Moongazer (Shomi) [Mass Market Paperback]

Marianne Mancusi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2007

Imagine every night entering a nightmare world you can't escape and being told real life is a dream. Skye Brown has it all: the cool job, the hot boyfriend, the apartment on New York's Upper West Side. But lately she can't enjoy any of it. She's having dreams of a post-apocalyptic world. Of a bleak futuristic wasteland. Of a struggle against oppression. And she's been told she's a...

MOONGAZER.

But what is that? And what is reality? In her dreams, she's not Skye Brown at all, but Mariah Quinn. In her dreams there's Dawn, the beautiful yet haunted soldier, and Skye is but the empty shell of a girl he once loved. And there was a betrayal, a great betrayal. Ripped between Dark Siders and club kids, the mundane and the mystic, Skye must discover who she is, what she wants and who wants her. And why. But in the glow of the moon, it's not always easy to recognize the face in the mirror.

Editorial Reviews

Review

An enthralling combination of The Matrix and Snow Crash with a bit of Blade Runner thrown into the mix, Moongazer immediately draws the reader into one woman's terrifying struggle to understand her identity--is she Skye Brown, a successful game designer living in Manhattan or is she really Mariah Quinn, a woman haunted by the post-apocalyptic dreamland she escapes to every night? But what is reality? And who can she trust to find out the truth? -- SF Scope

About the Author

Award winning author Marianne Mancusi spends a great deal of her life in the virtual world, adventuring in Azeroth as a level 70 World of Warcraft warrior named Allora. To pay the DSL bill, she works as television producer for a nationally syndicated lifestyle show and has won two Emmys. She's sold eleven books to three publishers--mostly paranormal romances for adults and teens. A graduate of Boston University 's College of Communications , Marianne has worked for TV stations in Orlando , San Diego and Boston . She currently lives in Manhattan 's Upper West Side with her dog Molly.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 355 pages
• Publisher: Love Spell (July 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0505527251
• ISBN-13: 978-0505527257
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,494,527 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mari Mancusi used to wish she could become a vampire back in high school.
But she ended up in another blood sucking profession --journalism -- instead. Today she works as a freelance TV producer and author of books for teens and adults. When not writing about creatures of the night, Mari enjoys traveling, cooking, goth clubbing, watching cheesy horror movies, and her favorite guilty pleasure--videogames. A graduate of Boston University and a two time Emmy Award winner, she lives in Austin, Texas with her husband Jacob, daughter Avalon and dog Mesquite. You can find her online at www.marimancusi.com or www.bloodcovenvampires.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Are You Ready to Gaze At The Moon?, August 6, 2007

By 

L. J Lewis "Miss Amii" (Collierville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Moongazer (Shomi) (Mass Market Paperback)

I'm glad to see that Dorchester's SHOMI imprint may have some hope after all. While I their first offering Wired qualifies as one of the worst books I read all summer, I'm happy to say Mariane Mancusi's Moongazer is the second best.

Skye Brown is a videogame designer haunted by strange dreams. She's been having nightmares of a strange underground world were she's ruthlessly pursued by government soldiers. One night she is pulled across dimensions and wakes up in this strange reality. This has arrived on Terra, a ruined alternate version of Earth. Nuclear war has forced humanity underground. A select few with wealth and power live in luxury while the poorer Dark Siders, the citizens forced to live deeper underground, live in squalor and desperation. Here she must get to the bottom of conflicting claims that Skye is Mariah Quinn, scion of a wealthy family turned leader of a rebellion, or that she is just a girl who resembles Mariah accidentally pulled to Terra through the Moongazing Program, an attempt to relieve overcrowding through immigration to the alternative world.

With a unique well-realized subterranean Las Vegas-like setting and plenty of unexpected plot twists, Moongazer hits all the right the notes. Complementing the action is a competently written romance between Skye and follow rebel Dawn Grey. Skye is a well-written character who acts with believable skepticism at first to her new surroundings and undergoes a plausible character evolution as she discovers the truth of things. It's a real page-turner and there were times that I found it hard to tear myself away from the world of Moongazer. The ending is a bit open ended though. Is it too much to hope for a sequel?

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not for everyone, December 23, 2007

By 

The Girl Next Door "Look not unto others..." (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moongazer (Shomi) (Mass Market Paperback)

I really wanted to like this book. When I first saw it, I'll admit that I was drawn to it by the artwork and then the description on the back, along with the first chapter which I read while shopping. But as I dived further into the world, it began to lose its luster, and slowed to a screeching halt.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Edgy, Smart and A Fabulous Read, August 30, 2007

By 

Lauren Dane (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Moongazer (Shomi) (Mass Market Paperback)

Kudos to Dorchester for all the risks it lets its authors take with lines like Shomi. It gives me hope.

Moongazer is the second book released from the manga-esque line Shomi and it's just as good as Liz Maverick's Wired.

In this story, Mancusi gives us Skye, but is she Mariah? And a dimension flipping world of Terra, devastated by war and famine and those lucky souls who leave through Moongazing to live on Earth.

Skye gets pulled to Terra where people there think she's a revolutionary named Mariah, including the very sexy blond who whisks her away on his hoverbike.

Mancusi delivers lots of taut action, steamy romance and excellent storytelling and I can't say enough wonderful stuff about Moongazing so I'll close by urging you all to get out and grab this one for yourselves.