As usual with a collection of short stories, this was a mixed bag. One very good story (I will be looking for more from Angela Knight), two mediocre ones, and one rather lame offering I probably wouldn't have even bothered with except to just finish off the book. ( )

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book.

I've never read anything by Angela Knight before, but I really liked her story MOON DANCE. I was intrigued by her Direwolfs and the world they live in, and plan to look up more of her books.

BETWEEN THE MOUNTAIN AND THE MOON, by Virginia Kantra, was an interesting story, but didn't appeal to me simply because of my preconceived notions of the sidhe world. In this story they seem evil, and that threw me off, but the premise of the story was a good one.

MaryJanice Davidson's story, DRIFTWOOD, was the reason I got the book in the first place. It's another fun, short, sarcastically funny read in typcial MJD style.

I've never read anything by Sunny, so I had no preconceptions when I began reading MONA LISA THREE. I have to say that I loved it -- and that I'm also surprised that the author hasn't been sued for blatant plagiarism by Laurell K. Hamilton. Sunny has taken every single plot element from both the Anita Blake and Meredith Gentry series' and placed them into her world of Mona Lisa and the Monere. Since I enjoy LKH, that's no doubt the reason I love Sunny's story. It's even more sexually erotic than LKH's stories, and I really like her world that revolves around a group of people who get their power from the moon. But at the same time it's so much like LKH's worlds that you get a distinct feeling of deja vu with each paragraph. I'm still going to look up her first two books featuring Mona Lisa and the Monere -- before the lawyers come knocking at Sunny's door. ( )

I really enjoyed this selection of stories, a good collection, not requiring you to know much about the other 'verse they come from. A pleasant introduciton to some new authors to try. ( )

"Three beloved bestselling superstars and one exciting new voice in paranormal romance come together in an anthology of startling seduction."

All of the stories were good! But one of them was hard for me to get into but it got better as it went on. ( )

****½ "Moon Dance" by Angela Knight. This is set in the Mageverse, but deals with the Direkind (werewolf) side of that universe rather than the vampire/witch side. (Check Angela Knight's website for the details.)

Elena is a Chosen--that is, she's a descendant of one of the original Direkind created by Merlin rather than one who was merely bitten and turned. The Chosen are exclusionary and patriarchal, and Elena's father has decreed that she must marry another Chosen, the sadistic Stephen.

In order to save herself and change things for the rest of the Chosen females, Elena turns to relatively new Direkind Lucas, a cop in a nearby town, for help.

For a novella, this story has quite a lot going on. The werewolf politics are clear, and both Elena and Lucas are easily identifiable characters. It's less easy to believe the declaration of love at the end, but given the novella length, and the fact that they have similar and complementary personalities, and are in tune enough with each other to spirit link, I'll buy it.

****½ "Between the Mountain and the Moon" by Virginia Kantra. This story is apparently connected to Virginia Kantra's story in Man of My Dreams, which, unfortunately, I haven't read. Yet. But that doesn't make a difference with understanding this story.

Cait is hiking the Appalachian trail with a group of friends. An injury causes two of them to turn back, and she's left with Josh, whose interest in her wanes when she declines to share his bed.

Still, he's better than nothing, she thinks, except that when she's chased by the menacing Ursus and gets lost, he doesn't come for her, and she's left at the mercy of Rhys, a man they met the night before at a hiking shelter, and who seemed to be friends with Ursus.

Rhys is more than he seems, and, without giving away the surprises, the story involves the conflicts between duty and desire, and love and self. A true fairy tale.

****½ "Driftwood" by MaryJanice Davidson. This is a crossover story, involving one of the Wyndham werewolves and one of Betsy's vampires.

Burke is a bit of a rarity among werewolves, in that he's a loner. Serena is a vampire who wants to get revenge on the vampire who killed her best friend. But before she can do that, she finds herself stuck in a deep pit on a beach.

Burke comes to help her out, but it's daylight, so she refuses his help, whereupon he jumps down into the pit with her, freaks out (werewolves are notoriously claustrophic), changes (the full moon just rose), and claws his way out.

The next day he comes back to find what he assumes will be her body, and discovers a very annoyed, but very not-dead Serena.

These two are a little darker than MJD's usual couples, but there's still a lot of humor, and they're definitely a couple that's made for each other.

**½ "Mona Lisa Three" by Sunny. This novella follows Mona Lisa Awakening and concerns Mona Lisa and her entourage needing to move to their new territory. But before they can, they've got to go shopping. And her mother, Mona Sera, comes demanding that Mona Lisa either heal her warrior who's been bitten by a hellhound, or give up one of her own warriors in his place. I've no idea where the "three" comes from--as far as I can tell, this is the second story in the series.

Continuing in the tradition of the first book, this story is even more "LKH-lite." For a short story, there are interminable descriptions of Mona Lisa clothing her reluctant his-em in tight pants, and yet more characters who fall madly in love with Mona Lisa, including of course the warrior she heals, the hellhound, and its mistress.

There's never any question of whether she can heal the warrior--all it takes is her magical orgasm.

I'm not going to list all the parallels between this series and LKH's two series. Suffice it to say that the parallels continue, and that if you like LKH's more recent books, you'll like this one, and if you don't, you won't. ( )