, and two picture books. Daniela is one of these authors who can switch genres between women’s fiction, fantasy and children’s writer, apparently at the drop of a space bar.
As for this fantasy series, Daniela’s imagination continues to go on the rampage as she invents demon after demon, and power after power. At the heart of the story is fifteen year old Sarah Midnight, the last of her line of the Midnight Secret families and the two ‘boys’ to whom she is attracted, for very different reasons: Sean, whose role as gamekeeper is to protect the secret families and Nicholas, the son of the all-powerful King of Shadows. Along with other members of secret families and gamekeepers, they journey to the world of the King of Shadows to overcome him in one final battle and save humanity. Read on if you love exotic ways to die!
There is, by this third novel, a plethora of characters and Daniela endeavours to keep us up to date with who they are and what they think by switching viewpoint characters  and showing us the action from different sides. But she still keeps us waiting until the very end to find out Nicholas’s true intentions. Is he playing a game that really will bring about his father’s destruction or has the torture and abuse he has to suffer – from his father, but also from Sarah’s troupe of vigilantes – weakened his resolve and his physical strength?
In this third novel too, we see the young teenagers having to deal with all the emotions that teenagers have to face when dealing with sex. It couldn’t be straightforward, there are reasons why Sarah and Sean’s attraction to each other may not work out, but it’s no surprise that we eventually see the characters pairing off nicely towards the finale, if not in quite the way we thought. Â And then, as the summer holidays come to an end and they return to Edinburgh, life has to go on, there are old friendships to re-engage with and mundane things like college to sort out.
Having fallen in love with Sarah, Daniela might be expected to have wanted to keep her character going, but she is eminently business-like about her work and, as we have seen, she has many different plans for her career as an author.
I strongly recommend reading the previous two books, Dreams and Tide first.
Spirit is available from Amazon in kindle and paperback versions
