Over the Moon (Anthology 4-in-1)

I wish I could rate the stories separately instead of the anthology as a whole, because Kantra's story would get four stars, Davidson's would get three, Knight's would get two, and Sunny's would get one (because I can't actually give it zero stars).Kantra's story claims to be an Eros/Psyche story, but to me it's more like a modern play on Tam Lin. The main character finds a rift between the mortal and faerie worlds while hiking the Appalachian trail and meets a fascinating man who is not what he seems. It's a very nonstandard romance, with no flowery prose and only one, brief love scene, but the story itself really interested me.Davidson's story is funny, and I really appreciated that the heroine is a black woman. It's rare that you see show more heroines of color in mainstream romances.Knight's story had some seriously hot sex, and the plot had potential to be interesting, but as a short story, everything happened way too fast. The hero and heroine fall madly in love and do some crazy werewolf soulbonding thing the day after they meet for the first time. Blech.I couldn't even finish Sunny's story. Take Anita Blake and make her a thousand times more beautiful, sexy, and speshul, and you've got this Mona Lisa character. I gave up after the author had described her three regular lovers and went into how the Prince of Hell or whoever he was is totally hot in the pants for her, too. Puh-leeze. show less

A medley of lunar-related romances, some steamier than others.

Angela Knight's Direkind story fleshes out a little more background on the Chosen (those tasked to monitor the behavior of Merlin's Round Table protectors of humanity). The Chosen world is changing - at least it is if Elena has anything to say about it!

MaryJanice Davidson tackles sand, surf and lack of sun with one of her typical smart-mouthed heroines and a furry side-kick on a murderous hunt in the northeast.

Virginia Kantra's heroine tackles the Fae (literally) when a graduation trip over the Appalachian Trail leads her to more adventure than she ever dreamed of.

Sunny's novella follows the Mixed Blood Queen Mona Lisa and her men as they prepare for her move to New Orleans. show more The short story bridges the gap between Mona Lisa Awakening and Mona Lisa Blossoming - and contains some of the steamiest sex scenes in the book. show less

I finished this book couple of days ago, and realized something kind of odd. While I was reading the stories, I'd have said I was enjoying them (well, 3 of them anyway), but at the end I was left feeling dissatisfied and wondering if I need to give up on buying short story collections, since this isn't the first time I've been left feeling this way.

One of my gripes is that all four of these stories are sequels or part of continuing stories that had been started in novels or other anthologies. I was familiar with the "worlds" of Knight's and Davidson's stories, since I read (and enjoy) those authors' novels regularly. Those two were my reason for buying the book.

Kantra's story was a sequel of sorts, but from references in this story, it show more was clear that the prequel was based on the legend of Tam-lin. While I hadn't read Kantra's prequel, I've read other books based on that legend, so I understood the references and didn't feel too lost.

The last story, however, was by Sunny, (a new-to-me writer) and it was, in some ways, like opening up a novel right in the middle and reading just one chapter without bothering to read the beginning or end. I find it a little frustrating that the publisher didn't include even one story that was strictly a stand-alone tale, where you didn't need extensive knowledge of folk tales or an author's back list to fully appreciate the story.

It was also frustrating because I thought each of these tales could have potentially been a novel if the writer had gone more in-depth into character, motivation, etc. and I would've enjoyed the novels more than I enjoyed the short stories. I felt cheated at the end, like I only got a tiny bite of a larger story and that tiny bite wasn't very satisfying.

Then there was the problem that bothered me even more - the last story in the book (and only the last story) was so poorly edited that the grammatical errors were driving me crazy before it was over. That would have been annoying in any part of the book, but for it to be the last story in the book - my final impression of the anthology - yikes! Not good!

I spotted misuse of I/me, mixing up of singular and plural within the same sentence, but the error that was bugging me the most was the author's habit of using phrases like "truthful sincerity." As opposed to what - deceptive sincerity? Truthful lies? Doesn't that seem like a case of *repetitive redundancy*? Just sayin'...

Another one I remember was a scene where the protagonist, who is a shape-changer, was saying something about her "feline cat nature." Whew! What a relief that she doesn't have the dreaded canine cat nature, which causes sufferers to chase themselves up trees until they collapse in exhaustion. Bah!

Then there was the *strong* resemblance of the story to Hamilton's Merry Gentry novels, something already noted by several other reviewers. I found that off-putting as well.

It's a shame because I thought Sunny's writing showed talent, but I was so annoyed by the problems in that story that there's no way I'm going to buy the novels and take a chance on having those same issues drive me nuts for 200+ pages.

Unfortunately, I think this one's going in the used book store pile. show less

****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 show more 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. show less

Elena is Direkind upper crust, she's running from a forced mating and hopes Lucas will be her champion. Lucas is a bitten, but he's an alpha, a cop and a protective streak a mile long. He agrees to be her champion. To save herself she has to convince him to not only protect her but try to get her pregnant. This short packs a lot of info, as well as their mating. Very likeable read, I hope the author will write more full length books with the Direkind.

I found the first story to be just trashy romance, but the other three were really interesting and I'm hunting down more work by those authors.

An easy time waster, you're happy while you're reading it but the next day you can't really remember what any of the stories were about. Angela Knight's one wasn't bad - a wolf during her burning moon runs away to a made (rather than born) alpha wolf cop, rather than staying with her abusive fiance. MJD had a reasonably funny Wyndham werewolves tale, where a lone wolf falls for an African American vampire (don't meet many of those, though no reason why you shouldn't!) and the Virginia Kantra was the most pleasant surprise - I hadn't heard of her, but her romance (about getting lost on the Appalacian trail) was the most romantic of the lot, and nicley written. I nver like Sunny, so didn't read her chapter.