Review - Full Moon Rising by Keri Arthur

Full Moon Rising (Riley Jenson, Book 1) by Keri Arthur

Rating: 1 star
Pages: 320

Rec for people who love: Universe building as an excuse for idiotic sex.

Summary: 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…

Thoughts: Riley Jenson gets a fairly decent introduction, where she saves a bunch of humans from vampires despite the fact that she is utterly terrified. Physically strong, but emotionally normal. Identifiable. Believable.

And then the entire book goes to hell.

Instead of focusing on the fact that her twin is missing for the first half of the novel, Riley puts on a brave face and gets on with the day-to-day. Huh? Why isn't she curled up in a ball sobbing? Why isn't she taking off the heads of people getting in her way to find him? Why isn't this taking up her every waking moment?

Because she is horny - that's why.

The moon is calling to her, so she must have sex right now, and I mean rightnowmusthaveGRR. In Arthurs's world, all werewolves spend a week a month having non-stop sex with anyone until they meet their one-true-love. Uh-huh. Sure. How very practical.

But whatever. So she is sleeping around while searching for "the most important person in her life" - I can get over that. My issue is with the, er, three (?) times Riley was forced to have sex because she was drugged/kidnapped/on a mission. Apparently, this is only slightly unacceptable in Riley's deluded mind. Why? Because with the insane plot device that is the "moon heat" she would have been unable to say no anyways. So really, it isn't too big a deal.

And when it's all over, is she overcome by her desire for revenge? Nope. When she is betrayed, physically and emotionally, by people she trusted for years - does she feel the need to visit a shrink and let all her emotions pour out? Of course not - that would be completely against her lack-of-character.

Honestly. Despite 300-odd pages in her POV, I don't know Riley. One minute she is all touchy-feely "oh gosh, I hate to kill"; the next she is eagerly dressing up as a prostitute while psychically forcing two guys to rape each other (and no I don't care if they deserved it). What was going on in that fictional brain of hers, who knows. Although I imagine if I had, this review would have been significantly more explicit.

*sighs*

That being said, the writing itself was decent enough, and what Arthur lacked in character consistency she made up for in the snappy dialogue. Nevertheless, you couldn't pay me to read the next book in the series.