Customer Reviews

Moonburn

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

 

 

I love paranomal books on werewolves and vampires, and saw this at the airport before a flight. I became very excited, and the back of the book sounded interesting. However, I was dissapointed. (I will not repeat the sysnopsis of the book, as it has already been done in the review before.)

I never read the first book, and I am glad I did not. From the Back of the book it sounds like Abra is on her way to a new life, learning to live with what she has been dealt, yet has a little set back of 'heat'. In the second book, Abra was bitter, shallow, and self-absorbed. She blamed it all on her mother who did not pay proper attention to her when she was young and an exhusband who treated her like dirt and cheated on her. The book descend quickly into a self-absorbed bitter female who lets her 'heat' rule her and this justifys all her actions. /pfft

Before I go into what really disturbed me about the book, I will say that the author was engaging in her writing. She had many influctions of sequences that kept you wondering how they were going to pan out. She also has many different takes on paranormal that were refreshing to see a different twist. I was very excited when we found out her City friend was paranormal too, but she never develops this character or this twist. She actually does not do well developing several secondary characters.

***SPOILER ALERT***
Abra rants on on on about her cheating husband and how dispicable he is/was, while not appreciating the man/male/mate she is with in the Book (Thinking Red might not be intelectual or 'man enough' for her.) She becomes the epitome of what she hated her husband for, cheating and not treating her mate well. Not only does she cheat on Red by having fast and very lousy sex with her Ex (of course 'trying to help him') she ends up cheating with Marlarky (a drivel of a man too). She lets the 'heat' saddle her up with these poor excuses for men while she has Red at home whom she she has become 'mated' to at home. Of course you find out they are not truly mated and try to justify everything in the end by saying Red was not a very ethical man himself.

Ugh. The book just was awful. After she had sex with her Ex, I just wanted to throw the book out the window. to even ALLOW that man into her house, you knew she had no self-respect for herself. I know it's just a book, but I lost all respect for her after that. The book did not get any better, even the ending was anticlimatic.

My opinion only, please judge the book for yourself. It is a fantasy, and it did help get me from the East Coast to the West Coast rather quickly.

What a GREAT ride! Alisa Sheckley has an amazing touch--Moonburn delves boldly into the paranormal but with a savvy sense of humor that is not often found in this genre. These aren't comic book characters--their surprising complexities, secrets, and flaws (whether likeable or not) get entagled in lust and love in an all too-human fashion as the chapters fly by. A great story in a surreal setting that kept me up reading way too late. The frequent twists and turns were pure fun and left me astonished at the author's creativity. Moonburn dives into the unusual with glee--and wait till you 'meet' the sheriff...More Ms. Sheckley, MORE!

Witty, funny, and sexy, Moon Burn is a winning, arrr-rousing example of furry fantasy. It's a sequel to The better to Hold You, but unlike some sequels, it never leaves you at a loss, because the author gives a good précis in the first chapter or so, before digging deeply into the new story.
Abra Barrow is a veterinarian and a recently turned lycanthrope, living in Northside, a small town outlying New York City. Northside is a good place for a lycanthrope; it is situated on a supernatural fault line, so the inhabitants don't turn a hair at shape-shifters or other uncanny manifestations. On the other hand, they do get upset when their prize dogs breed with wolves - or worse, coyotes. So there's enough work to keep an animal doctor very busy.
Whereas Abra's transformations are controlled by phases of the moon, her lover Red Mallin is a true shape-shifter, able to morph into a wolf more or less at will. He is another caretaker of animals, dealing with the wild ones while Abra tends to the domesticated. Red also monitors the supernatural boundaries, so when a Bear Sprit gets disturbed by a new upscale housing development, Red is the first to notice - but by no means the last. Abra has her own run-ins with Bruin, and it nearly costs her life.
But Bruin is pleasant and civil compared to Abra's not-quite-ex husband Hunter and his paramour, Magda. Both are werewolves - Hunter had turned Abra after being turned and claimed by Magda. They are mean and manipulative, and go to extreme lengths to sabotage Abra's relationship with Red. The fact that Abra is going into heat for the first time since her changeover makes her very susceptible. It also makes her irresistible to most males - and a few females. She makes an ill-timed visit to Manhattan to confer with a friend and starts a full-scale pheromone-driven riot.
Abra is trying to sort through her ambivalent relationships with her lover, her husband, and her boss while the Manitou spirits are reclaiming their old territory. Townsfolk who used to worry about mongrel pups now find their ornamental lap dogs evolving into full-throated wolves, while housecats are becoming cougars and pumas. It comes to a showdown between the arcane powers of the Manitou and the mere weirdness of shapechangers, an empath, the three grey sisters of Greek mythology, and a sheriff with a significant tattoo on his forehead who likes to impersonate John Wayne.
Action-packed as this book is, primarily it is a story about Changes. Abra is a very different person by the end of the book. That in itself makes this an uncommonly satisfying, gratifying book to read. I also liked that so many of the secondary characters, including Abra's mother and her friend Lilliana, are fully as interesting as the protagonists.
The reader learns a wealth of information about wolves in the course of reading this adventuresome romp, as well as a thing or two about entities most of us only encounter in fairy tales. Sheckley's skill as a writer is such that you wonder if maybe they are more than merely fictional... Strongly recommended.

