Full Moon Rising: Riley Jenson Guardian Series Book1 written by Keri Arthur [Kindle Edition]
A rare hybrid of
vampire and werewolf, Riley Jenson and her twin brother, Rhoan, work for
Melbourne’s Directorate of Other Races, an organization created to police the
supernatural races–and protect humans from their depredations. While Rhoan is
an exalted guardian, a.k.a. assassin, Riley is merely an office worker–until
her brother goes missing on one of his missions. The timing couldn’t be worse.
More werewolf than vampire, Riley is vulnerable to the moon heat, the weeklong
period before the full moon, when her need to mate becomes all-consuming …
Luckily Riley has two willing partners to satisfy her every need. But she will have to control her urges if she’s going to find her brother….Easier said than done as the city pulses with frenzied desire, and Riley is confronted with a very powerful–and delectably naked–vamp who raises her temperature like never before.
In matters carnal, Riley has met her match. But in matters criminal, she must follow her instincts not only to find her brother but to stop an unholy harvest. For someone is doing some shifty cloning in an attempt to produce the ultimate warrior–by tapping into the genome of nonhumans like Rhoan. Now Riley knows just how dangerous the world is for her kind–and just how much it needs her.
Luckily Riley has two willing partners to satisfy her every need. But she will have to control her urges if she’s going to find her brother….Easier said than done as the city pulses with frenzied desire, and Riley is confronted with a very powerful–and delectably naked–vamp who raises her temperature like never before.
In matters carnal, Riley has met her match. But in matters criminal, she must follow her instincts not only to find her brother but to stop an unholy harvest. For someone is doing some shifty cloning in an attempt to produce the ultimate warrior–by tapping into the genome of nonhumans like Rhoan. Now Riley knows just how dangerous the world is for her kind–and just how much it needs her.
Before I read the
book
Let me just start off – what a beautifully fierce
cover! I just love the green swirling magically around the page and Riley Jenson
– the main character. The connotation of green symbolises fertility, the
improvement of vision and healing. However, dark green shows the colour of
money. All of these things are certainly featured in the book – a little visual
foreshadowing here. The light by her head, highlighting her fiery red hair
seems symbolic in the way that the red of her hair matches the ferocity of her
personality which burns brightly by her protectiveness of those around her –
especially her twin brother, Rhoan.
When I first saw the blurb, I was a bit
hesitant because the main character was ‘a
rare hybrid of vampire and werewolf’. Personally, I don’t really like vampires
as main character because it spoils the fun in the book. When you think of
vampires, you think of blood sucking, sleeping during the day, stakes through
the heart – these sort of things. This can be rather predictable. It just
annoys me I suppose. Sorry Twilight fans
– no offence. J
This is my personal opinion – so don’t start a mob and try to kill me… please.
Another reason why I hesitated at reading
this book is that it seemed to focus on saving Riley’s brother and nothing much
else. Yes, it does talk about the ‘moon
heat’ and the ‘shifty cloning’,
but it seems all about saving the brother. I understand that saving Rhoan kicks
off the series of events – it just seemed a bit naff…
After all of this pre-judgment, I went to my well trusted Web site, Goodreads, and read reviews of the book there. I saw a lot of mixed feelings about this one. Some people gave it one or two stars and others four or five. I read their comments and thought I would give it a go and see if my own thoughts matched any of theirs.
I next went onto Amazon and looked up the Kindle version – and stopped.
£5.99. What
the hell!
Oh my days! Why is it sooo bloody expensive?!
I was shocked it cost, basically, £6 for a 360 page book. Yes, that may seem a
lot of pages to some people, but for me, I read books like that within two days,
sometimes one. I could read a book that has more pages for half the price.
I was appalled at the cost, the physical book was only £7.99 – only a £2 difference. So I started to read the Amazon reviews. On the whole they said that there was a lot of action and that the romance in this book is featured quite a bit, but it didn’t get in the way of the plot. I saw some good reviews, on an average there were four out of five stars. I felt a bit reassured by this but, looking at the price, I asked myself “Is this book really worth it?” Since there are nine books in the series, and books two to nine each cost £5.49, I calculated the cost of the whole nine-book series would set me back a total of £49.91 (that’s $87.75 at the time of writing).
£50.
That’s most definitely a lot of money for
only nine books but, bearing in mind that this series is very popular and that
there are over 300 pages per book – I decided to give the book a go. After
reading the sample, I bought it.
Book
review
I really liked the beginning of the book
which went straight into the action –I love books that do this. It easily
captures my attention, filling up my addiction of action and gore in a matter
of pages.
