Sometime Around Midnight

by Stephanie Pass

Sometimes forever starts with the last person you want.

Darci Griffin has sworn off romance—and the cocky new neighbor who catches her in the world’s most humiliating moment. She’s a children’s librarian with a fortress around her heart, an expert at dodging feelings and first dates. Alex Dixon is all sharp edges and bottled-up grief, a widower who lost everything and decided wanting nothing was safer. From their first clash—snark, sparks, and one infuriatingly good deed—they can’t stop hallway skirmishes, reluctant favors, late-night arguments that turn into the kind of confessions you only make in the dark.

What starts as irritation becomes chemistry that won’t be laughter that sneaks up on them, heat that makes rules feel irrelevant, and a tenderness neither of them thought they’d earn again. But choosing each other means risking what they’ve spent years protecting—her battered belief in being unlovable, his vow to never break a heart or his own again.

If they’re brave enough to drop their armor, the enemies they were might just make room for the lovers they’re meant to be.

SOMETIME AROUND MIDNIGHT is a steamy, heart-mending enemies-to-lovers romance about second chances, messy healing, and the moment you realize home is a person who argues with you…and stays.

434 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 16, 2025

About the author

Stephanie Pass hails from a tiny Texas town where she lives with her husband, three of her four feral children, and a Boxer dog who talks more than she does. She writes contemporary romance with some magical realism and sci-fi romance, but one day she will write that romantasy she’s dreaming about. She loves books about love, magic, and high fae. She had her own real live romance story come true when a chance encounter led her to meet her now husband. When she’s not writing romance stories, Stephanie is a mom blogger dancing to Taylor Swift at https://thetiptoefairy.com. But you can usually find her at the roller skating rink or dancing and singing in the front row of a pop-punk concert.

Find Stephanie around the web:

Https://authorstephaniepass.com
Https://instagram.com/authorstephanie...

Reviews

[Hannah Lindley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Darci has almost everything going for her. She has a successful career as a children’s librarian, a cozy home of her own, and an unbreakable bond with her best friend, Claire. However, she can’t help feeling a little envious of the love Claire shares with her fiancé, Edison. Meanwhile, Darci’s neighbor Alex, a doctor in the local hospital’s emergency room, is fighting to overcome his grief over a personal tragedy that took place years ago. When Darci and Alex cross paths, their interactions are full of miscommunication and misunderstandings — but some unidentified force keeps leading them back to each other.
This book was such a fun, dynamic read. Author Stephanie Pass managed to combine comedy and spice with relatable characters and a realistic depiction of grief. The vulnerability, love, and hesitation of the scene in which Alex brings Darci along to the cemetery brought me to tears. The only thing about the story that didn’t resonate with me was the slight element of magical realism with the annotated romance novels; it felt detached from the rest of the plot. Overall, though, I highly recommend this book.

[Francesca BC · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a sweet, beautiful, and heartfelt story about two heartbroken characters finding each other and overcoming their own self-sabotaging demons. Darci is a manic pixie dream with a twist - a children's librarian who who genuinely believes she might be cursed or simply unlovable after one disastrous date after another but remains hopeful that she'll find her person. Alex is an ER doctor who is still reeling from the tragic loss of his first love and child two years before the story begins.

This is a dual-POV book, and we get to see their journey from neighbours, to tentative friends, to something fragile and hopefully more. Alex has a frustrating, and at times, heartbreaking habit of self-sabotaging his own happiness. His instant regret and self-awareness in these moments makes him painfully human. Darci, meanwhile, is struggling with feelings of inadequacy and never being enough. Watching them collide, retreat, and slowly lower the walls around their hardened hearts felt incredibly tender.

There's a small touch of whimsical magic woven into this story, never overdone, but gently lending an enchanted feeling to their overall fated connection. Plus...the spice? Spicy! Stephanie Pass definitely didn't hold back in showing us the explosive chemistry building between them!

Overall, this book is a soft, emotional romance touching on grief, second chances, and love finding you even when you've convinced yourself that it never will.

[the.horror.girl.27 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was given an ARC copy of Sometime around midnight by Stephanie Pass. This is book two of a three book series and I did not read book one first. Each book focuses on primarily two different people in alternating POV and I didn’t feel I was confused at reading book two first. The characters in this book were developed fully and it was nice to have the dual POV and I think helped this be an enjoyable book to read without being confused about what happened in book one. Both main characters were likable and I couldn’t help but want them to get together. Definitely a fun read.