Angelia, or Lia, is a struggling teenager
trying to get on with life. Alone and lonely, she’s an orphan and her foster
mother is recently deceased. Her foster father has taken to drink to try and
deal with it, life isn’t easy.
At school she is largely alone, until
finally, in her senior year, through sheer persistence, Ryan manages to crack
her isolation. Suddenly with a new circle of friends and a boy who likes her,
things are looking up. Perhaps a little too up when Lyle, her friend and
neighbour Emi’s brother, also expresses an interest.
But then she learns far more about her
past than she imagined – including the reality of her parents and foster
mother. She learns even more about herself, that her vivid dreams are just a
herald of the werewolf within her. A werewolf who has lived before – and has an
immortal lover that is now seeking her out. And a werewolf that has a long
running feud with the family closest to her – who are now determined to get
their revenge.
This book did have a decent concept and a
very nice idea. The immortal, reincarnated werewolf trying to assimilate into
mundane life and not knowing what she was. The haunted, grieving vampire
looking for his lost love and rebuild their relationship. The ancient feuding
family looking for revenge for long past grievances and even the shapeshifters
having all this dumped on them but with more ties than they imagined. It could
have been developed and well done.
Unfortunately, I don’t think it was.
Largely because none of these points really were developed, they were just
accepted facts. There’s even one bemusing scene where Lia goes to speak to Ani
for the first time and Ani basically says “you’re a reincarnated werewolf, they
want to kill you and a vampire loves you. Want a cup of tea?” It’s just dumped
with no development – and Lia’s drama is not DOUBTING Ani but being unable to
deal with how much this changes her life. Really? If a complete stranger told
me I was a werewolf, I’d advise them to water down their booze more. Events
happen, people form connections, people do things but their reasons are very
shaky.
The writing was also a barrier. I’m not
normally one to care too much about grammar or spelling – so long as it’s
readable and flows, it’s not something I criticise a book for. But, in this
case, it went just a bit too far. I think commas were inserted at random and
the sentence structure was rather random, often with lots of short, staccato
sentences that were jarring. I think the balance of writing was off as well –
words were wasted on the exact details of getting dressed or making breakfast,
and not enough spent on describing characters and developing relationships.
There was also a problem with repeated wrong use of words – some of them were
blatant spellcheck errors (“Now” instead of “know”) but some were just wrong
words – obvious malapropisms.
I don’t like the relationships in this
book or the character interactions in general. Lia starts the book as an
ostracised lonely girl – but we have no idea why. We’re told she’s bullied and
picked on, but again, no reason why or who (nor does it ever actually happen).
She keeps her head down and drives off anyone around her (again, no idea why)
and then we’re supposed to feel for her because she’s lonely? It’s not even
relevant to the plot – it just feels shoe-horned in to give Lia some character
without any depth.
Then along comes Ryan and decides he
wants to be her friend. And that he loves her (yes, it’s another infatuation
based on a few second contact). She tries to rebuff him, drive him off and he
keeps pushing (looking a little creepy, but mainly her looking more anti-social
than lonely). Eventually she accepts his friendship and gets a whole group of
his family and friends as her close friends as well - they go on to be willing
to fight for her, risk their lives for her and provide room and board for her
based on very little friendship. Her relationship with Ryan is fraught – she
constantly threatens him with no longer being his friend (sometimes what she
wants is reasonable, sometimes not. But the overused threat is gross
manipulation) and he remains a dedicated tool throughout. There’s also a moment
where she decides they simply cannot be friends and he must stay away because…
because… nope, no real clue.
Then there’s Kima. Kima hates Lia because
she loves Ryan. But then Lia talks to her and now they’re bestest friends. No,
really. What was the point of this convoluted lump of aborted conflict?
She meets Lyle, the werewolf and he falls
madly in love with her instantly. To the point of being willing to betray his
siblings and even hurt them for her. I don’t think he even knows her surname or
has spent as much as an hour in her company.
And there’s Adam, who loves her because she’s a reincarnation of the woman he loves. And she loves him because…. Yes, it’s another “I hardly know you but I will DIE WITHOUT YOU!” moment.
It doesn’t help that the dialogue is
often stilted, melodramatic and, frankly, unbelievable. I just can’t picture
real people, actual people, especially teenagers, speaking like this.
I have a problem with many of the
character’s motivations. Emi changing over night to loathing Lia was excessive,
smacked more of possession than inheriting her family powers and was not
strongly explained, especially since Emi and her grandmother were both
presented as reasonable people before. I don’t understand everyone falling in
love with Lia and the sudden friendships. I don’t understand any of the love
interests. I’m just constantly left wondering why the characters are doing what
they’re doing.
As you can probably see, I didn’t like
Lia as a character. She has a very busy backstory – orphaned, raised by foster
parents, foster mother died (and was really her aunt, a secret that as kept
from her because… I have absolutely no idea, it just was) and her foster
father’s an alcoholic; she’s ostracised and picked on at school. And all of
this is just a biography – none of it is really reflected in the character
herself, it’s just a tragic backstory tagged onto the character that has no
actual relevance to who she is. She is prone to pouting, self-recriminating
angst (you know the kind “oh pity me I have done such a terrible thing to
someone” while everyone assures you it’s not your fault) and throwing
manipulative tantrums to get her own way.
There were a large number of POC in this
book, including the protagonist, most of them Native American. I wish they had
been developed more as characters, though, rather than sources of magic,
advice, support and shapeshifting army.
In general, this book had an interesting
concept. An immortal, reincarnated werewolf, shapeshifters, a vampire looking
to reconnect with his past love and an ancient feud. It could have been done
very well – but the lack of character development, world exploration and
establishing the characters motives made the story fall very flat. The writing
was too convoluted to make it flow well and the book is sorely in need of an
editor.
Title: The
Rising Moon
Author: Nilsa
Rodriguez
Genre:
Paranormal, Romance, Young-Adult
Publisher:
Black Dove Publishing
Paperback/Ebook
Pages: 318
Purchase:
Amazon
(Print) | Smashwords
| B&N
| B&N
(Print) |
About the Author:
Nilsa Rodriguez ‘s love for writing
began at an early age. Being an author is quite literally a dream come true for
a girl who spent most of her childhood moments escaping to far-away lands and
wondering into enchanted forests through the many books she's read growing up
and still enjoys to this very day.
Having had
studied Fashion Design at Parsons School of Design and Early Childhood Education
at Penn Foster College her love for writing has always remained close to heart.
Nilsa received her literary diploma from The Institute for Children Literature
in 2009.
Born and
raised in New Jersey, she now lives in sunny Florida with her husband and son
where you can find her writing well into the night on her next novel.
Visit the
author on the web: www.NilsaRodriguez.com
Find the Author:
This post is part of the Rising Moon Blog
tour, arranged by Full Moon Bites Blog Tours.
August 6th- Erotic Romance With a Bite...Leigh Savage
August 7th- The YA Cafe
August 7th- A Diary Of A Book Addict
August 8th- Abbey Ann's Bookland
August 8th- Fangs For The Fantasy
August 9th- The
Bunny's Review
August 9th- Persephone's Winged Reviews
August 10th- A Dream Within A Dream
August 10th- A
Bibliophile's Thoughts on Books
August 11th- Romancing the Darkside
August 11th- Black Hippie
Chick's Take on Books &The World
August 12th- Reading on the Wild Side
August 12th- Tricia Kristufek
