{"id":6708,"date":"2019-08-22T11:20:56","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T15:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=6708"},"modified":"2019-08-22T11:20:56","modified_gmt":"2019-08-22T15:20:56","slug":"book-review-harvest-moon-the-chosen-of-bella-luna-1-by-lyra-zonder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-harvest-moon-the-chosen-of-bella-luna-1-by-lyra-zonder\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Harvest Moon (The Chosen of Bella Luna, #1) by Lyra Zonder"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

Harvest Moon (The Chosen of Bella Luna, #1), <\/em>by Lyra Zonder<\/p>\n

Newman Springs Publishing, 2019<\/p>\n

ISBN: 978-1-64096-784-7<\/p>\n

Availability: paperback, Kindle<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you like exciting stories, this isn’t for you.<\/p>\n

If you like werewolf stories, this isn’t for you either.<\/p>\n

If you like horror stories, this REALLY isn’t for you.<\/p>\n

BUT\u2026if you loved the Twilight<\/em> series and can handle pages of graphic sex, this is right up your alley.<\/p>\n

Harvest Moon<\/em> tells the predictable story of Bella and Edward (sorry, Abigail and Killian) with Abby being a half-breed werewolf and Killian being a full-blooded one.\u00a0 Abby is married to an abusive human husband in Seattle, and Killian is the alpha male of a pack of werewolves in Idaho.\u00a0 Killian’s sister receives a vision that Abby is meant to be Killian’s lifelong “mate,”so he races off to Seattle to find her, then brings her home. From there, it goes like this, and it’s a minor spoiler: Kidnapping.\u00a0 Car chase.\u00a0 Brief fight.\u00a0 Sex.\u00a0 Celebration.\u00a0 A few family revelations.\u00a0 The End.\u00a0 That sums up almost 400 pages.<\/p>\n

Problems abound in this one.\u00a0 The main one is that the characters, with one notable exception, are flatter than a flower in a hydraulic press.\u00a0 Killian is the predictable Adonis, a muscle-bound, wolfosterone-loaded hothead. He’s willing to die, or kill, anyone who interferes with his “soulmate”; while Abby is a timid wallflower.\u00a0 As expected, they rub off on each other: Abby develops a bit of backbone, and Killian learns to occasionally use more than two brain cells to reason out a situation.\u00a0 The rest of the characters simply aren’t interesting, with the exception of Nicky ‘The Mouth.” He’s the one character loaded with personality who is actually entertaining. The rest are easily forgettable.\u00a0 It’s a shame the other characters weren’t developed as well as him: it might have saved the story.<\/p>\n

Other problems include the focus of the story and the lack of “wolf time”.\u00a0 Half the book was just Killian and Abby, professing their love and constantly talking about how they can’t live without each other, they were meant for each other, they would die for each other, etc.\u00a0 The point was made quickly enough; the author didn’t need to take up the majority of the book with it.\u00a0 Also, if it’s a story about werewolves, shouldn’t it have, um\u2026WEREWOLVES?\u00a0 The characters were only in wolf form for about five pages of the entire book– not a recipe for a compelling story.\u00a0 In addition, parts of the book strain credibility.\u00a0 For example, the characters are able to disable the security camera system on a hospital, which would typically have its master panel inside, from the OUTSIDE!\u00a0 Fiction doesn’t have to be perfect, but it helps to have at least a little bit of realism.\u00a0 Did I mention that these wolves can run over 80MPH?\u00a0 Wolves aren’t sprinters: were these wolves cross-bred with cheetahs?<\/p>\n

In short, this is an imitation of Twilight<\/em> with enough titillating sex to satisfy readers who like that sort of thing.\u00a0 Anyone else would do well to avoid this one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recommended: for readers of paranormal romance.<\/p>\n

Not recommended: everyone else.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contains: mild violence, mild profanity, graphic sex.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harvest Moon (The Chosen of Bella Luna, #1), by Lyra Zonder Newman Springs Publishing, 2019 ISBN: 978-1-64096-784-7 Availability: paperback, Kindle   If you like exciting stories, this isn’t for you. If you like werewolf stories, this isn’t for you either. If you like horror stories, this REALLY isn’t for you. BUT\u2026if you loved the Twilight<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2474,3985,3986,218,754],"class_list":["post-6708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-book-review","tag-harvest-moon","tag-lyra-zonder","tag-paranormal-romance","tag-werewolf-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6708"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6769,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6708\/revisions\/6769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}