Customer Reviews

Hounding the Moon (Tess Noncoiré Adventures, Book 1)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I cannot believe I spent money on this book. Oh, it sounded good. A novel centered around a writer of fantasy novels, who uses her secret life as a demon fighting warrior as inspiration for her books, and her cigar-smoking, fast-talking imp companion. Intriguing, right? Well, it is an intruging premise, let down by a lackluster main character, a meandering, I would even say nonexistent plot, and a messy, jumbled, confused, mish-mashed storyline. Honestly, I've read some bad books in my lifetime, but I think this is the worst, mainly because it does have so much promise. The other bad books were let down by badly drawn characters, poorly told stories, or just plain awful writing. This is let down by all three.

First, we have the lead character, Tess Noncoire, the fantasy writer who's also a member of the secret society known as the Sisterhood of the Celestial Blade Warriors. The sisterhood is charged with protecting "nodes", portals which lead from our world into the world of demons. After succumbing to a near-fatal illness, an illness specifically designed to bring a warrior's power to life and allow her to bond with an imp companion, Tess goes through a period of intense training to prepare her to fight demons. Essentially she becomes a fighting machine. At least, that's what we're told...over and over again. We have to take the author's word for it, though, because Tess doesn't do much fighting. On the two occasions she does fight, her "prowess" mainly consists of ineffectively thwacking the threat with her weapon with the attitude of "Ooh, go away you nasty thing!" Wow, that's some warrior you've got there Ms. Frost. Other than the fact that we're told she's a warrior and a fantasy writer, we don't know much else about Tess. She's basically a cipher. Oh, she's still suicidally mournful over the death of her husband (I'll come to him in a moment). That's it.

Second, we have the story. Or perhaps I should say stories as the author included several, none of which really went anywhere or had anything to say or even seemed to have anything to do with one another. Story #1: Tess is on tour to promote her latest book...sort of. Instead of making the rounds of local bookstores, Tess seems to limit her trips to sci-fi fan conventions. Yet, despite the number of cons she visits (and trust me, we're subjected to detailed descriptions of multiple conventions), maybe at only one of them does she promote her book. The rest are visited just for fun. Do promoting authors really have that much free time? Not from what I've been given to understand. Granted, you can sense the author's love of fan conventions, with their close-knit camaraderie, costumes, and filking (sci-fi riffs on folk songs), but do we need such lovingly detailed descriptions for every con, or, for that matter, do we need the character to endlessly go to con after con? Unless you're setting the entire book in one (notice I stress one) con, no, we don't, so leave off already. ** spoiler alert ** Story #2: A big dog, almost demonic-looking, is attacking Native American girls in the Northwest, eventually capturing one, Cynthia, who Tess "rescued" during a fight with the dog at the beginning of the book. We later learn that this dog and Cynthia, whom the dog is actually protecting, are part of a myth involving the weaving of a blanket and the end of the world. Once Cynthia is taken by the dog, Tess searches for her (in between cons) and this is where this particular storyline gets stupid (-er): When Tess hears of a sighting of Cynthia and the dog not far from Tess's hotel, does she immediately go out and look for the girl? No, of course not, why would she? Instead she eats her steak dinner which has just arrived. WTF? If you're so concerned about this girl, wouldn't you go out to look for her if she was seen close by not more than ten minutes ago? The search may be fruitless, but I sure as hell would. Story #3: Donovan Estevez, who gets Tess's loins all hot and bothered, seeks her out and beds her, making her heart go pitty-pat and her concerns about him fly out the window with every flash of his sparkling white smile. Tess's imp, Scrap, warns her that he's bad and should be avoided. Now, she's supposed to trust this imp with her life in battle, but she can't believe him when he says Donovan smells bad and doesn't seem human? Plus there's the fact that Donovan is jealous of Tess's husband, who died three years ago, after a liquor-fueled whirlwind weeks-long romance and quickie wedding. Oh, and said husband, Gill, is now haunting Tess, telling her to get rid of Scrap so Gill can be her companion and come back to her. Huh? After that, things start to break down (even more). We get other ghosts who haunt Tess's life, a magical haircomb which is bleaching Tess's hair, an Indian casino which becomes the scene of an armed standoff as the tribe which owns the land declares its independence from the U.S.A., Tess's interfering and rude family, her former in-laws who have declared her marriage to Gill null. Oh, and Sasquatches, which are actually demons guarding the chatroom which leads to the demon realms. Is your head spinning yet? I know mine was. And I'm sure I'm leaving some things out as it's possible Frost may have introduced a few other plot points in later chapters. I don't know because I'm weak. I caved, I tapped out, I cried "Uncle!" and stopped reading at page 257. I just couldn't take the ridiculousness anymore.

