BLUE MOON.

BLUE MOON by LAURELL K. HAMILTON.

Richard was an alpha werewolf. It was his only serious flaw. We'd broken up after I'd seen him eat somebody.

You never forget your ex-fiance. And when the call came at three in the morning, I thought for a moment it was him. It wasn't. It was his brother. And it wasn't good news. Apparently, the former love of my life had got himself thrown into jail for assaulting a woman.


Since I make my living as a preternatural expert, I tend to believe almost anything's possible. But though he may be one of the monsters, Richard would never harm a woman. so it's Anita to the rescue. I've got just a few days to spring Richard and find out who framed him - and why. There's a full moon coming, and if my werewolf love is still behind bars when it rises, he'll be facing a lot worse than an assault charge.
..... Outer back cover.


FIRST SENTENCE (Chapter 1): I was dreaming of cool flesh and sheets the color of fresh blood.

MEMORABLE MOMENT (Page 318): "Money doesn't spend in hell, Wilkes. The devil deals in a different coin."

KEEP IT OR NOT?: Not though I shall be passing it on to another friend who has read any books in the serial.

Let me begin by defending Blue Moon by saying that this was part 8 in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series none of which I've ever read before so there were parts that I didn't fully understand. Would it have been more readable if I had read previous books? Hmm, do you know I'm not convinced it would AND, to be totally honest, if this is a fair indication of the quality of writing I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have reached this far if I had read any of the other books.

With a promising start, by about half way through (and I'm probably being generous here) I found myself struggling, really struggling.

To me the narrative just didn't flow and what started out as an ok read quickly seemed to become a collection of antedotes that led to my reading pages and pages of a sexual or violent nature (sometime both) which quickly became very boring.

And it wasn't just the plot either. I also found the characters pretty tedious. Full of vampires and wereanimals I quickly lost off as to who was which (not a problem if I'd read any of the other books? Perhaps not.) 

And, to be totally honest, I just didn't find either of the main characters believable. Anita (vampire executioner and necromancer), I started out quite liking, feisty and independent, she was a real kick-ass kind of chick typical of this genre. However I quickly tired of her and found myself thinking her less and less believable as the story went on. As for werewolf Richard (not that his parents realised he was one. How could they have missed this?)I found him laughable - squeamish about killing other shapeshifters let alone human beings, there were several lengthy references to him blow drying his hair.

The 61st book read for my 100+ Reading Challenge, Blue Moon was not the best supernatural story I've ever read. Ex library stock, I'm glad I only paid 30p for it.