Friday, July 07, 2006
***** Moon's Web by C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp. Contemporary paranormal romance/contemporary fantasy.
See? I told you to expect more raves. This isn't the last of them, either.
Moon's Web is the second Sazi book from Adams and Clamp. It takes the world and characters from Hunter's Moon and ratchets the tension up a notch.
Werewolf and assassin Tony and his human wife Sue have joined a werewolf pack, with all the adjustments that entails, and at the same time, Babs, the werewolf who turned Tony, is abducted and Tony is tasked with not only finding her but keeping his old mafia boss from going after her and starting a war that will expose and endanger all the Sazi. In addition, Tony's having to deal with new powers and odd side-effects.
There's a lot going on in Moon's Web, but it's not hard to keep it all straight (just hard for me to write about it coherently--but then, I always have that problem when I really like a book). The pack rules and politics were especially well done--I loved Tony's chafing against the rules, his careless blunders, and the fact that both Tony and the pack leaders are all drawn in shades of gray: none of them is all right or all wrong.
The whole book, in fact, is three-dimensional like that. Tony develops new powers, and there are side-effects to the powers as well as to the mate bond and the pack bond, but he and everyone else has both strengths and weaknesses, good and bad. Nobody is the strongest or wisest, though Lelya, the pack leader's mother, comes close.
Likewise, solving the mystery and defeating the villain aren't the work of Tony alone--everyone plays a part.
The romance in Moon's Web is a continuation of the romance in Hunter's Moon. That is, there's an already-committed couple, and we see developments in their relationship, rather than an entirely new couple meeting and falling in love. Though that does happen, it's not the focus of the story.
The world Adams & Clamp have built in these first two Sazi books is detailed and full, even though they never resort to laundry-list descriptions. It's rich enough to support a long, long series, and I hope it does so.
...more
Categories: Books, 5stars, ParanormalRomance
Labels: 5 stars, books, ContemporaryRomance
