Books This Week - Cold Moon

Title: Moon #3 - Cold Moon

Author: M.J. O'Shea

Publisher: M.J. O'Shea

Length: 58,000 words

Rating: 4.5 Quills

Tags: paranormal, shifter, vampire, series, adventure, over time

Blurb

Charlie Fitzgerald is sick of being the kid who nobody takes seriously. His older brother Colin is off in New York City fighting bad vampires and other trouble causers and Charlie wants in on the action. He thinks it's impossible until he overhears something that seems like the perfect opportunity. The Lycan council is looking for a human emissary - someone to take a message of peace to a volatile werewolf who lives in the dark forests of Romania. Charlie decides that emissary will be him.

Xan, or X'andrien as he's know to his people, is furious. His best friend, who also happens to be one of the Fitzgeralds his family has vowed to protect, has gone missing. When they find out where Charlie has gone, Xan has to chase him all the way to Europe and eventually save his stubborn butt in the middle of the night the freezing cold Romanian forest. He never realized how much his best friend and charge meant to him until he was nearly killed.

Together, they end up stuck in the middle of a political mess that includes the lycans, the werewolves, and some very nosy vampires. If the two of them manage to make it out alive, they may realize that stuck together or not, years of friendship for one stubborn hunter and an equally bullheaded dryad protector can turn into a love neither of them is willing to live without.

Review

First off, I must note that this is the THIRD book in M.J. O'Shea's Moon series. Book 1 is Blood Moon and Book 2 is Hunter's Moon. Both are well worth the read and this is a series where you MUST read books 1 and 2 before you read book 3. =)

This book runs parallel to Hunter's Moon at the beginning which was interesting because it let us see what was happening outside PC and Miles' POV from book 2. Charlie is bored of high school and can't wait to start his training as a hunter. Whereas most hunters don't get clued into the paranormal until their 18th birthdays, he has known for years due to his well developed eavesdropping skills. What he doesn't know is that he fits the bill to fulfill a dryad prophecy. Unbeknownst to him, his best friend is really a dryad protector meant to keep him out of harm's way until he exacts the justice the prophecy promises or the next third son is born into his family. This gets him into all sorts of trouble when he traipses off in a fit of teen angst to prove to himself, his family and his best friend that he does have what it takes to be a hunter.

Xan and Charlie trek across Europe and back to NYC embroiling themselves paranormal politics, trying to stay out of trouble and dreading what their Moms will have to say when they get home. Somehow, through it all, they begin to realize that they are more than just best friends. They realize that they are in love with each other. This was a great book in that the plot and the romance were woven seamlessly together. M.J. continued to capture the wonderful intricacies of the paranormal world she has created for this series while not falling prey to the temptation to over complicate her world building. She also balanced Charlie and Xan's relationship plot with equal parts internal and external conflict. During the first part of the book, they are at odds with each other because neither feels they can tell the other the full truth. Eventually, all lies are revealed and their feelings come out. Then, the situation conspires to keep our two lovebirds apart. None of the conflicts felt overdone or tedious but rather seemed a natural progression. I felt particularly sympathetic to them when they were having live a part for so much of the time as I am living in a long distance relationship with my boyfriend. :/ 

Overall, this was a great continuation of what has come to be one of my favorite series. I think PC and Miles from Book 2 will always be my favorite but I had a seriously good time getting to know Charlie and Xan. 4.5 stars...We shall see if it gets upped to 5 next time I read it. =)

You can find Cold Moon here at All Romance eBooks for $0.99.

***
New Books read this week:
St. Nacho's 4 - Book of Daniel by Z.A. Maxfield- 3.5 stars
Ex-Equals by L.A. Witt - 3.5 stars
Love Means...Family by Andrew Grey - 3.5 stars
Bellskis 2 - Miracle of the Bellskis by Astrid Amara- 4 stars
Chase in Shadow by Amy Lane - 4 stars
Stroke! by M.J. O'Shea - 4.5 stars

Re-reads for this week:
Don't Look Back by Josh Lanyon - 5 stars
Rhapsody for Piano and Ghost by Z.A. Maxfield - 3.5 stars
Between Sinners and Saints by Marie Sexton - 5 stars
St. Nacho's 1 - St. Nacho's by Z.A. Maxfield - 4 stars
St. Nacho's 2 - Physical Therapy by Z.A. Maxfield - 4 stars
St. Nacho's 3 - Jacob's Ladder by Z.A. Maxfield - 3.5 stars
The Dragon Tamer by Megan Derr - 5 stars
The Bastard Prince by Megan Derr - 5 stars
Wes and Toren by J.M. Colail - 5 stars
Bellskis 1 - Carol of the Bellskis by Astrid Amara - 4 stars

So, that concludes Books This Week. Hope you enjoyed it! =)

12 Days of Christmas Extravaganza Final Post!

I just want to say thank you to all the wonderful authors who participated and gave their time and their eBooks to make this event AWESOME!!!

Also, thanks to all of you who checked back regularly, commented, answered trivia, and generally had a good time. That's what this was all about. :D

Finally, I did not reach 50 followers so I won't be holding a drawing today. But y'all are so great that whenever I do reach 50 followers, I will hold a drawing for a $10 giftcard then.

Just to recap:

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me...Piper Vaughn to kick off all the fun!

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me...Lily Sawyer guest blogging on my blog!

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

My mom and I have always done lots of fun stuff around the holidays--things that may not require lots of money (and might sound dorky to most people:) ) but over the years they've just become part of Christmas and the way we do things.

The cookies started when I was in high school. We'd just moved into a new house, it had a much bigger kitchen than the one before it, lots of counters, a big table for people to hang out and sit at...in fact, that table is in my house now since my parents moved again to a smaller house. That first Christmas, my freshman year in high school, my mom and I went a little nuts-o. We had this big house to decorate, lots of room to cook—let's just say it looked like the Martha Stewart winter special exploded in our front door and took over the entire house. :)

Our first attempt at cookies wasn't very successful. We mixed this god-awful radioactive green frosting, and brown of all colors. Yeah, brown. Obviously, that wasn't the intention. We had some red and green sugar sprinkles, and with the help of my friend John by the end of the night we had what looked like chia cookies. They tasted really good but they were butt ugly. Like, seriously butt ugly.

The next year, and the year after that and on and on we worked at our cookie decorating skills, bought new cookie cutters...until we finally had it down to an art. And the snowflake cookie was born.

There really isn't anything to it. Just a sugar cookie dough, some food coloring and a whole lotta time listening to wintery music and squeezing frosting out of ziplock bags. :)

So, I just used a standard sugar cookie dough recipe. I'm not the best at inventive baking. They all look about the same, just google sugar cookie recipe and you'll be good to go. The only thing I'd caution is to NOT use store bought dough. That dough, first of all doesn't taste as good, and second of all, it's formulated to rise and get puffy. Anything you cut out will look all bloated and ugly. I learned that the hard way after I tried to be lazy once. LOL. Never again.