I read an eARC of this book so thank you to the author and the publisher.

This book blends vampire fiction with a detective story set in South Korea and it does it so well! The noir feel of the investigation just works so beautifully with the modern vampire. There’s a pervasive darkness throughout this book that creates such an incredible atmosphere.

We have three points of view in this book. We have a historical story in France in the 1980s and then two characters perspectives in a modern setting in South Korea. We follow an investigator in present day who is looking into some disturbing deaths at a care home, and a nurse who works there. Our historical perspective is a teenager in France who makes a mysterious friend in a cinema. The way the three perspectives were connected was brilliant, this was done seamlessly.

I was riveted by this book, I was so compelled to find out what would happen to the characters. An excellent exploration of vampires in a modern setting, how they would behave differently, how they adapt to modern technology and how detectives would respond to their activities.

A pretty quick read. A great mix of mystery and crime with a supernatural element. I enjoyed the characters and the over all flow of the story. Something I have always wondered how a vampire can go through life and what the loneliness would be like.

I really struggled to feel gripped by this book. It started off strong but I felt the description of setting and atmosphere was missing.

My favourite part of the story is between Violette and Lily, it had mystery and intrigue. I looked forward to learning more about Lily. I also found the concept of vampires being able to smell loneliness interesting.

The main story, however, felt a bit bland, the stakes weren’t quite high enough. There didn’t seem to be any sort of urgency to progress the story or stop the killer.

This fast short story was everything I thought it would be. It gave the sapphic vampires, the themes of exploring loneliness, fast paced that I didn't want to put down. I liked the different povs, but would've preferred to get into more of the world. And be it the writing or the translation, sometimes I snapped out of it because I had to go back a paragraph.

Thanks to the publisher for allowing me access. I blasted through this easy read that will please fans of Let the Right One In and The Old Woman with the Knife. The narrative felt a little unfocused for me, with too many POVs where I would have preferred to sit with one or two in more detail. The lonely blood concept was interesting.

3.5/5

"They wanted to join the flowers of heaven, end this suffering..."

Cheon Seon-Ran's novel is based on a series of reported suicides at a hospital and care home on the run-down outskirts of Seoul. Young female detective, Su-Yeon, and jaded vampire hunter, Violette, join forces as nobody else pays heed to the strange and bloodless nature of the deceased’s bodies. These two night owls are forced to work together in a pursuit of justice.

This was a page turning mystery that had me gripped from the start. It is a subtle exploration of isolation and the affect loneliness has in making a person turn towards the dark for some form of connection. In this sapphic vampire story, the bond between different sets of characters gives the reader varying points of view on the questions of wether one will do anything for love and if the ones we love are capable of something so dark.

The past and present collide in this mysterious, fantasy, supernatural story which does cross over to something dark and bizarre.

3.5 Stars

This was a fun short read, but I found it lacked a bit of depth in the lore/plot that left me disatisfied. I also wasn't a huge fan of the translation/writing - obviously it's hard to say if this is the actual writing or just a translation thing - but I found it a bit simplistic and boring. On the whole an interesting edition to the sapphic vampire canon!

Murder mystery x sapphic vampires? Yes please! I'm no stranger to translated korean fiction, and was already a fan of A Thousand Blues by Cheon Seon-Ran earlier this year so I was very interested to see a darker story from her. The book is simple: Suyeon is a detective investigating a string of suicides in a elderly rehabilitation hospital, but things are taking a turn when these deaths don't make much sense.

What unravels is a series of interweaving narratives between Suyeon and two other characters with their own motivations, which made for a layered read. Violette is my favourite, and embodies the liminal experience of an adopted child growing up far from her native land, and her desire to build an emotional connection that transcends borders, and even human nature.

