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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Skip the Prologue, April 20, 2009
This review is from: Moonlight (Dark Guardian, Book 1) (Paperback)
Hawthorne invites us to see another side of an age old legend while dealing with elements of death, betrayal, and love. In the end it is seventeen year old Kayla who finally confronts her own fears and discovers who she was meant to become.
A camping trip at a National Forestry turned deadly, when Kayla was five years old. Her parents had been murdered by overzealous hunters, swearing they had seen wolves with the child. After more than a decade she returns to the forestry with her adoptive parents in hopes of chasing away the nightmares she has lived with for so long. She is drawn in by the beauty of the natural environment and its creatures, even making friends with some of the local forestry guides, sherpas. There is Lindsey who is so friendly and open. While Kayla is strangely drawn to the good looking Lucas Wilder, who, for all his lack of communication skills always appears to be watching her. Offered a position as a sherpa next summer, when she turns 17, Kayla chooses to believe her reason for accepting the position is the love of the forestry and its creatures. What she doesn't know is that shortly after her 17th birthday she will finally have to confront what she really is, along with the real reason behind her need of both the forestry and Lucas Wilder.
On her first assignment as part of a group leading some college students and their professor, Dr. Keane deep in the wilderness, Kayla realizes things aren't as they appear. Why would a Dr. Keane be taking a small group of students camping deep into the forestry to study wolves, where wolves are rarely seen? Why the heavy equipment crates, just for studying the protected wolves? And what of their strange tales around the campfire of werewolves? Could Mason, a college student and Dr. Keane's son, really be interested in Kayla? And what's up with Lucas always watching her, keeping her so close to him, when the lovely college student Monique is so willing to keep him company? And when evil finally shows its face will Kayla be up to the challenges she must deal with to meet her destiny?
In my opinion, the prologue would have offered a more intriguing introduction had it focused on the death of Kayla's parents to set the scene. As it stands, the prologue goes a bit too far, taking away some of the suspense generated by the tale. Although, the first 150 odd pages do a fair job of setting the stage, I believe it could have been done in half the pages, leaving a bit more space for several of the intriguing action scenes. There are a few twists, some suspense,a very small cliff hanger and a new way to look at an age old enemy, the Werewolf. As X-Men are mutants so are werefolk in this appealing tale. In any case, you shouldn't have to suspend logic too far out on a limb to follow this tale of werewolves. Simply drop some of the stereotypical images you have seen or read about werefolk, not transformed by a bite, and follow this new breed. Here the evil comes not from mutants but from human factors.
A tale *worth exploring, as you have some free time, Moonlight is the first in a projected trilogy. As a suggestion, skip the prologue and pick it up later in the book, where to scene is repeated.
For other tales of werewolves and their ilk, check out Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause, The Unseen by Richie Tankersley Cusick and Tantilize by Cynthia Leitich Smith.
*Take pause if you object to some slight non-descriptive nudity as wolves change back to human form, talk of older teens skinny dipping or simply sleeping side by side un-chaperoned.
"....very naked...no tan lines..." "....made him turn his back while I stripped out of my clothes and dove into the pool." "....even if all we did was sleep, we were still going to be in bed together, our bodies touching, maybe curling into each other."
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Moonlight, July 12, 2009
This review is from: Moonlight (Dark Guardian, Book 1) (Paperback)
[Review may contain spoilers for the book]
Maybe I just didn't get it. There are quite a few YA books that I like, even though I'm past the age-range. A lot of them are well-written and detailed, but this... While it was tolerable, it just wasn't what I was expecting. I picked this up in the bookstore after having been drawn in by the cover--call me superficial, but sometimes I chose books based on their covers--and the blurb on the back of the book sounded interesting, so I thought I'd give it a shot.
Boy, was I disappointed. The plot was rushed and the characters had absolutely no depth, which completely turned me off. The story is told in first-person, through Kayla's eyes, but we don't really learn a whole lot about her (at least I didn't). Yeah, she witnessed her parents being shot, she was adopted, she enjoys the outdoors, blah blah blah. Really, that's all I learned about her. Oh, and she falls for this "hot and dangerous" guy, Lucas, who, ohmigod, turns out to be her mate. We don't really learn a whole lot about Lucas either.
Did I mention Kayla was a werewolf? Is it really a shock to find this out? Kayla had to be clued in to this by Lucas, her mate. Did I mention she was his mate? And she didn't know about it until he told her? And he had her name (in some old language or something) tattooed on his shoulder, before he ever confessed his.... "love"?
At one point Lucas tells Kayla that her first shift feels much like childbirth. Really? Childbirth? Okay, I'm a woman, I don't have kids and I don't plan to, but I'm sure that pain is far worse than what Kayla went through. She was also making out with Lucas during much of it. Eh? Mothers, did you have the desire to make out with your partner when going through that? The transformation, as it was written, felt like it only lasted a couple seconds...
Do we get to see much of the secondary characters? Nope. They only exist to keep Kayla entertained when she's not mooning over Lucas. And even then she's talking or thinking about him.
I don't know, maybe it's that I'm no longer a teenager, but I just really did not like this book. It's a matter of opinion. If you like short, rushed plots involving love triangles and soul mates, then you might like this. If you like Twilight (which I despise), you might like this. If you're over twenty and looking for a book with depth, I'd advise that you look elsewhere.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Young Adult Novel, March 6, 2009
This review is from: Moonlight (Dark Guardian, Book 1) (Paperback)
This is the first novel I have read of Rachel Hawthorne, and I have to say that this is a good angle for a paranormal novel, especially for teens. So many new paranormal teen books have been compared to Twilight in numerous reviews, and I have to say that this is a cut from the same cloth. Girl meets boy, boy shape shifts, girl shape shifts, they mate for life.
Kayla is a wilderness guide this summer to try to come to terms with her parents deaths in the very same forest. There she meets her best friend Lindsay and a mysterious silver eyed boy Lucas. Throw in some evil scientist out to prove were wolves exist and you have the story in a nut shell
Hawthorne should have really extended the storyline, I could have easily read another 200 pages on the history of the shifters, developed the other characters, and drawn out the conflict of scientists. The last chapter was so rushed I wasn't sure if Kayla did become a dark guardian or if it was all a dream... Also we get the idea that Kayla is traumatized by her parents deaths, but it is so briefly explained that I don't feel connected to her grief.
The idea of Sherpas, old world tattoos, and the history of the forest was very short and I sometimes felt like the plot was being run over just to move the story along at a pace fast enough to keep ADD teens reading; Hawthorne could have easily expanded on... well everything. I have high hopes that the second book is even deeper and delves into the world of mates and shifters further.
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