I've avoided Dannika Dark forever because that pen name hurts my feelings. I mean, maybe that's her real name -- and I don't have the energy to check the copyright -- but I would be hugely surprised if that were so. I was pleasantly surprised in the beginning. This is first person with a narrator who isn't mean about other women and kinda flailing in her life choices. Her family -- a mother and sister -- are still living with the grief of her brother's death 7 years previous. Brother's bff who totally bailed on them after brother's death returns to town and informs sister lady that her brother died because of shapeshifter politics. 

 

This part is fine. We are reading PNR after all. The opening is really grounded in the girl's life, and there's some nice detail about her co-workers and neighbors -- especially the neighbors. But then it imperceptibly just goes off the tracks, veering into some tragically stupid pack politics and mages and now her sister is some kind of mystical bullshit and oh my God corrupt police officers and absent dad is back and a psycho and on and on. It just completely loses focus. The pack gender dynamics are repellent, though admittedly main girl can see that they are messed up and pushes back. There are way too many near sexual assaults of our main character so shifter dude can swoop in. 

 

I dunno. This is fine, I guess, but I feel like maybe I should have heeded that pen name. Or, that's uncharitable. I did have a good time listening, and the narrative voice was pleasant enough. A credible mess. 

It’s moments like these I feel that I feel extremely sad that I don’t live in the same country as the author and have no chance of meeting them. “Howling at the Moon” is a masterpiece of the most personal and heartbreaking sort, taking the reader into the inner workings of the poet’s mind. I admired the poems not just from what emotions they conveyed, but also the way in which they did so. As a poet I fell in love with the wording, with both the subtle and the outright ways in which emotions came to life.

 

Some of the lines hit me in that sensitive spot between the ribs, lines such as:

 

She asks me what I would say if I could tell anyone anything. ‘Stanch this bleeding,’ I say. ‘Please. I can’t handle always seeing red.’ The next day, her lipstick is pink.

 

Or the even the more easily relatable:

 

truth is, i have no one to give the poems to. instead, i hold them all in my ribcage until i can’t breathe around them.

 

Three poems in particular – “Atlantean”, “Wishes & Fruit Stains”, and “For the Boys with Hungry Mouths” – were each perfect yet for different reasons. The diapason this collection exuded was overwhelming. It was like feeling someone snuggling up beside me, not necessarily asking for their wounds to be kissed better, but rather to have those wounds acknowledged. And I admired that and connected to it on several levels. “Howling at the Moon” is authentic and captivating, relatable for its sexual tones, its pain, frustration, and endless desire to keep going and keep howling.

They say you should never change for another person but no body ever seemed to tell the couples in Romance land that!

 

If your love is immortal, an angel, a shapeshifter, or vampire, in all likelihood you are going to need to change in order to have your happily ever after. 

 

Sometimes, the changes is forced on you by a brutal attack.

 

In my Goodreads List, Species Conversion: Really Changing for Your Love, I recommend  my 3 star and above Parnormal, Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Urban Fantasy Romances  book reads where in order to be with the love of their life they Convert...Species. I have listed some of my top choices above. 

 

There are also some Opps I am something New! romances as well. 

 

The species conversation theme is a fun conflict that adds spice to these romance novels. 

 

I would love to add your recommendations to the pile.   Vote for your favorites. 

I love anything werewolf related, so this book was an instant attraction to me. It's the story of a lone werewolf who has believed herself to be all alone in the city of Austin, Texas. She has lived there for the majority of her life and only seen three werewolves one time each. She feels pretty safe with her secret as long as she has the four major full moons off from work. However everything is about to go wrong. Someone has discovered her secret even though she hasn't told anyone. They are sending her threats at work. To top that off, her meddling psychic witch for a mom has been arrested for murder. I am not using the term witch to mean a bad thing; she is literally a witch. She's meddling because you will come to discover that her mom has cast a spell to attract werewolves to the area in hopes that Sophie will discover that her kind isn't as bad as she has always felt. It causes some interesting situations that help and hinder her investigation into the crime her mother did not commit.

It's a very entertaining story. It's very well written. I thoroughly enjoyed the character development and the plot development. The only complaint I have is that I felt like some information was reiterated a few too many times. I think this was Karen MacInerney's way of showing how easily distracted Sophie was with everything going on around her, but I am not 100% certain. If you enjoy werewolves like I do, I definitely recommend this book.

For about the first half of this book, I wasn’t that impressed. I found the conversational tone and the (not very witty) narration somewhat irksome. Even the (thousands of) asides (used like they were going out of fashion) seriously got on my nerves. However, there were a few amusing factors that kept me reading. Like Sophie’s constant need to shave her legs, and that doing so meant she ended up as a bald-legged wolf whenever she transformed. The panty-hose incident. And the pickles she always seemed to find herself in.

Though they were somewhat counteracted by the totally irritating number of times the author felt she needed to remind us of Sophie’s werewolf status. It wasn’t just a case of poking a reminder, it was ramming it down the reader’s throat like they’re totally thick. I was just on the verge of getting angry with these repetitions (of EVERYTHING!) when Sophie’s presentation scene popped up.

You see, Sophie chugs down wolfsbane tea throughout the entire book to keep her wolfie instincts under control, but there are apparently four full moons a year during which she cannot deny her instincts. And her boss goes and schedules a presentation on one of them that Sophie has no chance of getting out of.

However, to get herself through said presentation, she feeds herself enough wolfsbane to sicken an entire platoon, whilst telling herself her mothers warnings of side effects are unfounded and not to be heeded. Um … yeah, right.

The entire scene was just snort-worthy hilarious. The ‘horns’ she sees growing out of the CEO’s (of the company they’re entertaining) head–that’d be the hallucinations. The plug that keeps groaning in its efforts to get free of the socket so it can bite her–paranoia-much! And that bloody lisp of her hers? *Snort* That scene totally turned my entire opinion of the book around and made me glad I’d read on. I even have a feeling that said CEO guy might end up showing his face again in the future.

I will say there was a LOT left unresolved at the end–but only the bits to do with Sophie’s love life. The mystery that the plot revolved around came to a closure, but the hot werewolf dude was left hanging with a hint that he’d return but no idea to the reader what his intentions are toward Sophie, and then Heath–who might be hot and just lovely–just didn’t seem the right ‘fit’ for her … which is evident in how  easily she kissed the hot werewolf. Coz if she was 100% smitten with Heath, those interactions would never have happened.

Okay, that’s a lot of waffle I’ve written when I didn’t think I had that much to say.

Long story short:

Did I enjoy the book? Um … yes, but not totally until I’d moved into the second half and the MC managed to make me laugh out loud for the first time (the humour in the first half just didn’t quite pull it off).

Am I interested in reading the 2nd book in the series? Yep. I am.