The first character we are introduced to is Gautier – whom I hated immediately. He’s just a creepy bastard ‘with a capital B’. Also what repulsed me about him was that ‘his voice, like his dark hair, was smooth and oily’ and made me imagine him being extremely smelly, like Arthur has written, and that he’s very sly and can easily slip through your fingers when you have just caught him. This is then followed by the first action scene we see our fierce heroine dive into and victoriously comes out alive, but with a person’s life gone.
After the physically draining fight, we are then introduced to Jack, Riley’s boss. Riley calls Jack to tell him what transpired at the warehouse opposite the human and nonhumans club, Vinnie’s. After explaining to Jack her weird feeling, worried that her twin brother is in trouble, Riley sets off home and we meet the very handsome, very muddy and quite naked Quinn – standing outside Riley’s door, in the middle of the night no less. Odd, huh?
When Quinn was introduced, I was a bit suspicious of him at first because he was a vampire and since we’ve just seen Riley’s distrust in them, it set me off on edge. I was more suspicious when he was polite. Politeness is an easy way of people worming into your life with ill intentions. But as the book continued with his character, I started to like him a bit, but still suspicious since Arthur doesn’t really tell us much about the 100,000 year old vampire – who is polite.
The sad thing is that Riley doesn’t have many friends because of what she is, half vampire and half werewolf. She considers as her friends her boss, Jack, and guardian, Kelly. They are the only two people that accept Riley – even if they don’t know about her mixed heritage. This shows how harsh the world can be when people are prejudiced towards you and don’t accept who you really are.
What I like about this book is the humour of the banter between Riley, Rhoan, Quinn, Jack and Kelly. I smirked and chuckled at the barbs they threw at each other. It’s subtle which I find refreshing.
We next see the ‘tall and powerfully built, with chiselled features and dark golden hair[ed]’ Talon at the Blue Moon club where were-creatures are celebrating sex because of the ‘moon fever’. The description Arthur provides captures me instantly and makes me melt into a puddle of goo. Is it me, or is it hot in here? I liked Talon, not just for his appearance, but his little nickname for Riley: ‘little wolf’ – which made me even hotter for him. Crickey, I love boys when they give you cute nicknames. OK, OK, yes I am a hopelessly romantic kind of girl – and most importantly, I am a girl. We have hormones. We just die when a guy does something so hot – like calls someone a cute nickname. I also liked him because of his “Alpha” attitude towards Riley (pun intended) but then the book continued … I hated him.
Admittedly, it was lust at first sight for me, but come on! Chapters 4 and 7!!! Blimey, what on earth is wrong with him!! You just don’t do that! When Talon did these things, I got really suspicious of him. In Chapter 7, Talon and Riley are in the hot tub at Talon’s place and are having a specific conversation. Riley was refusing to do what Talon “requested”, more like demanded, and he was getting annoyed. Talon said that ‘there are ways to ensure gender’. I was getting my fedora hat and trench coat on and thought that he was behind the cloning business. What confirmed my suspicions further was that Talon said his company was an ‘empire’ and that he looked through Riley’s medical record without her consent. He said that he ‘put a lot of thought’ in what he “asked” Riley and that he doesn’t ‘intend to give it up until [he] get[s] what [he] want[s]’. After Riley refuses for the billionth time, Talon says something that really gave me the chills, ‘We’ll see, little wolf. We’ll see.’ Now I’m thinking ‘little wolf’ isn’t as hot anymore … more like disturbing.
On with the review.
Just after getting Rholan, something happens … to whom – you’ll have to find out. ;)
Then, shorty after that fiasco, the gang sits down, with a nice juicy steak made by Liander and sets up a plan. At this point – I got seriously bored.
So I found another two books, that I found
out that were just released, and read
them within two days. What does that tell you? Once I read both books, I went
back to this one – and I’m glad that I did. There was a bit more action, which
was a nice ending to the first book of a nine part series. The action
definitely satisfied my craving and there was a showdown between Talon and
Riley. I thought the fighting between them was a bit short-lived though. However,
I did finish the book within a matter of hours.
Throughout the book I never really connected
to Quinn on a massive scale. This might be what Arthur is after, but I feel
uneasy about it. I don’t get hot and bothered like Riley does. I know he’s
going to stay around, it’s just that it’s missing something – I don’t like that
emptiness of him. Yes, the mysteriousness might draw people in, but he just
seems like an OK character to me.
Now, since I’ve finished the book, I’m in two
minds about reading the second.
On the one hand, I want to continue and see whether Riley gets her wolf soul mate and has her dream family, and see more action. On the other hand, I don’t want to continue because I don’t like the plot of the cloning business. It just seems a bit naff to be honest. Hmm …
What do you think?
If I don’t continue, it’ll save me £43.92. That’s got to be a plus …
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