Maybe because the formatting made it hard to delineate the perspectives, I found the first 1/3 the book a bit slow but quickly picked up as Suyeon races to find out culprits behind the mysterious deaths. The book explores key societal undercurrents in Korea, particularly the generational tension between youthful ambition and filial duty. The spotlight is on a growing loneliness epidemic, nowhere more evident than in the quiet tragedies of so-called "lonely deaths," mourning these lost lives but also the vanishing sense of family and belonging.

3.5* (rounded down here)

2.5 stars rounded to 3

Thanks to NetGalley & Bloomsbury for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

The story kicks off with series of suicides in a hospital catering to the elderly. The main character, a detective named Suyeon, believes there is more to the story. She meets Violette, a mysterious woman, who claims to be a vampire hunter...

I loved the premise for this story, my favourite parts were about Violette and I would have loved more context and backstory around her and how she became a hunter. As this is a short book, there is a lot of context and world building missing, e.g. the vampires of this world and not bitten, but we never find out how they came to be?

The comprehension of the writing was difficult at times and I found myself re-reading many paragraphs to understand them. There is some Korean used in the book, but is used inconsistently which caused me to be confused about some of the side characters. Unfortunately the eARC did not help this; the formatting was all over the place and it was very difficult to decipher paragraphs and chapters. I would recommend Bloomsbury to distribute future eARCs in epub format over PDF.

Had heard so much about this and it honestly delivered on every expectation! I loved the characters, the story and the translation was spot on!

Short, sharp and utterly absorbing, The Midnight Shift delivers a vampire mystery with bite. Blending the supernatural with an all-too-human emotional core, this queer noir thriller is as much about loneliness and grief as it is about the undead.

When a string of elderly patients die in eerily similar circumstances at the same hospital, Officer Su-Yeon finds herself the only person asking questions. Everyone else is happy to chalk the deaths up to age and despair, but with her own beloved friend living on the same ward, Su-Yeon digs deeper. Her search brings her face-to-face with Wanda, an enigmatic stranger whose answers veer from the rational into the realm of the fantastical. Vampires? Surely not. And yet the bodies tell a different story.

The pacing is brisk, the writing clever and cutting, and the mystery itself is laced with just enough dread to keep the pages turning. What sets The Midnight Shift apart is its quiet exploration of emotional isolation—how loneliness can make us vulnerable to the darkest of forces, human or otherwise. There’s also something tender at its core: the fragile bond between Su-Yeon and Eun-Shim, and the slow, uncertain connection forming between Su-Yeon and Wanda.

A noir-tinged urban fantasy with heart, this is a perfect pick if you want something dark, poignant and a little bit strange.

The NetGalley version has reduced the rating as it was hard to distinguish between paragraphs and chapters, I'd recommend uploading a better version if possible.

This was weird and strange and just such an incredible experience! I was honestly captivated by the crime and mystery elements of this and how it was overlayed with the supernatural! I’m soooo in love with this book it’s unreal! I’ve never actually read a Korean book in translation before but this was so amazing and I need to read anyrbing the author puts out!!

I feel that this is the type of book that I think I didn't really take in as I was reading it but parts of it will stay with me for a very long time. I really enjoyed how each story line wove together. It was sad and lonely. It was both brutal and gentle.

The Midnight Shift is a Korean vampire novel about loneliness and connection, as a police detective tries to uncover the mystery of a series of apparent suicides when a woman claims a vampire was to blame. Su-Yeon is a detective investigating deaths at a condemned care home, particularly worried about her elderly friend who is a resident there. She meets Violette, a vampire hunter, who blows everything out of the water when she reveals that a vampire is to blame, but as they delve further, they might be putting themselves in danger.

There tends to be two main ways of presenting vampires: either from the point of view only of human characters, or having vampire perspectives in the narrative. This book is the former, a vampire book that is very much about the humans, and their connections to each other and to vampires. The mystery plot drives the book, which is told from three different perspectives, two in the present day of the narrative and one that's more of a flashback. This makes the book feel multifaceted, bringing together different genres including mystery and queer romance.

