Series spotlight - Midnighters by Scott Westerfeld

There are so many good books that have been out in the market for ages. Series Spotlight is to introduce readers to series they may not have heard of before and will be featured every Thursday. Today’s spotlight is the Midnighters series by Scott Westerfeld.

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Today I’m stealing synopsises (which looks like it shouldn’t be a word but my spellchecker tells me is right) from Amazon because I don’t have time to write them myself.
I love the idea for this series – every day at midnight there’s an hour which most people don’t get, but five teenagers do. They’re not alone in this secret hour though, they share it with monsters. The series are well plotted and full of action. Half of the characters are well developed and half seem a bit spare-party. Westerfeld makes good use of maths and physics in this series – the teenagers have special talents that help them understand such things, and use it to explain a lot. This makes it more believable but at times a bit too technical. Although they’re not the best written books I’ve read, the series is fast-paced and full of adventure.

The Secret Hour
Strange things happen at midnight in the town of Bixby, Oklahoma. Time freezes. Nobody moves. For one secret hour each night, the town belongs to the dark creatures that haunt the shadows. Only a small group of people know about the secret hour - only they are free to move about the midnight time. These people call themselves Midnighters. Each one has a different power that is strongest at midnight: Seer, Mindcaster, Acrobat, Polymath. For years the Midnighters and the dark creatures have shared the secret hour, uneasily avoiding one another. All that changes when the new girl with an unmistakable midnight aura appears at Bixby High School. Jessica Day is not an outsider like the other Midnighters. She acts perfectly normal in every way. But it soon becomes clear that the dark creatures sense a hidden power in Jessica ...and they're determined to stop her before she can use it.
I haven’t actually read this yet. I know, these series spotlights are showing me just how bad I am at reading series in the right order! But it looks good and I will read it. Honest. I'm really interested to see Jessica meeting the other Midnighters, so I'll pick it up soon.

Touching Darkness
The Midnighters of Bixby, Oklahoma, know that their town is full of secrets - especially since they keep the biggest secret of all: knowledge of the secret hour. What they don't know is why earlier generations of Midnighters all disappeared, or why they are now the only Midnighters in town. As they learn more about the secret hour's twists and turns, they uncover terrifying mysteries woven into the very fabric of Bixby's history, and a conspiracy that touches both the midnight hour and the world of daylight. At the same time, the Midnighters' own secrets start to emerge, including some that were never meant to come to light, changing the fragile dynamics among the five. This time Jessica Day is not the only Midnighter in mortal danger. If the group can't find a way to overcome their differences, they could lose one of their own - forever.
This series is very clever, fast paced, and has an interesting plot. There is lots of tension between the Midnighters, too much some might say. The idea that people who have to put their lives in each other’s hands wouldn’t choose one another for friends and have very little in common is really interesting.

Blue Noon
The Midnighters now know much more about the secret history of Bixby and, with the halfling dead, the Grayfoots' link to the darklings has been severed. But the cost is high. Rex's horrific experience in the desert has left him damaged, painfully suspended between light and dark. Melissa's violation of Dess's mind and the shameful revelations of her past deeds have shattered the uneasy bond among the five teenagers. What they need now is some time to heal, but what they get is the surprise of their lives when the blue time arrives in the middle of the day. It seems the walls between the secret hour and real time are crumbling, and soon the dark creatures will break through to hunt after centuries of waiting. And as if that wasn't enough for Jessica to deal with, her little sister, Beth, is becoming more and more determined to crack the secret of midnight - a goal that could have consequences more dire than she can ever have imagined.
There is so much plot packed into this book! It’s a clever, interesting end to the series. The ‘eclipses’ of the blue hour in normal time make their lives even more dangerous and unpredictable. While the ending was interesting, I wasn’t completely happy with it – let’s just say that the life of one of the Midnighters is altered drastically.