Six Moon Summer (#1) (Seasons of the Moon) [Kindle Edition]

SM Reine (Author)

Book Description

Find the entire series here - smarturl.it/seasonsofthemoon

 

Rylie's been bitten. She's changing. And now she has three months to find a cure before becoming a werewolf... forever.

Rylie Gresham hates everything about summer camp: the food, the fresh air, the dumb activities, and the other girls in her cabin. But the worst part is probably being bitten by a werewolf. Being a teenager is hard enough, but now she's craving raw flesh and struggles with uncontrollable anger. If she doesn't figure out a way to stop the transformation, then at the end of summer, her life is worse than over. She'll be a monster.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This was a fantastic werewolf tale from SM Reine. Packed with tons of adventure, teen angst, touch of romance and twisted with paranormal, it makes for a perfect read! --Aimee at Coffee Table Reviews (coffeetablereviews.net)

Reine has made her own rules about the werewolf mythology; it's unique and refreshing.  This is a great book for all you YA lovers who are looking for something totally new to read. --Katja Rinne at Coffeemugged (coffeemugged.net)

Just when you think that there isn't another twist in the werewolf story, along comes Six Moon Summer... This is a solid debut book for Indie writer SM Reine. Fresh and fast paced. --Amber at Me, My Shelf, and I (memyshelfandi.com)

From the Author

SIX MOON SUMMER is a dark fantasy novel for teens who enjoy a splash of horror with their paranormal romance. This series is now complete!

  

Seasons of the Moon Series

1. Six Moon Summer
2. All Hallows' Moon
3. Long Night Moon
4. Gray Moon Rising
5. New! The Cain Chronicles - smarturl.it/cainchronicles

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 323 KB
• Print Length: 159 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Red Iris Books; 2 edition (January 1, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004Y1MGYE
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,369 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
  • #24 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teens > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy
  • #60 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Fantasy > Paranormal & Urban

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Werewolf Novel!! April 28, 2011

By Aimee

Format:Kindle Edition

I love werewolf books. I loved this one, go figure, but I also loved that it was completely different from other YA paranormal books I have read about wolves. This took on a completely different creation story. It's harder to find, where werewolves are the evil creatures in books, so I loved this. I also loved that there was hope for Rylie. That her fate wasn't fixed.

This had some romance to it, not enough to overpower the paranormal mystery that is going on, but enough to balance out some of the harsher realities in the book. I loved the narration. Rylie was such a great character to follow as I got to see her change from who she was to what she could be.

This was a fantastic werewolf tale from debut author SM Reine. I am excited to continue the series and it shows great promise. Packed with tons of adventure, teen angst, touch of romance and twisted with paranormal, it makes for a perfect read!

59 of 69 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Werewolf Girl, Interrupted February 7, 2012

By John Green TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Packed off to summer camp while her parents get divorced, Rylie is determined to see it through and hope for the best- until that one night where it all changes and she's attacked by something she can't identify. Almost immediately she notices herself changing both physically and psychologically, yet as understanding blooms she doesn't understand how she survived the attack. An enigmatic boy at the camp, Seth, has the answers she seeks and offers to help her, but as the summer wanes and the wolf in her grows stronger, Rylie fights to maintain her self-control and hopes for a cure even as she searches for clues about the one who did this to her.

What's Good: The premise is intriguing- going from being a nobody to a monster and all things that happen in between. Rylie's teen angsting about her parent's divorce is what you'd expect. There's also some good secondary characters- I especially liked Louise, one of the camp counselors. I actually had more empathy for her than Rylie.

What's Bad: The MarySue/Speshul Snoflakiness of it all. At the wise old age of fifteen Rylie wants nothing more than to spend the summer in the art district of this nameless city sipping chai tea in coffee shops while reading and going to exhibits and summer festivals, just like the typical teenage girl she's supposed to be. Oh, and she doesn't have any female friends because they're too catty yet wonders if all her male buddies' girlfriends hate her because she's blonde and slender. Any of this sounding familiar, yet?

For someone who's life's been destroyed by becoming a legendary monster, Rylie's pretty blasé about it. It's all "Dear Diary: Mean girls at camp are bothering me... met a cute boy by the lake... I'm a werewolf now." Her biggest concern about it is her distaste for her insatiable cravings for meat, what with being a vegetarian. At least until the fateful night when she rips apart a fawn, then she has an emotional breakdown. She's actually more upset about eating Bambi than becoming a rampaging monster that'll want to slaughter things to begin with. But hey, we got veggie vampires nowadays so why not tofu werewolves? Plus the mysterious yet cute boy she meets knows a whole lot about what's happening to her yet she barely bothers to ask him more than a couple of questions at a time. And some of his answers don't make a lot of sense. When Rylie asks Seth what's happening to her, he responds, "The new & full moons are different. You change on the new moon because it makes the human weak, so the wolf emerges. On the full moon the wolf becomes strong. It dominates you." You kinda see what the author's trying to get at, but it doesn't come across very well. Like a friend of mine said: Heads, I win; Tails, you lose.

The mystery of the identities of the werewolves attacking the camp is nothing special. One's a bit of a surprise and the other one isn't, but what makes it bad is the ham-handedness of the whole situation. Rylie has questions (naturally) and is clearly a danger to herself and everyone else during her furry nights, yet the alpha wolf who bit her lets her flounder until the climax of the story. And their actions and motives are ridiculous- without going too far into it, how does this individual expect to keep the massacre of an entire summer camp secret? The second person's identity discloses more ridiculous plot holes: they've been a werewolf for a year yet apparently still lives in the city. Clearly this person was brought into the fold immediately but again, why wasn't Rylie? And how has this person been managing on their wild nights and why can't Rylie do the same?