My first book from this author. This was a very different type of werewolf story. I enjoyed it. I will look for more by this author. I don't normally like first person books, but to me, this was so different I did enjoy it. It had some interesting twists to it, and in my opinion, was intense at times.

Alisa Sheckley's MOONBURN is smart and insightful as well as sexy and fun.
While it helps to have read the previous novel, The Better to Hold You (as I did) I don't think it's necessary -- the way it is with some of the longer running paranormal series.

I've read an interview in which Ms. Sheckley says that this book is a blend between urban fantasy and paranormal romance, and I agree. I loved the world, and the fact that the characters weren't all stock sexy alpha males
or evil cultists. For all the supernatural crises, a lot of this story seemed grounded in real life -- conflicts wih ex-husbands, tensions at work, nervousness over committing to a new marriage after a divorce. I found some of the scenes between Abra and her ex a bit painful to read,
because they rang a little too true. The scenes where Abra is a wolf also
seem very real, and I like how Ms. Sheckly captured the feeling of being in another body.

I should also add that MOONBURN was also very fast-paced, sexy and at times, laugh out loud funny -- especially the episode of Abra's going into
heat during a visit to New York City with her friend Lilliana.

After what happened with her cheating husband in Manhattan last year (see THE BETTER TO HOLD YOU), veterinarian Abra Barrow relocates to Northside so that she can study the lycan infection he brought back from Romania and gave to her. She understands the problem of leaving a smog urban center for the pristine small-town air is that a full moon is a full moon for three days of uncontrolled behavior by a werewolf.

However, just as she has become comfortable with herself; Abra becomes emotional even with a full sun shining. She easily turns angry and shockingly drops her scores of inhibitions at any time of day or night; a behavior she only previously did when the moon is full. The local male population is all enthralled with her except her boyfriend shape-shifting expert Red Mallin, who knows what is happening to her, but is too busy to help her as he is totally focused on weird beasts apparently crossing the dimensional divide. Having been bitten last year by someone she trusted and now unable to rely on even herself; Abra feels fearful and doubtful amplified by her out of control emotions. Making matters stranger for her is a creature from the other side showing her an entirely different realm.

The second Barrow werewolf thriller is a fast-paced exciting tale in which Alisa Sheckley makes her magical world seems genuine starting with the lycan infection. The story line fast-paced starring a terrific heroine who feels her grip is slipping. Readers will enjoy her escapades as Abra struggles to regain her equilibrium while Red is preoccupied. MOON BURN is an enjoyable small-town fantasy.

Harriet Klausner

Engaging and hard-to-put-down, Sheckley shines with Moonburn, and certainly scores with this must read fantasy romance (wait, aren't all romances fantasies?) full of twists, turns and burns.

Sheckley's clever way to turn a phrase, and enticing characters lead you to places you've (hopefully) never been.

bravo!

I actually bought this book at Wal-Mart about a month ago and it took me about a week to get through mostly because I was confused and just not able to get into the story (normally, a novel this size takes me max two days).

First, the plot was weak in my opinion. I wasn't sure exactly what it was supposed to be about and though I got through it, I don't think I will read another. I don't like how the character, like so many others in werewolf books, was just a female in heat and every man wanted her including her ex husband. And of course there was at least a few pages of descriptive sex that I usually don't mind... but it was just boring.

It would have been refreshing if it were something different but other than the minor cute ironic things (like that she's a vet), it was a weak read. Just another female main character whom every man has his jollies for and females who hate her.