Review: Moon Shadow by Lucinda Betts

Sandy M’s review of Moon Shadow by Lucinda Betts
Paranormal erotic romance published 1 Mar 07 by Aphrodisia

Blurb: 

Esmenet Sokaris specializes in love spells…and her exclusive clientele is clamoring for more. She needs an assistant with experience in arcane matters–and he must be willing to participate in the most sensual of erotic rituals…

Tall, built, and eager to please, Gage Feldspar is perfect. But Esmenet has her reasons for keeping their relationship strictly professional. Yet their scorching ecnounters leave Gage wondering where business ends and pleasure begins, just as his own magic grows more potent in Esmenet’s presence. Each phase of the moon brings mistress and apprentice that much closer to total surrender–and its soul-shattering consequences…

Read an excerpt. 

[Ed.:Fair warning – the excerpt is in a nearly impossible to online read, bolded, white, italic font on a black background – they couldn’t have made a worse choice for online reading, except perhaps a foreign languge.  Plus the author’s site uses frames – I hate frames on a website.  They’re a pain in the ass to navigate.]

This is one of those cases where the back cover blurb of a book sounds better than the book actually was. You definitely don’t get anything close to what you imagine.

I have to start with this book is written in first person. I actually like first person when reading. But when I got to the second chapter, the first person continued and I had to do a doubletake — I thought I was starting a whole new book. A new person was speaking, even a new gender. Huh? I’ve never seen that before. And along with all that my first thought was, “I don’t think I’m going to like this.” I’m usually not so prophetic.

When Gage knocks on Esmenet’s door, she hires him and they begin to make potions and spells.  The ensuing events are always emotional because hormones are needed for the potions, and the usual way for most emotional states is sex. I think this was the beginning of the end for me as far as the chemistry between the hero and heroine. 

Gage still wants his ex-wife and is determined to pick himself up and start again with this new job. Esmenet is doing her damnedest to keep her mind on her spells and keep her feelings at bay, so we don’t get any real connection between them for the longest time – too late for the book, it turns out.

There were a couple of things I liked about the book. I liked that Gage is loyal and loves his wife and wants her back.  I liked he tries so hard to get his life back on track. I liked when Gage turns things around and finds power within himself then uses it to help Esmenet. I also liked the mystery with its twists and turns.

It’s just too bad it all didn’t come together for a better book. Without the hero and heroine being more emotionally involved early on, despite the wizardry, the mystery, and even the sex, the entire story just fell flat. It’s like the writing and the story came together way too late just as Gage and Esmenet did.

Grade: D