Wolf's Bane (Moon Marked Book 1) Aimee Easterling
Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews
Genre:Sci-fi and Fantasy, Romance.
I love fantasy/romance reads, but so may of these seem to be all grunting, monosyllabic alphas, reverse harems or ones where the romance is all the book, no side/sub plots, no overall story line. Still, it means when I do find a read I enjoy then its like a sweet victory!
I added this one last week, it was free at the time, so nothing to lose and I'd enjoyed the sample. I've just bought books two and three, as it was an intriguing read, and I'll be looking at what else Aimee has written.
Mai is great, she's a Kitsune, Japanese fox shifter. I've come across these occasionally – I think the last one was in a Hailey Edwards read as a secondary character, and the Kitsune premise fascinates me. They're not just shape shifters, but have a kind of fox nature in the way they think and behave, and usually they have some form of magic. Aimee has added a touch here where that magic is connected closely to Mai, and allows her to create real items, her sword for example, within a split second, but it needs to stay physically connected to her or she weakens. I'm still getting my head around the star ball that Kitsunes in this book have, that allows the magic.
Mai is guardian to her younger sister, and struggling. She doesn't know any other Kitsunes, they live in a city controlled by werewolves, and she needs to tread carefully, as they see Kitsunes as something to be killed.
Its an interesting story, full of some very real characters, sub plots that add up to the whole, the star ball connection to magic, and of course poor Mai doesn't have anyone she can ask for help to learn more about what they are. She's never met another Kitsune. Her dead mother offers some cryptic comments at times in Mai's head, but they're beyond my understanding, and mostly Mai doesn't see the logic til too late either. I do like that connection though, and trying to puzzle out what the heck she means by her strange phrases.
There's a developing romance but its still early days, and apart from a couple of stolen kisses hasn't gone further. So many fantasy romance reads make the romance all the story, held up by the tiniest of plots, and for me I want all the mystery, the magic, the struggles, with the romance being there but as part of the story, not all of it.
Stars: Four, a fun read, and a good start to the trilogy.
Book purchase – I do buy books in addition to receiving ARCs and having KU!