Forsaking Midnight by Emily Mcintire

Here is a summary with spoilers for Forsaking Midnight by Emily Mcintire

In a proglogue, we meet Lance and Art, two best friends. Art has a girlfriend named Genevive, but Lance doesn’t like her at all. Though Art asks Lance to watch her, to be on her side. Begrdigunly Lance watches over Ginny.

Fast forward, Lance Calloway has spent the past six years imprisoned by Brutus Myrddin, who operates an illegal underground fighting ring beneath the Round Table Tavern known as The Lye. When Lance was eighteen, his best friend Arthur "Art" Penngrove, the mayor's son, accumulated an enormous gambling debt. Lance's father paid the debt by selling Lance to Brutus, who promised that Lance would earn his freedom once the debt was repaid. Instead, Brutus continually invents new reasons to keep Lance under his control, espeically because Lance is good at what he does. Lance is forced to participate in brutal fights, kill opponents when ordered, and become involved in criminal activities that are secretly recorded to ensure he can never testify against the organization. Despite everything Brutus has done, Lance remains loyal to Art because he believes none of it was directly Art's fault and because Art has been his closest friend since childhood.

Genevieve DeGrance is a talented sous chef from Boston who was raised solely by her father after her mother died giving birth to her. Without warning, she loses her restaurant job and finds herself blacklisted throughout Boston's culinary industry. After dating Art for roughly a year, she accepts his invitation to move to Rosebrook Falls, believing the town will offer both a fresh start and an opportunity to build a future with him, and Ginny’s father agrees with her. Before leaving, she and her father create a code word in case he ever gets in trouble, as he is a lawyer and often working with criminals. This makes Ginny feel a bit more relaxed with leaving.

Art gives her a bartending position at the Round Table Tavern, although she never fully understands how he suddenly has the money to purchase the business. Almost immediately after arriving, she notices that Art is constantly distracted, disappears for unexplained meetings, and becomes evasive whenever she asks questions about the tavern or his business partners. One evening she made a homemade dinner thinking Art would be home, but instead he sends in Lance to watch over her. 

Ginny's first interactions with Lance are hostile. Lance views her as another complication in his already dangerous life, while Ginny sees him as cold, intimidating, and constantly watching her. Unknown to her, Lance has been ordered to keep her alive because someone connected to Brutus has taken an interest in her. After several suspicious incidents, including realizing she is being followed, Lance is forced into the role of her bodyguard. The arrangement places them together almost constantly, and although they initially argue over nearly everything, Ginny slowly recognizes that Lance is the only person who consistently tells her the truth. Meanwhile, Lance begins seeing that Ginny is far stronger and more compassionate than he originally believed.

Meanwhile in the fighting pits, Percy, a new teenager is brought into be taught by Lance. He hates that a kid is there, and wants him out. But he offers to help teach Percy, and tries to make sure he doesn’t end up like himself. Percy does end up on some missions, and watches some of the fights, despite Lance trying otherwise. 

Ginny is excited for a night to be with Art, she once again makes a dinner and is all ready for him. But when Art arrives he says he is leaving to go hand out with Lance. This makes Ginny want to know more. She goes to Art’s office and sneaks in, she finds documents about underground fighting, and more importantly that  Art most likely orchastrated her being fired from her chef job in Boston; including not being able to find a job after. Angry, she decides to go find out where Lance lives so she can yell at Art. As she starts treking a forrested area she knows he lives in, she starts feeling like she is being stalked. Soon after Lance shows up, tells her someone is following her and brings her back to his house. There she learns about the underground fights, Brutus' control over him, and the violence Lance has been forced to commit in order to survive. Lance admits that many of his killings were not acts of choice but acts of coercion, and that Brutus deliberately created evidence that would permanently implicate him if he ever tried to escape. Ginny also discovers that much of Rosebrook Falls is controlled through intimidation, corruption, blackmail, and organized crime involving influential families throughout the town. These revelations fundamentally change how she views Lance. 

