Demon Moon (The Guardians, Book 4) by Meljean Brook
Paranormal romance released Berkley Sensation 5 Jun 07

Demon Moon is a new novel in Brook’s Guardian series. Colin Ames-Beaumont, a secondary character from Demon Angel and the story in the anthology Hot Spell gets his own story.

Colin is a vampire who is isolated from the rest of the vampire community due to a taint in his blood, but he does what he can to function in the real world that is in general blissfully aware vampires and otherworld creatures don’t exist. One rather dull night Colin recieves an email from Savitri Murry enroute from London to New York.

What transpires after the email, and some cute instant messaging, drags both Savi and Colin into a plot by a displaced demon, some angry vampires and evil nosferatu. Along the way Savi is changed from being human to something slightly more and she has to overcome some personal demons as well as defeat the one currently threatening her life.

I really don’t want to give too much away, so the summary is rather short on this one, but it’s a wonderful book. Savi is a mass of contradictions. She’s forgiving, abhors violence and is very loyal, but she created a card and video game based on the world of vampires, demons and Guardians. She’s got a photographic memory but didn’t finish college (she got a bachelors but that wasn’t enough for her Indian grandmother). She lives on her own and is independent, but she’s emotionally immature. She’s overly curious and due to that gets into lots of trouble.

That is until Colin. She slowly learns too many of the hard things about life from Colin and becomes mature and wonderful over the course of the story. Colin, of course, is wonderful from start to finish and he would be the first one to tell you that. But in spite of his overwhelming vanity and self-worth, he’s someone I want on my side in a battle and in my bed after the battle is done. Is that so wrong? 😉

I grew up reading a lot of fantasy and sci-fi (The Wheel of Time ranks way up there) and this was right up my alley in that department. The world Brook creates is so rich and layered, the reader gets sucked in and can’t breathe until the last page is turned. The best parts are the ties between popular culture of the here and now in the story and the ties to the past though the evolution of Colin and how he realized his blood is tainted.

Brook also uses language and style not unlike those in a fantasy novel. Everything builds throughout the story and there’s little redundancy or distracting overbuilding of the setting. Descrpitions are realistic, moving and not off putting. Characters are three-dimensional, believable and there are no eye-rolling actions. Though long (it’s 470 pages) the time spent reading goes by with such pleasure, you don’t realize you’ve spent as long as you have getting into the meat of the tale.

From a history standpoint, Demon Angel packed more of a punch for me, but emotionally this one was better. And Colin is one of the best heroes that I’ve read in a long time. The cultures and ideas spread subtly also give this story, and perhaps the series, an edge over some other paranormals out there.

I highly reccommend this one for a read, and if you haven’t already, read Demon Angel, you’ll thank all the ducks later. 🙂

Grade: A