Customer Reviews

Mona Lisa Blossoming (Monere: Children of the Moon, Book 2)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In the second book of Sunny's Monere series, about a race of people who are descendants of the moon, the first Mixed Blood Monere Queen Mona Lisa arrives in New Orleans to take over her new territory. With her are her two mates Warrior Lords Gryphon and Amber, her brother Thaddeus, a Mixed Blood family of three, and three other guards in her service. Mona Lisa knows that she's a target because of her Mixed Blood and that there are those who wish to do her harm--most notably Queen Mona Louisa whose New Orleans territory Mona Lisa now inhabits.

This book is more focused on Mona Lisa's acclimation to her status of Queen and all it entails. Her new estate comes with more than 400 inhabitants, and she has know way of knowing which of them wish to serve her and who are still loyal to Mona Louisa. Another problem is that now that at the end of Mona Lisa Awakening, she found that she did indeed have another form, a Bengal tiger, and since this discovery Mona Lisa has been terrified of letting the beast out of its cage. The majority of this book is spent with Mona Lisa trying to come to terms with her newfound power, to tap into her powers as a healer, and to unleash the beast within.

Mona Lisa Blossoming was good, but I really enjoyed Mona Lisa Awakening and I didn't have the same sense of urgency and excitement that I felt when I read the first book in the series. Still, it was nice to see some familiar faces--most notably, Prince Halcyon. The attraction between Halcyon and Mona Lisa is palpable in every interaction and I can't wait to see what Sunny has in store for them in the future. Similarly, I was interested to see how Sunny would handle Mona Lisa's two lovers, Gryphon and Amber, as I was sure that their sharing arrangement wouldn't work out for long. I was pleasantly surprised by how amicably it worked out. Overall, if you enjoyed Mona Lisa Awakening, I think for sure you should check this book out. It's got the same passionate, erotic material as the first book, and Mona Lisa is one of my favorite heroines because she doesn't take crap from anyone, but is vulnerable at the same time. The flawed matriarchal society of the Monere has become one of my favorite paranormal worlds and I'm eager to see what happens next.

Courtesy of CK2S Kwips and Kritiques

Mona Lisa has survived multiple threats against her, fought fellow Queens to defend herself and her men and her friends, and defeated a group of rogue males. She's found her orphaned brother she never knew and taken him in. That's all before the book even starts! Now Mona Lisa has come to Louisiana to take her seat as the new Queen of the territory. Little did she know her greatest battles were just beginning.

Now Mona Lisa must adapt to being a leader of hundreds, deal with the subjects who don't necessarily think they need to follow a Mixed Blood Queen, protect her family, learn the customs of her new life, and juggle her multiple lovers. When it becomes apparent she has new enemies to fight in addition to her powerful old ones, she must prove once more just how formidable an enemy she makes. Possibly even worse, her inner beast she has been fighting for years wants to be loosed and Mona Lisa is not sure she can control it. What's a Queen to do?

Mona Lisa Blossoming picks up shortly after Mona Lisa Awakening concludes. As such, keep in mind that while this book does stand alone for the most part, many references are made to events from the previous book and is easier understood having read the prior novel. And whatever you do, do NOT read the novella in the anthology On the Prowl before reading this book! I read that book before this one and as a result a huge event that occurs at the end of Mona Lisa Blossoming was completely ruined for me. Since I already knew what happened I lost out on the shock factor that makes the conclusion so important.

Once again Sunny's skill at world building is exquisite. She draws her readers into the world of the Monère so we feel as if it is real and we will run into one of Mona Lisa's people down the street. The societal interactions between "classes" plays as big of a role as the characters do since everything they do is based on where they fall in ranking.

The title of this book is quite appropriate to the story as well. For in this installment of the series, we see Mona Lisa come into her own and blossom into the powerful Queen that she is. Also, having discovered her animal form and how the change affects her, Mona Lisa is terrified of her "beast." She must come to accept her animal nature before she can assume the power and authority due to her. However, the plot does suffer here and there, with more emphasis placed on telling us what is happening rather than showing us.

Mona Lisa Blossoming is every bit as dark, sexual, and graphic as Mona Lisa Awakening, so sensitive readers may again be greatly disturbed by some of the scenes. The violence is very detailed and the sex scenes extremely explicit. Also, as hinted at earlier, the end of this book is full throttle, very shocking and very upsetting, and most definitely not a happy ending. However, intuitive readers will pick up on the fact that the conclusion may not be quite as final as you would think and may get your curiosity bubbling to the surface.

