Craven Moon [Paperback]

Billie Sue Mosiman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 3, 2003

The Bram Stoker Award-nominated author brings to life the final, fateful struggle of a man torn between his human longings. . .and his vampiric cravings. A destiny that could mean the extinction of all vampires.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: DAW (June 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0756401208
• ISBN-13: 978-0756401207
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,090,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am a thriller, suspense, and horror novelist, a short fiction writer, and a lover of words. In a diary when I was thirteen years old I wrote, "I want to grow up to be a writer." It seems that was always my course. My books have been published since 1984 and two of them received an Edgar Award Nomination for best novel and a Bram Stoker Award Nomination for most superior novel. I've been represented by the William Morris Agency, belonged to many professional writing organizations, and wrote columns and reviews in magazines. I have been a regular contributor to a myriad of anthologies and magazines, with more than 150 short stories published. My work has been in such diverse publications as Horror Show Magazine and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. I have one collection of my short stories called DARK MATTER in hardcover and several e-book collections. For a while I taught writing for Writer's Digest and for AOL online, and gave writing workshops locally in Texas.

Once I was on a panel in Austin, Texas at a book conference where the then First Lady of Texas, Laura Bush, attended and later had me sign my book for her. She, of course, became the nation's First Lady.

I was born in Alabama and live now in Texas on a small ranch.

My work has been predominately suspense thrillers, but I also wrote a western historical, a trilogy of vampire novels, a travel memoir, and, of course, many short stories. My latest novel is BANISHED, a dark fantasy horror novel involving fallen angels. Most of my work has been made available at kindle.com for the e-book reader, including my Stoker-nominated novel, WIDOW, and my Edgar-nominated novel, NIGHT CRUISING.

I love to read (especially on my Kindle), paint, take photographs, and travel. I can name two inspiring persons in my life. One was my grandmother, Naomi, who by simply loving me unconditionally gave me faith in myself--and, every day and forever, my husband, who has lived this adventure with me.

Because of my love of storytelling, I've been fortunate enough to make a lifelong investment in writing stories and novels.

News of my e-book publications can be found at: http://peculiarwriter.blogspot.com/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A vampire/human war which could destroy all, October 8, 2003

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Craven Moon (Paperback)

Craven Moon by Billie Sue Mosiman is the story of a vampire's child raised on an isolated Texas farm to avoid a prophecy only to find himself the target of those who want to overthrow vampires in the world. Malachi lives a mortal's life with his wife and child and tries to avoid his vampire heritage; but the ruin of his family involves him in the vampire/human war which could destroy all.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Horror the way that it was meant to be written., June 12, 2003

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Craven Moon (Paperback)

There is three different kind of vampires. The Predators believe they are superior to man and other vampires. They force vampires to buy blood from them so they can pass as Naturals. The Craven are timid creatures who hide in the shadows while depending on the pity and the mercy of the Naturals to stay alive. Malachi is none of the above because he is the son of a mortal man and a vampire mother. Many of the Predators believe he is the prophesied one, the being that would lead a war against them.

As a dhampire, Malachi is a mortal with extraordinary strength and psychic powers but he doesn't drink blood. He marries Danielle and they have a son Eli. His beloved family is the center of Malachi's world. When his enemy's minion kills his wife, Malachi decides to become a full fledge Predator to hunt down the vampire and the mortal who destroyed his world. He just never imagined he would become involved in the vampiric version of Armageddon.

Billie Sue Mosiman's vampire world has it's own set of rules and customs that must be adhered to if vampires are to coexist with their human counterparts. Hearts will go out to the hero who lost the love of his life and readers will understand the choices he makes. It is Malachi's own humanity that makes him a very good vampire. There are some secondary characters deserving of having their stories told and their are enough of them to fill up the author's entire writing career. CRAVEN MOON is horror the way that it was meant to be written.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Shift of focus mid-way goes too far too fast, March 25, 2004

By 

Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Craven Moon (Paperback)

Craven Moon advances the storyline begun in Billie Sue Mosiman's previous vampire novels, Red Moon Rising and Malachi's Moon, each of which stands as a fascinating - albeit sometimes illogical - new interpretation of vampirism. In the future world of Mosiman's creation, vampirism is caused by a mutated form of the blood disease porphyria; one becomes vampire as a natural result of heredity rather some supernatural cause (with exceptions, of course). When the change comes over the afflicted individual, that person literally dies while his/her soul travels to a mysterious realm lighted by a huge red moon; here, the soul must choose the type of vampire it will become: Predator, Natural, or Craven. Predators resemble stereotypical vampires; they feed on the living and are generally quite aggressive. Naturals choose to live as humans, hiding their affliction from the outside world and feeding only on bags of blood supplied by a Predator network. Cravens are doomed to a life of sickness and weakness; still bearing outward evidence of the porphyria that afflicts them, they depend wholly on the support of other vampires and spend their years in solitude and depression. Mosiman's vampires can fall in love, and on rare occasions one chooses to marry and mate with a human; such unions give rise to the rarest creatures of all - dhampirs. A dhampir has the super-human strength and many of the abilities of a vampire but will age and die the same as any mortal.

Malachi, the protagonist of the novel, is an unusually powerful dhampir, and many vampires fear that he is the dhampir referred to in ancient prophecy as a slayer of Predators. Malachi has faced and overcome some incredible tragedies in his past, but as Craven Moon opens he has put the past behind him and found happiness in the arms of his wife Danielle and his young son Eli. Unfortunately, his longtime vampire antagonist Charles Upton still lives and begins forming a new army of Predators with which to wage war against Malachi, the Cravens, and the Naturals. Upton finds himself a most unusual human assistant named Jacques, a man whose empty soul knows no fear. As the novel progresses, the focus moves away from Upton and directly to Jacques as the true antagonist. A shift in focus from the same old Upton storyline of the first two novels was needed at this point, but I'm not sure Mosiman truly succeeds in her transformation of the story from one of personal vendetta to potentially religious warfare. It turns out that Jacques might just be the Antichrist. Whatever he is, Malachi swears vengeance when this new enemy destroys his family; he is so intent on finding and killing Jacques that he chooses to become a full-blooded, Predator vampire. The ultimate conclusion is a bit anti-climactic, as the predicted open warfare among vampirekind never really comes to fruition.

I think Craven Moon is a much weaker novel than its predecessors Red Moon Rising and Malachi's Moon. The Armageddon plot element really pushes the story farther than it is equipped to travel, as Mosiman doesn't really frame the story in a proper context for such a radical shift. Mosiman also damages the integrity of the story by taking what I consider a radical shortcut near the end, basically denying this reader the very thing he was anticipating. I understand the author's desire to move beyond the same old storyline explored in the two previous novels, but I think Mosiman just tried to go too far too fast with this novel. Still, Craven Moon is a very enjoyable read offering a few fresh twists to the traditional vampire myth, and I should note that readers need not have read Red Moon Rising or Malachi's Moon in order to understand and follow the storyline in this particular novel.