I did feel that the vampire side of the book felt underdeveloped at times, particularly in how the vampires adapted to place given that the present of the book is set in Seoul and there's flashbacks set in France. I like how the book doesn't feel the need to tell the reader too much, but occasionally it made events and character relationships confusing, rather than mysterious.

I enjoyed The Midnight Shift, but I also was a bit disappointed as I wanted the different elements to just be a bit more. It is an atmospheric book that paints a sad picture of loneliness, but it didn't quite grab me as I'd hoped.

as a vampire rushes around killing the people of seoul a vampire hunter finds the truth.

the concept of this really intrigued me. the writing was simplistic and drew you in - especially the descriptive writing.

my favourite part in particular was lily and violettes relationship - despite one being a vampire.

this was a quick paced intriguing read and i definitely enjoyed it. it was one of the better translated fictions i’ve read.

An interesting novel that uses the setting of a detective coming to learn of the existence of vampires, as a device to question the longevity of human life, and how easy it is to pray on the loneliness people have if they don't have family or friends to look out for them, how they are ultimately not missed. It's also a book which tackles the messy nature of human connections, a form of social commentary on society as it is today.

The novel felt a little reminiscent of the Korean Vampire Detective or Vampire Prosecutor TV series.

Thank you for the e-ARC Netgalley & Bloomsbury, it's a book which I'm looking forward to getting my hands on in print once released.

Thank you to the author and publishers for allowing me an ARC via NetGalley!

The description for this book really hooked me; a mix of fantasy, crime, fiction, and sapphic tones. The premise of this book is incredible, and the plot is so unique that I’ve never really heard of it before so I was excited to try this.
One of the best things about this book is the way it explores human emotions - loneliness, guilt, abandonment, apathy, and isolation. It felt very genuine and offered a unique viewpoint into how our actions can make others feel, intentionally or not.
I found it hard to relate to any of the characters, as a lot of them felt underdeveloped as there was no context or history given. I also found the story hard to follow at times, as it does jump between different characters and different timelines, and this caused me to struggle to read it sometimes as I felt distracted.
Overall, this was a good book, and the premise really has some potential, but I don’t think it was the book for me.

Rating: 3/5 stars (⭐️⭐️⭐️/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

"They're right beside us, Suyeon said, her voice detached. 'So be careful. The only way we can protect ourselves is by making sure no one is left alone?' Because in every corner untouched by sight, and deprived of light, they were out there, breathing in the scent of lonely blood."

The Midnight Shift is Gene Png's translation of 밤에 찾아오는 구원자 by 천선란 (Cheon Seon-ran)

This is the second of the Korean author's novels to appear in English after A Thousand Blues is translated by Chi-Young Kim from the original 천개의 파랑.

If that novel was sentimental sci-fi reminscent of Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun (or rather the other way round since 천개의 파랑 came first), this one takes us into vampire territory.

This is however really, at its heart, a novel about loneliness.

It opens with a detective, Suyeon, called to the fourth in a series of suicides at the Cheolma Rehabilitation Hospital, essentially a care facility for elderly patients, most suffering from dementia. The series of deaths seems to her rather suspiscious (as is the fact that the elderly patients managed to jump from the top of the hospital, and indeed .... the odd lack of blood), but her partner points out there is no upside in investigating:

"Look, we could go on and on about whether or not we've got a case on our hands. So let's ask ourselves the most important question here - who is interested in bringing the case to light? Because here's the thing, if the only one interested in finding the truth is the detective, then it's all pointless? Suyeon stayed quiet. Chantae continued. No one showed up for these victims, kid. No one."

However one of the patients in the hospital, who she calls Granny (Halmonie) is, while not a blood relative, someone important to her so she carries on her investigation. And she finds she is not the only one investigating as she encounters Violette (a Korean orphan adopted by a French couple, now living back in Korea) who rather casually tells her that she suspects a vampire is involved, and that Violette is a vampire hunter.

The novel is told from the alternating perspectives of Suyeon, Violette (including her back story from her teenage years in France) and that of Nanju, a nurse in the hospital with a rather chequered past and who herself seems to be tied up in the events.

