Moon Shine by Vivian Arend (Takhini Wolves #4)
Paranormal Romance
May 27, 2014
Samhain
Reviewed by Helyce
From Goodreads: Meet Evan Stone. Laid-back, in-control Alpha of the Takhini Wolves. Life’s not perfect, but he’s got a good handle on his world. At least, he did—until the night he ends up in jail, soaking wet and wondering what the hell just happened.
The “what” is Amy Ryba, a vengeful female who’s decided it’s long past time to make Evan pay for his sins. Amy has spent years tracking him down, and the last nine months working in secret to destroy him. She’s ready for anything—except discovering the shifter she hates is her mate.
Suddenly, Evan’s not so very in control, of himself or his pack. And unless Amy can learn to forgive and forget, she’ll have to do the unthinkable: reject her mate.
With two packs watching, one thing is certain. Their personal issues won’t stay personal for long. If Amy and Evan can’t find a way to work together, there won’t be a happily-ever-after for them…or any of the wolves of Whitehorse.
I was so excited to learn that we were finally getting Evan’s book. As the alpha, he’s had secondary roles in the previous books and I was more than a little in love with him and was looking forward to his story. In the previous book, Diamond Dust, Evan sniffs out his mate but she proves to evade him at every turn. Initially, I was okay with this tactic. It provided a bit of suspense or mystery and I looked forward to the woman who would be Evan’s mate.
Unfortunately, I never warmed up to Amy. She grew up under a huge misconception of events that occurred in the past involving Evan and Amy’s brother. For years she’s suffered the loss of her brother and and she blames Evan for everything. She’s made it her sole purpose in life to destroy him as she feels he destroyed her family. Amy is very intelligent and her plot to destroy Evan is quite successful. The one thing she didn’t count on was finding that Evan was, in fact, her mate.
The revenge plot in this story just did not work for me. Not that it wasn’t well thought out and and written really well, I just didn’t like Amy and I really disliked all the nasty things that she set up to hurt Evan, his pack and his businesses. While she strikes out at Evan, others are affected. Mate or not, this is not the type of woman I wanted for Evan. I kept thinking she was a bitch and with every additional horrible thing she slung against Evan I just hated her more.
Even when the mating urge takes over and Evan and Amy are forced to look at their relationship or at least the possibility of it and make important life decisions that will affect both their packs, I just disliked her. Mating urge or not, I wanted Evan to get mad and hold her accountable. He too easily forgave her and everything kind of worked itself out too easily with Amy never really redeeming herself in my eyes.
This story is well written. The plot in and of itself is well done and show’s Amy’s intelligence and strengths. This is fact. What she does and how she does it proves how capable she was and why she succeeded in taking a bunch of packless wolves and creating a community where she is respected and accepted in an alpha capacity. On paper, she’s seems exactly the type of female you’d want for a alpha. I just didn’t like her for Evan.
Rating: C-
Goodreads l Author Website l Series Guide
Sad to see a C-. I really like this series. I’ll be reading this one soon, I hope I feel differently. I still have the novella before this to read though. I’m behind.
I have a feeling I’ll be in the minority here. I like this series too and had looked forward to Evan’s story. Though Evan is known to be an easy going alpha, I just couldn’t get that he wasn’t more upset or angry at all Amy’s shenanigans. I look forward to seeing your thoughts.
Which novella are you talking about?
If you just don’t like the heroine, and dislike her actions, the story won’t work for you. I haven’t read any of these books so I don’t know how big the mates thing is in this world. But Eric does not sound very alpha in your review, as take charge and make her know the truth of what happened.
Aurian, I absolutely agree! If the Heroine is making cracked decisions or too much of a ball buster it turns me off. I love a good paranormal romance byt I was frowning as soon as it seemed like Amy was a mean little vengeful would-be mate.
I like an Alpha who melts for his female- but no pushover please!
Great review!
I don’t know if your review coloured my experience with the book, or if I would have felt the same without it, but I am sad to say I was disappointed with this last instalment. I’ve really enjoyed this series and Vivian Arend is a ‘must buy’ for me but I couldn’t get into this story because I really didn’t like the heroine. I didn’t like her, what she did and to the extent she did illegal things didn’t seem justified and then they all just seemed to be brushed over and let go. No wonder there were problems with the pack. Really trying not to give too much away of the story. I understand she was supposed to be presented as a strong female…..but to me there was no integrity in her character.
I’ve come to realise that I don’t enjoy stories where you don’t see any/or enough apology for shitty behaviour, it leaves me on edge.
Anyway – I still love Ms Arend and I’m hanging out for her next Thompson & Sons book – released on my birthday