The emotional relationship between Lance and Ginny develops slowly through forced proximity thanks to Lance beliving that someone is stalking her, and that Art has been doing some shady things. Everynight Lance watches Ginny at her house, and during the day Percy watches her. Although both resist their attraction because she is dating Art and Lance refuses to betray his best friend, their trust deepens through repeated life-threatening situations. Lance repeatedly risks punishment to protect Ginny, while Ginny becomes determined to help Lance escape Brutus permanently. During this time Ginny makes a call back to her father, where he uses their code word to prove that he is not doing ok. She tells Lance, and they decide they need to make a plan to go see her dad. Their emotional intimacy eventually becomes impossible to ignore, and they acknowledge that they have fallen in love despite understanding the consequences. This is fully proven when Art arrives back and she spends time with him; she realizes she has fallen out of love with him, and that things are just not the same with them anymore. 

Throughout the novel, Art's behavior grows increasingly suspicious. While Lance initially believes Art is simply overwhelmed after purchasing the Round Table Tavern, evidence accumulates that Art knows far more about Brutus' operations than he admits. Ginny begins questioning whether Art has been manipulating her from the beginning and whether her firing from Boston may not have been a coincidence. Romeo and Juliet come to visit, and when the two girls are alone they see their stalker. Luckily the boys arrive just in time. Right after this, Lance admits his full feelings for Ginny, and the two kiss and spend the night together. But Ginny needs to break things off with Art before they go any further. But this will be a problem, because the next day is a party, and to get some information, she needs to pretend she is madly in love with Art. This backfires because during the ceremony Art proposes to Ginny in front of everyone and she is forced to accept, even though she is looking at Lance when she does so. 

Lance is furious that he had to watch the girl he loves say yes to marry another man. He goes straight to his brother Paxton and tells him everything that has happened between him Art, what their own father did to him, and everything about the fighting pits. The two start making a plan. Lance than goes to find Ginny, who is also in distress from everything. While both upset at the scenario, they reunite by kissing, and they spend the night together. 

The next morning Art is there to pick Ginny up, and doesn’t even question that Lance is there; figuring he is just being a good friend. Lance and Ginny though make up a fake plan so that they can leave and go see her dad. Paxton helps the two escape, and the two make a long drive to go see her dad. Along the way they spend the night in a motel where they both admit feelings again and sleep together. 

After Lance and Genevieve leave Art, the consequences of Art's actions finally catch up with him. Lance learns the full extent of how much his best friend has manipulated him and how the loyalty he believed he owed Art was used to keep him trapped in the underground fighting world for years. Lance had spent six years believing that his suffering was a sacrifice he had willingly made to protect Art, but he finally understands that Art's actions and secrets were responsible for far more of what happened to him than he had realized. The revelation destroys the bond between the two men. Lance refuses to continue sacrificing himself for Art and chooses Genevieve and his own future instead.

Genevieve also completely breaks away from Art. After discovering the truth about the man she believed she loved, she understands that much of their relationship was built around Art controlling what she knew and keeping her from seeing what was happening around her. She no longer accepts his explanations or allows him to make decisions for her. She leaves him behind with Lance, and the relationship between the three of them is permanently changed.

Art survives the ending, but he loses both Genevieve and Lance. His friendship with Lance is effectively over once Lance understands how deeply Art's actions contributed to the years he spent suffering. Art does not receive a dramatic death or a completely wrapped-up punishment. Instead, he is left alive and separated from the two people who had been most important to him. His storyline also remains somewhat open because the larger Rosebrook Falls conflicts and several of the characters' unresolved problems continue into the next book of the series.

By the novel's conclusion, Lance and Ginny fully choose each other, but the larger conflict surrounding Rosebrook Falls remains unresolved. Many of the town's criminal leaders—including Brutus and other influential figures—remain active (and her dad is still involved with it), numerous secrets surrounding the Penngrove family are still hidden, and several major revelations clearly set up future installments in the series. Lance and Ginny achieve their romantic happy ending; Ginny with her own restaurant, and Lance finally being able to feel free and choose for himself.