Which is where the bad writing comes in. This is such a jumbled mess of a book, with no discernible plot, no real character development, no cohesion, no sense of moving from point A to point B. Reading it was like being a hamster on a treadmill: Lots of moving, moving, moving, without actually getting anywhere. I still, scout's honor, couldn't tell you what the book is actually about.

I went into this with an open mind. After about fifty pages, I thought, "Well, not much is going on, but it's a interesting premise. I'll probably end up giving this 3 stars." After about 150 pages, I thought, "What exactly am I reading? I mean, it's not bad, it's just not that good. Probably 2 stars." I've come away with the opinion that one star is too good for Hounding the Moon. No, wait, the cover art is pretty, so I guess the star can be for that.

I wanted to like this book, I really did, but couldn't get past the 2nd chapter. The story line sounded so promising but the writing was so amateurish I just couldn't continue on.

The writer hasn't learned to "show, don't tell" and uses very simplistic explanations of character motivations. Everything felt contrived. I get the impression this is a first writing attempt by a very passionate fan. Lots of enthusiasm for the subject but not enough skill to back it up.

A fellow reviewer, Laura Probst, fairly summed up the beginning of the book but if you're looking for a better ending, you're not going to find it. After being held hostage for several by 20 Sasquatch-demon things, Tess (while drinking beer, eating pizza, and working on her next book- and please remember this is WHILE she is being held hostage, not after) she goes into a magical fighting frenzy and kills all 20 subsequently passing out. The US army closes in and...well, it's all over. Sort of. There's a random scene with a recluse novelist and the book closes with yet another sci-fi con and a filk (I didn't have any idea what this was until I Googled it and the author never really explains it) song. None of the many, many plot points really ever wrap up or get explain thoroughly. If you can read the first hundred pages and enjoy it, maybe you will like the book but if you can barely get through them, like I did, SKIP IT. I wish I'd stopped sooner.

Hounding the Moon reads like the first draft of someone's first novel. As a long-time member of fandom, I found the premise intriguing. But the novel was very disappointing. The writing was choppy and amateurish. The plot didn't hang together. The characterization was all over the place. The story didn't flow. I kept hoping that it would get better after a rocky start, but it never did.

Fantasy author Tess Noncoiré's latest novel is her biggest success yet, but all is not going smoothly for her. She's still mourning her late husband, Dill, who died in a hotel fire two years ago after a brief marriage. Then there's the pesky issue of demons. Right after Tess was widowed, a mysterious fever led her to a secret Sisterhood dedicated to fighting demons. Tess never fit in and was asked to leave, but the training has stuck with her -- along with her familiar imp, Scrap, who has become her best friend and who can transform into a weapon when evil is nearby.

As Hounding the Moon begins, Tess saves a young Native American girl from a rampaging dog. When the dog and the girl keep reappearing in Tess's life, she learns that they have a role to play in a Lakota myth, and that Tess's help is needed to bring about a positive outcome. Meanwhile, she has to contend with her first romantic relationship since Dill's death, and with the revelation that her marriage might not have been quite what she thought it was. Peppered among the present-day chapters told from Tess's point of view are a number of "Interludes." These feature Scrap's point of view, scenes from Tess's past in the Sisterhood, or both.

The storyline concerning Tess's grief, and her coming to terms with it, is touching and emotional. These are some of the best scenes in the book. If I do go on to read more TESS NONCOIRÉ novels, it'll be to find out what was really going on with Dill, as questions are raised but not exactly answered.

