Bad Moon Rising - Sherrilyn Kenyon

Bad Moon Rising
Sherrilyn Kenyon
St Martin's Press
Copyright Date: 2009
978-0312369491

The Amazon.com description:

Fang Kattalakis isn't just a wolf. He is the brother of two of the most powerful members of the Omegrion: the ruling council that enforces the laws of the Were-Hunters. And when war erupts among the lycanthropes, sides must be chosen. Enemies are forced into shaky alliances. And when the woman Fang loves is accused of betraying her people, her only hope is that Fang believes in her. Yet in order to save her, Fang must break the law of his people and the faith of his brothers. That breech could very well spell the end of both their races and change their world forever.

The war is on and time is running out...

I love the Dark-Hunter series Sherrilyn Kenyon has been writing. Bad Moon Rising is the most recent addition, just being released in hardcover this past August.

Finally one of the loose ends of Night Play, the fate of Fang, is tied up. I'd been wondering about that since I first read the aforementioned book. Fury's story is told in one of the short stories Kenyon has written, but nothing more had been said about Fang.

His story, told in Bad Moon Rising begins just before the events of Night Play and spans the timeframe of several of the books, making reference to events in them. For instance, the story of Wren, told in Unleash The Night is mentioned from Fang's perspective.

This is, honestly, something I found a bit confusing, at least at first. So far when I've read the books in the Dark-Hunter series, they've more or less followed one on the next in order. Here we are, jumping back in the timeline quite a ways and running parallel to the other books. The story is also the somewhat more complicated storyline as seen in the most recent books (Acheron etc.), rather than the more individual story of the earlier ones.

Although this is the story of Fang Kattalakis, its also just as much the story of Aimee Peltier, the lone daughter of the bears who run Sanctuary. That meant that rather than the scattered references to Sanctuary and how it was run, we really got a good view of the running of the bar. Kind of neat to see that different view on the Were-hunters and their lives. I also liked the greater insight into how the Were-hunter women factored into their society. So far, nearly all the Were-hunter main characters we've seen had been male.

Still, it's a romance novel, which means that you know that somehow, the characters are going to get their happy ending, no matter how unlikely it seems at times. And, this book really had me wondering how the author was going to be able to get them together in the face of everything. Bear and Wolf? Parental Disapproval? Outside Plotting? All of those are factors and major plot points in the story.

This whole series is mind-candy, if violent at times. Still, it's a favorite series for me, and in Bad Moon Rising we revisit some of my favorite characters. I do recommend this whole series if you're a fan of the paranormal romance genre, and I'm eagerly waiting for the next installment in this series.