Character interaction is what I find so captivating about this series. There is so much interplay between everyone that I often wish the story wasn't told in first person so I could get into the heads of everyone rather than just Mona Lisa. I'd love to know what some of these folks are really thinking and feeling about their arrangements. Amber and Gryphon are back, along with several more men who are oh so enticing. Best of all though, my favorite character, Prince Halcyon, gets more "screen time" here to develop his relationship with Mona Lisa. I adore his character and would love to see him grow an even more personal connection with Mona Lisa. Yet some of the other characters I love seem to fade into the background and I miss getting to see them further developed.

Mona Lisa Blossoming is another good addition to the Monère series though there is still plenty of room for improvement and further development of the story.

© Kelley A. Hartsell, October 2007. All rights reserved.

Did none of the editors or publishers care that this author copied from Laurel K. Hamilton and Anne Bishop? LKH doesn't have a patent on female leads having male harems, strong and tall blond warriors who hide behind an icy facade to hide behind, or supernaturals glowing and healing through sex. And Bishop doesn't solely own the idea of a matriarchal society where Warlords serve Queens, Queens are the heart of the people and literally sustain them, Queens having a leash on their men, or transitioning to demon dead.

But anyone who has read Merry Gentry and Black Jewels can clearly see that Sunny blatantly copied from these books.

Daemon - Halcyon
Saetan - Blaec
Daemon is his father's mirror, as copied by Halcyon looking exactly like Blaec, but Blaec having silvered hair at the temples, just like Saetan

Rosemary the tall, built-like-a-linebacker cook is Mrs. Beale

Frost - Amber
Gryphon - Doyle

The entire caste and hierarchical structure of the Monere is copied from Bishop's Black Jewels. She slightly renamed Warlord Princes to Warrior Lords, gave them medallions instead of jeweled necklaces, gave the give and take the Queens from Black Jewels do to the land into "Basking", and didn't even rethink the demon dead angle.

... and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I can't believe this got published, received good reviews and awards!

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

What kind of world do we live in that copied ideas are rewarded? This is so wrong.

Great book it does remind you of Laurell K. Hamilton books and I have read and enjoyed all of her books. Please write more Sunny! I have read both Mona Lisa books they are really good stories.

Before I begin, let me just say that I bought this book and its predecessor, Mona Lisa Awakening, back in the summer. They were being sold at Barnes and Noble online for $1.99 each, so I figured "Hey, why not buy this. I have no idea what its about, but that's okay." Oops, probably shouldn't do that again. Let's just say I was pretty suprised when I actually started reading the first book a few months ago. This is most definitely under the erotica category. Expect in-depth sex scenes every thirty pages or so. There's also quite a lot of violence.

Oh yeah, I guess I should actually start talking about this particular book now:

I basically started reading this because I remembered it was on my book shelf and I hadn't read it yet. I read the first one back in the summer, and it was so forgettable that I didn't even remember owning this. I suppose I'm happy I did give this book a chance, since it's a slight step up from the first one. This book still has its major annoyances, but it was a slight step up nonetheless.

Let's start out with the cons.

1. The striking similarities between the Anita Blake novels and this series. There were times when I was expecting Jean-Claude or Richard to fly into the pages for a quick hello. The writing styles in particular is the main thing I noticed. This has been addressed by many other reviewers before, however, so I won't dwell on it.

2. The really awkward and unecessary similies. It's almost as if the author threw them in there to say "Hey! Look! I know how to use figurative language! Hehe!" Things like "I blinked my eyes and it was if I suddenly saw clearly what was before me, like a blind man regaining his vision" (34). Was that really necessary? I don't think so.

3. The tedious, long descriptions of eyes and facial movements are in plenty. These things worked well in the Anita Blake books, simply because Laurell K. Hamilton has been doing it all along. In this book, not so much. Expect things like "his eyes blazed like liquid fire as his beast swam through his pupils, leaving soft, rolling ripples." For the record, I did make that up, but that isn't too far off from what you'll read.

4. The whole "embracing the beast" concept. Again, worked good in the Anita Blake series, simply looks like plagarizing here. The parts of the story when Mona Lisa is trying to fight off and welcome her beast at the same time reads as if the author copied and pasted paragraphs of Hamilton's book into her own.

5. Mona Lisa's and Gryphon's love affair. Or should I say lust affair. If there really any love there at all? Mona Lisa goes on and on about how much she loves Gryphon, but when they're actually together they just seem to fight. She just seems to want him for his, well, you know. Even when Gryphon comes in and is like "Uh, hun, you seem to hate me except for my body, so I think I'll just leave," she responds, "Oh no! I love you so much! Your body and soul! ...but let's have some mind-blowing sex anyway."

Okay, and now on to the pros.