And speaking of 'the city'... Wondering why I called it that? Because everyone in the book does. Rylie, Louise, Cassidy, Amber- everyone comes from 'the city'. The summer camp has a name, the mountain is located on has a name as do the river and lake around the camp, but the city, county and state they're all in don't, even though 'the city' has a North End and East Side with an art district.

The final showdown is a cartoon. Werewolves in human form can heal at an amazing rate- Rylie breaks her ankle yet it's well enough in a matter of moments for her to run full tilt along a mountain trail. Somehow none of this translates onto any other werewolves but her: in the final battle Rylie gets her throat ripped out but can keep on fighting since she's young and strong, which enables her to eviscerate her opponent- alpha were described as the size of a horse- to the point that he's on the verge of bleeding out. Really.

What's Left: There's flashes of good storytelling, especially the little insights into Rylie psyche before and after her transformations, but they're scattered and almost lost in all the MarySue-ism and silliness. Too many parts of the story feel slapped together because too much space is wasted showing how speshul Rylie is to help justify her being chosen becoming a werewolf in the first place. Which didn't make any sense, either.

A couple of minor twists in the story will keep you entertained but all the fudging to keep our girl the centerpiece of the story drags it all down.

The romance between Rylie and Seth is forced. Rylie knows he knows more than he's letting on yet she never asks him more than a couple of questions at a time- she's too preoccupied with flirting with him to remember why they're sneaking her away from camp during full moons.

There's a good premise here but it's bogged down by some absolute nonsense. The old adage of keeping it simple applies here, and simply put the series needs to be what it says it is: the story of a girl who gets turned into a werewolf.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book from S.M. Reine! April 29, 2011

By IngaKS

Format:Kindle Edition

First sentence: The moon rose high in the sky.

In the beginning of the book author gives a very captivating prelude, which draws a nice picture of what is going to happen in the coming chapters. But you never realize that there will be lot of twists and turns before you finish reading Six Moon Summer.

Meet Rylie, a girl whose parents are divorcing and who is sent to summer camp for three months. Rylie dislikes everything about the camp: the food, the people, hiking and she misses her city a lot. She feels misplaced and outsider and she would rather hide herself in the cabin on her cot instead of participating what the camp has to offer.

The summer camp meets her with some hostility, girls whom she shares the cabin with start openly comment her and bullying her. After the heartbreaking scene, where other girls are going through Rylie's things and reading her diary, Rylie runs off to the forest, not realizing what danger is waiting for her. Danger that will change her life completely.

What I liked about the Six Moon Summer

I loved the surroundings and setting that author created for the book - the Camp Silver Brook. Usually there are only two types of opinions about summer camps and this was also mirrored in the book - either you love it or you hate it. Rylie's view on the camp was very clear in the beginning of the book, but it changes throughout the book, Rylie learns to love the opportunities that he camp offered to her after she started changing. I think the author does a wonderful job describing the Camp Silver Brook, otherwise typical summer camp for young people. The way author described the summer camp - it made me wish to visit the place!

The plot itself was captivating, as said; there were some interesting twists and turns in the book. First you find yourself in the summer camp, then a brief visit to the city where Rylie is from, then back to the camp. There were several events and topics, what kept me reading Six Moon Summer and made it an interesting read: divorce in the family, bullying people who are different among the teens, paranormal aspects of the book, death in the family and last, but not least the characters.

S.M. Reine did an excellent job with her female characters. Rylie was well thought through, a teen girl who felt totally out of space and room; Amber was a typical teenager, who thought herself being better than others; I absolutely adored Louisa, Rylie's counselor in the camp; Cassidy with her rebellion heart. All that made the female characters strong, interesting and easy to associate with. The male characters of the book were weaker in my opinion, but Rylie's dad was very sympathetic, a dad which everyone would love to have.

What I think author can improve.

There were couple of scenes in the book, where I found the actions of the characters little farfetched. For example I found the scene where Seth starts to tie Rylie up before her change too strange. It was a tiny bit too much for YA book in my opinion. I understood the necessity of that, but still it felt awkward to me.

The second episode what felt alien to me was the aggressiveness in Rylie which she expressed when she started to change into werewolf. It happened too fast and it did not suite to Rylie as a character.

Seth was a mystery to me. I really liked him in the book, but there was something in him, that seemed flat. I needed more background information about him than I got from the first book. He was not captivating enough. He was nice, good looking, helpful, mysterious - he could really be lovable character, but what I missed was a spark, a fire inside him.

Generally speaking I think Six Moon Summer was a very good book and an interesting start for series and I will be looking forward to reading the sequels. S.M. Reine's book is definitely worth of reading.

4 stars out of 5.

More About the Author

Hi everyone! My name is Sara, and I write urban fantasy novels as SM Reine. I collect swords, cat hair, and typewriters (which I do use for writing!). It's a good day when those three things have nothing to do with each other.

If you would like to know the instant I have a new book available, you should enlist in my Army of Evil! We have a WICKED cool secret handshake, but you'll have to sign up to learn it. ;) Check it out -- http://smarturl.it/armyofevil

A few fun facts about me:
- The #1 song on the day I was born was "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley, which means my life is a Rickroll.
- I have three black cats and one black dog, but it's not an obsession, I swear.
- I am a full time writer these days, which means I will never wear a pair of heels to the office again. Viva la sweatpants!

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#43 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Fantasy

#49 in Books > Romance > Fantasy & Futuristic

#51 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy

#89 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy

#43 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Fantasy

#49 in Books > Romance > Fantasy & Futuristic

#51 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy

#89 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy