Bev(QB)’s review of Mona Lisa Craving (Monére: Children of the Moon, Book 5) by Sunny
Paranormal Fantasy romance released 2 Jan 08 by Berkley Trade

Well, hell. NOW what am I supposed to do? It’s just no fun reading these Sunny books if she’s not gonna amuse me with the “Which scene in which LKH book is THAT derived from?” game.  I know, I’m sick.  I probably need an intervention. I actually LIKE these Monère books. Yet, at the same time, I LOATHE them.

Wait— let me back the snark wagon up for those of you that are unfamiliar with Sunny too-important-to-use-a-last-name’s Monère series. (Yeah, yeah, she has a famous writer husband, whom I’ve never heard of, and she didn’t want to use his last name. But the fact that she couldn’t think up a pen pseudonym alter-ego name should be your first clue about her level of creativity.) And don’t look for her books in the genre sections of your bookstore. Her books are far too lofty and important to be associated with all that common riff-raff in there. She does NOT write paranormal fantasy romance, nor sci-fi, nor dark fantasy. She writes NOVELS that are shelved in the fiction section. Whatever. [Hey, Syb… does that mean this qualifies as a ROB Review?]

I was going to use “The Big P ” Pie recipe analogy to summarize this series for you, but our head duckie wrangler, Sybil, has issued the edict that I can’t use P-words in my review. So, henceforth, I will restrain myself and will instead refer to this series as “The Big D” Tart.

Recipe for The Big D Tart

World Building Crust: apparently DERIVED from Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels series

Ingredients:
-The complex Queens hierarchy
-Hell and its Lords
-Demon dead
-Janelle

For those of you that may wish to attempt this recipe on your own, here’s a helpful hint from Anne Bishop “Those Who Know checked out the book in question and feel the similarities are superficial rather than substance. So it’s imitation of some elements rather than intellectual theft and hasn’t crossed any legal lines.” 10/03/2006 LKH forum, re: Monère Book 1: Mona Lisa Awakening

Character Filling: apparently DERIVED from Laurell K. Hamilton’s Merry Gentry series

Ingredients:
-mixed breed (human/non-human) queen with modern ways and unheard of compassion
-moonlight glowing skin during sex
-Healing during sex
-acquires new abilities through sex or emergency
-Hands of Power [oops, P-word. Sorry Syb]
-Male harem/guards
-Hopes one of her guards will be her baby daddy [until this latest book]
-Loves certain guards more than others
-Is loved by all her guards
-Is hated/ feared by everyone else

Whipped Topping: apparently DERIVED from Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series

Ingredients:
-Healing during sex
-acquires new abilities through sex or emergency
-discovers she has an inner beast
-channels her beast’s bloodlust into sex
-acquires the abilities of others through sex
-has the ability to suck the life force out of another Monère by laying her hands on their face
-uses her own life-force to metaphysically feed others
-loves a blood drinker, loves a few shape-shifters, loves almost everyone she boinks
-Is loved and/or lusted over by all that are close to her
-Is hated/feared by everyone else

So there you have it. The recipe for Big D Tart that Sunny follows step by step… and often nearly word for word. Until this latest book.

In Mona Lisa Craving, she still frequently CHANNELS Hamilton’s writing STYLE, but I missed all the fun of stopping and trying to figure out whether the scenes were DERIVED directly from a Merry Gentry book or were more Anita Blake-ish. I’m old. I need to exercise my memory muscles. So I was disappointed that I didn’t get to flex my brain cells while reading “Craving”.

But then again, she DOES channel old bodice-rippers in this one…

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD:

Mona Lisa realizes it’s not a good idea to get preggers [damn, another P-word] knocked-up and tells her much-loved guards that they need to use condoms. Soon after, when she’s kidnapped and forced to heal a chained, sweaty, crazy man—through sex, cause that’s how she does it—she drops the condom packet wrapper because she is overwhelmed with the need to be filled by his manly seed. Which is followed by the “Woe is me, what have we done?!” scene. Which is followed by the scene where the baby daddy kidnaps her and chains her up just as she is about to swallow a morning-after pill tablet to rid herself of the doomed-to-be-shunned baby.

After her baby daddy/kidnapper humiliates her by refusing to unchain her and wipes her bottom after she goes potty wee, he then uses his speshul powers mojo that no one else has to freeze one of her guards and shoots down another when they attempt to rescue her. This incites uncontrollable lust in the baby daddy and he realizes he MUST have Mona Lisa right there at the side of the road. So even though she is still chained up and pleads with implores him to stop, he can’t help himself— he must rape her NOW. And verily the rape is so good that Mona Lisa just can’t help but glow like the moon and have a mind-blowing orgasm.

Oh, and there is a reincarnation storyline. And, as a Queen, Mona Lisa decides to keep the baby daddy’s parents mother and father, but puts the baby daddy and his brother up for auction to the other Queens. Also, to help control her bloodlust, she gets married to a mate that loves her and wants to protect [ARGH! P-word again] keep her safe, and oh, yeah… understands that she must continue to boink the other men she loves, too.

I don’t know. Maybe the award winning Sunny herself has cured me of my disturbing sickness. If she’s not even going to bother to write good LKH fanfic anymore, I just MIGHT be able to stop reading these damn books.

So, how do I grade this? If you’ve never read Anne Bishop or Laurell Hamilton [arches her eyebrow of doom at Sandy], you will sadly think the Monère series (and its spin-off, Lucinda: the Demon Princess Chronicles series) are wonderfully creative and original. But this latest book, Mona Lisa Craving? Meh… not so much.

Grade: C+

Read the summary.
Read an excerpt.

Now Syb, what’s all this fuss about banning P-words? Why would you not want me to use P-words? There are some perfectly good P-words that I find quite useful. Where would we be without P-words like pretentious, and puke, and poop? And how can I possibly be expected to review Romance books without plots and penises? What could you possibly have against penises? [fistslam] Why, recently the folks over at Dear Author and the Smart Bitches have had P-words (and black-footed ferrets) tossed about willy-nilly all over their sites! So, it just makes no sense to me that… whatWhatWHAT?!

…not all of them? … just the one?

… nevermind.

With apologies to Gilda and Emily… and Teddypig who recently reminded us what we lost.

Read more from Bev at Cubie’s Confections.