1. Mona Lisa's speaking abilities. I know that sounds really stupid, but I'll continue. In the first book, she spiraled in and out of "Monere talk" (really long, fancy-sounding words peppered into regular sentences) and talking with an overwhelming amount of slang words. In this book, the author throws out both and just lets her talk like a human being. With some F-bombs thrown in as well.

2. The storyline. While it was not that strong, it seemed a little more put-together than the previous one. Mona Lisa Awakening just kind of threw in random things as it went along, such as having the Prince of Hell show up. This one seemed to have a little more flow. The actual conflict (Mona Lisa vs. Mona Louisa) was a little more pronounced. While there's some loose ends (Wild Boy? Was he just there to fill pages?) it's still not that bad.

3. The end of chapter seventeen. Enough said.

Overall, I give this book a low three stars. And now that I've written a review that is probably longer than the book itself, I'll end this here.

Well for a series to keep the same basic characters, guess some drama is needed - but just felt that this was overboard.

Mona Lisa is constantly amazed / crazed over the differences in this society. And the up again / down again between her and Gryphon got boring. You would think that she could ask some questions - try to learn more about how things work in the new world she lives in. Nope, just going to wing it.

Understand that being raised as human is going to limit how quickly she can change and/or even adapt, but think that I would like her better if she would embace all of her new powers - not be afraid of them.

As discussed lengthily in reviews of Sunny's first book of the Monere, this series is very close to plagiarizing two well known series - A Kiss of Shadows (Meredith Gentry, Book 1) & The Black Jewels: Trilogy: Daughter of the Blood / Heir to the Shadows / Queen of the Darkness. Anne Bishop's books are far and above the better work. Sunny's knock-offs are entertaining enough to be read only while I await the publication of much better books, such as Dead and Gone (Sookie Stackhouse, Book 9).

That being said, this installment was for me actually a bit better than the first book in the series. (making Mona Lisa Queen of New Orleans samples a bit too much from Charlaine Harris' Sookie books, but I've come to expect that Sunny has no original ideas) The only character I like, Halcyon (Daemon Sadi look-alike, anyone?) gets a bit more play in the second half of this book and we meet his father who is so much like Daemon's father Saetan that it has me shaking my head.

Basically I'm reading these when I have nothing else to read. Fans of this series need to read those books from which all the ideas were lifted.

This third installment was utterly tantalizing. This book was so I exciting! An absolute page turner, really I wasn't able to go to bed until I finished it. The only thing that disturbed me (PLEASE EXCUSE ME IF THIS IS A SPOILER FOR ANY ONE!) was the convenient offing of one character. Don't get me wrong, I'm not really that upset because it does make way for my golden prince. Delicious, Sunny!! I must have more!

Mona Lisa has left New York City behind in order to assume reign of her territory in Louisiana. With her two lovers and protectors by her side she embarks on a wildly sensational adventure learning more about herself and her place among the Monere society in which she holds such a high ranking. Her mix blood makes her a target for those that won't and don't trust her. If this is not enough for her to worry about she has one more issue. She can take the form of Bengal tiger and this power scares her. Will Mona Lisa be able to own the power that she holds within herself and still stay one step ahead of those that would see her harmed? How will her world evolve?

This second installment of Sunny's Monere series is creative and highly entertaining. Once again we step into her amazing make believe world. Amber and Gryphon are present and so is Prince Halcyon. The latter we are allowed to know better and the relationship between Mona Lisa and the prince is compelling. This is a first rate series, one I highly enjoy and recommend if you are looking for a very sensual read with a fine cast of characters. Mona Lisa is not a wimpy heroine; she knows what she wants and goes for it. You've got to love that.

Place yourself in Anne Bishop's Black Jewel's trilogy, take away most of the plot, add all the disturbingly erotic situations that we know are happening but aren't really described, and you will have Sunny's Monere world. Complete with Queen's dressed in long black dresses, most of whom abuse their power and influence over the men that serve in their 'courts', demon-dead princes, psychic seduction tendrils, healers named Janelle, young children named Tersa, and phrases like 'dreams made flesh,' it is hard to separate Sunny's world from Bishop's. And that may be it's saving grace. Those who are familiar with the world that Bishop created, will be able to fill in the gaps missing in the description of Monere society and will be able to appreciate the 'males' who unfailingly remind us Lucivar/Daemon or Greer. And they will revel in revisting that world--even if they simultaneously scoff at the blatent, and less skillfully conceived situations characteristic to Realm of the Black Jewels.

I would give this 3.5 stars if I could, but I simply can't give it 4 stars, even if it does keep its readers thoughly entertained.