The plot of Hounding the Moon is confusing at times, and the book is filled with scenes that don't do much to advance it. One example is the early scenes featuring Tess's eccentric family. I usually enjoy domestic scenes that lend a little warmth to urban fantasy's tough-girl heroines, but in this case, there's so much domestic stuff that the story grinds to a crawl for it. Another example is the many SF conventions Tess attends. I'm a con-goer myself, so I know cons are fun -- but it's hard to capture their charm in writing. Too often, Tess's con adventures feel like a recitation of the schedule: she goes to a panel, she goes to the dealers' room, she goes to a party, and so on. There's one con scene that worked really well, though: the filking scene at the end. "There's a Bimbo on the Cover of My Book" is a funny little ditty that spoofs cheesy science fiction and fantasy covers.

I didn't understand some of the decisions Tess makes. For instance, Tess spends much of the book searching for the dog and the girl, but when she hears they're nearby, she... sits back down at her restaurant table and cracks open a book. Or, when a friend calls her multiple times during a convention to warn her she's in deadly danger, she blows off his calls and carries on with her con socializing, even though P.R. Frost makes it clear she has plenty of downtime during which she could simply call the poor guy back and ask what's going on. I also spent much of the book not understanding why she kept trusting Donovan, even though he came off as slimy, but SPOILER ALERT: at least that turned out to have a metaphysical cause END SPOILER.

Overall, Hounding the Moon is too muddled and suffers from severe pacing problems and a heroine who lacks common sense. The exploration of Tess's grief for Dill is compelling, and the bits of SF-convention humor are fun, but they're not enough to give me much impetus to keep reading this series.

When Scrap the Imp, named because he was small, entered the human realm he knew when he was big enough he would infect Tess with the imp virus and somehow battle the other imps to meld with her. When Tess came down with the virus she was taken in by The Sisterhood of the Celestial Blade Warriors who healed her, trained her how to fight demons and then tossed her out because she was too independent to fit in with their order.

Out in the world, Tess and Scrap are a unit even though they have yet to fight a demon. Her chance will come when she meets Cynthia Walking Moon, who along with her friends, is attacked by a dog who kills before Tess dispatches him. She later learns the dog is looking for the new Weaver who creates the tapestry of life and each night the dog undoes some of the work because if it is ever finished the world will end. Two men come into Tess' life one who she is attracted to but is very wary of and one who knows far too much about Tess' magical life. Both men play an integral part in the upcoming battle with the demons that are using a rogue portal to enter this world in order to possess the tapestry.

Readers who like the urban fantasies of Mercedes Lackey will want to read the brilliant storytelling of HOUNDING THE MOON. Scrap an 8-inch imp who smokes cigars, wise cracks his way through life and likes to wear Tess' clothes (don't ask how), almost steals the show. There is much action in this character driven fantasy novel based on Native American myths. P.R. Frost displays a unique and refreshing voice in this uniquely original, fantastic and spellbinding urban fantasy.

Harriet Klausner

I couldn't put this book down. I was amused by her familiar, Scrap, and
enjoyed the adventures. I am looking forward to the sequel. I'd also like to know if her late husband Dill, was human or part-demon that put a glamoury on her. I gave it five stars and totally enjoyed it.

Frost combines Aboriginal, Old World, and New World magic, imps, demons, and a sisterhood of demon slayers with the complex weave of a detective novel and the pacing and pathos of an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Tess Noncoire has the chops of Xena Warrior Princess with the smart, funny sensibilities of the modern woman. And, thank God, she's got vulnerabilities! I love this heroine because she's not omniscient. She can be swayed by her emotions and leap to wrong conclusions just like the rest of us.

Frost has given Tess a unique foil in the cigar-smoking, wise-cracking imp, Scrap, as well as wonderful, quirky family, friends, and adversaries. The characterization is vivid, the story is complex and satisfying, the adventure is ripping. Kudos for a most entertaining read!

I sometimes buy random books. Sometimes this is a great thing, found some great writers that way.

Not this time.

The first review has it down. The quality of writing is abysmal. It is so bad that I thought this book was an actual joke being perpetrated on gullible readers. Seriously.

Maya and Harriet are you two bots for the publishers?

Went searching through the fantasy section and found this book. It is great!!

It is the story of Tess Noncoire and her Imp "Scrap". I can't wait for more books by the author. It is nice to start a new world.

Kimberly