The vampire world here is - as Violette explains - not entirely consistent with the legend of movies/novels - garlic, crossed and silver bullets are useless; there is a written code of conduct between vampires and the human organisation Violette represents, so she can only kill vampires if they breach it (e.g. she must be able to prove they murdered a victim, not simply took their blood), and most pertinently, the idea that once bitten by a vampire one becomes one is a myth, one made up by authors "to capture the romance of spending eternity together".

As here relationships between vampires and humans can exist, but even when affectionate are rather like those between a human and a short-lived pet.

And the blood that vampires seek most is that of the most lonely of all - such as the abandoned patients in the hospital:

'People who are driven to the edge of loneliness and solitude don’t cry. They’ve forgotten how, or know their tears would only go to waste. They pass their days staring into nothing with soulless eyes. Crying when you’re sad, that is, being able to cry, is a testament that your will to live still exists. People who’ve lost their will to live don’t cry. Because crying won’t grant them release. If no tears are shed, then no moisture escapes the body. Extra moisture dilutes a person’s blood, just like aged wine. And since they are creatures with an inconceivably keen sense of smell, they can discern the scent of lonely blood.'

“외로움과 고독 끝에 몰린 사람들은 울지 않거든. 잊었다고 해야 할지 소용없는 걸 안다고 해야 할지. 영혼 없는 눈동자로 허공만 바라보며 하루를 까먹지. 슬플 때 눈물이 난다는 거, 그래서 울 수 있다는 거, 그 나름대로 살아 있다는 의미야. 의욕을 잃은 사람들은 울지 않거든. 운다고 속이 시원해지는 것도 아니니까. 그렇게 울지 않으면 몸속 수분이 밖으로 빠져나가지를 못해. 그 수분 때문에 피가 아주 묽어지는 거지. 잘 숙성된 적포도주처럼. 그들은 우리와 비교할 수 없을 정도로 후각이 발달해서 그 고독한 피의 향을 맡을 수 있어.”

Relationships play a key role in the novel - and there are strong hints of queer love as well (particularly the relationship as a teenager between Violette, isolated by her confused identity, and a vampire Lily), although this is not particularly explicit, and indeed it is a strangely sexless novel.

And the relationships are often complex in their dependencies - Nanju is addicted to the relationship with the figure that is behind the deaths, even though she knows herself: "Once she had learned that he was just a fucking bat who killed for sport, she should've made a run for it. But she couldn't. He'd freed her from her father's respirator. Of course, what shed believed was love, and what she'd given up everything for, turned out to be a mere hallucination, a symptom of breathing in the poison he exhaled."

A more satisfying novel than the vampire-murder-mystery set up might suggest, indeed that's perhaps the weakest part (quite how Violette kills vampires is for example rather unclear, as is the relationship between them and humans).

3.5 stars rounded to 4.

Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for an ARC.

This was an interesting take on vampires - the idea that they can sense loneliness, that it draws them to humans, that those make the best feast... it's a cool idea, and one that works well. The best type of victim is the one nobody will miss and in this book, the killer is feasting on just that.

The main characters were all interesting - although confusingly the blurb on Goodreads has one of the characters under a different name - a translating error? A change that hasn't gone through? The name in the actual book fits the story a lot better.

The best parts were the story in France, the themes of love and loss even when young.

I both wanted more and less of Korea in this - more because I wanted to know what they thought of vampires, what kind of creature haunted their nightmares, their folklore. And less because there were times when the translator left in words that to those who don't know Korean, made no sense. I didn't understand some of the titles and terms and felt as if I was missing part of the story as a result.

An engaging read that I finished in a day, that left me with more questions and the hope that the author returns to this world. More vampire hunting and police work please!

An interesting detective story that unwound the story well, though the climax was a bit confusing. I enjoyed the blending of two different timelines and the way the writer juggled multiple perspectives.