Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Nightwolves coalition – review

Author: Clarrissa Lee Moon

Published: 2011 (3rd edition)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Nightwolves Coalition starts the tale of Catrina who flies to New York to be with her mates of which there are three (Demitri, Andre and Antonio Caberelli). On the way there is an attempted hi-jacking and Catrina steps up to save the passengers from the takeover.

In doing so, she exposes herself as a vampire to Special Forces. Now she must clean up her mess and make a deal with the military. The military had been having problems completing missions successfully due to very unusual things happening in the field. Catrina and her team may be their answer. However, the military finds the reasons why things have been going strange on missions.

It's the beginning of high adventure and unusual situations even Special Forces may be challenged to overcome.

The review: As I started reading Nightwolves Coalition I wasn’t, I have to admit, enamoured with the writing style. Note that this observation isn’t necessarily a criticism, as often it is a matter of taste. In this case, I have to admit that Clarrissa Lee Moon’s style did grow on me and I found that I enjoyed it as it gave a distinct voice to central character Cat. Thus the style perhaps worked a little less when the book entered into third person for a short period of time, but again that might be just me.

The second criticism came from the wish fulfilment aspect of the Cat character, who was a vampire (but a good one who had none or few of the weaknesses) and a high priestess, child of a Godess who was adept at spell craft and astral working, who had several academic degrees, but was also a fierce momma bear etc. If I can be ultra-critical, she was too darn perfect and even her more negative character qualities were born entirely out of positives.

However, all that said, as I started reading through the book I got caught up in a real sense of adventure. The scenes on a(n attempted) hijacked plane had a palpable sense of adrenaline and tension around them. There was an interesting merging of mysticism and guns that did work and I, ultimately, enjoyed the read and, of course, that is what a book should be about. 6 out of 10, a robust opening of the saga and we shall see how Clarissa Lee Moon develops it in future volumes.

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