Reviewed by Vicki
TITLE: Moonstruck 
SERIES: Moonstruck #1
AUTHOR: Shannon West
PUBLISHER: Dark Hollows Press
LENGTH: 108 pages
BLURB:
Special Agent in Charge Jaden Malik’s meeting with the old gray alpha was the first step in an attempt to convince him a fight by his pack against their removal by the Bureau of Lupine Affairs or the BLA would not only be futile but would lead to their utter destruction. When he’s attacked by the son of the old alpha, he takes the handsome man hostage to ensure the pack’s cooperation and then finds to his horror that the man is his mate.
Tyler Jenkins is furious at his capture and Malik’s plans to take his pack to one of the government preserves for wolf shifters. Malik is a shifter himself, and Tyler can’t understand how he can betray his own kind. Tyler’s pack has evaded capture for over thirty years, since the camps were first created, and he has no intention of being put behind bars. Despite his growing attraction to Jaden, Tyler manages a dangerous, daring escape with his pack, turning the tables on Malik by putting him in his own silver handcuffs and taking him with them.
Tyler has only one chance to save what’s growing between them. He has to make it good or risk losing his lover and his mate forever.
REVIEW:
I am always looking for a new writer of shifter stories, so I was happy to pick these books up for review! A new shifter world makes me happy.
This is a pretty dark world. It’s our world, but shifters exist, and are hated by humans. There is a government agency, BLA (Bureau of Lupine Affairs) that is focused on moving shifter packs to reservations. They pack them up, separate the children from the families, and drug them so they can’t shift or mate. The kids are recruited in to the organization, becoming the next generation of agents. The plan seems to be to exterminate them long term by eliminating the birth of new shifters, instead of just shooting them all. I had a hard time with this, obviously! Too much like the removal of Native Americans to reservations, and too much like WWII Germany.
Our main characters are Jaden, a BLA agent, indoctrinated into the system as a child. He is so brainwashed he doesn’t even realize what he is doing is wrong. On the other side we have Tyler, whose very small pack as been discovered living peacefully on the pack lands they have held for a couple hundred years. Jaden and his group of thugs (Alaskan wolf shifters) show up to move the pack, Tyler’s dad is the ineffectual Alpha who has no clue what to do and agrees to hop in the trucks. Tyler is a young shifter, Alpha eventually, and pretty damn sure he doesn’t want to just hop in the truck. Unfortunately there isn’t much he can do. He’s an Alpha, but so is Jaden, and Jaden’s group has guns.
But. Jaden gets a good sniff of Tyler, realizes he’s his mate, and decides to have a little taste. Things get dramatic, Tyler ends up as Jaden’s hostage insuring the pack behaves, then things get sexy. The pack is eventually forced to pack up and off they go. Of course they don’t just meekly go, Tyler has a plan….
I mostly liked this story. I liked the world, it’s icky, but I can see this will be a fun world for Shannon to play in. The potential for drama and chaos is high. My issue was I didn’t like Jaden! He’s a dick. Obviously he has issues, he was literally torn out of his mothers arms when he was two, and has just barely managed to keep his two brothers with him as they moved through the BLA program. Just about the point I had some sympathy and started to like him, he’d say something nasty and fuck it up! Tyler I liked ok. I think I would have liked this book more if more time had been spent at the beginning introducing us to Jaden and Tyler as individuals, so we had more back story for them. I think if I had seen flashbacks to their early life I would have more sympathy for them both. Lots of limited page count was spent giving us details about the BLA, but not enough time was spent on character development. Then Jaden and Tyler are dragged together kicking and screaming, fighting and fucking, with all this drama happening around them, but not much couple development. I’m not even sure they liked each other.
They are mates, so they are bonded, and do have some awesome sex, but I’m pretty sure they were both virgins, or at least very inexperienced, but they REALLY seem to know what they are doing. Perfect blow jobs with swallowing, massive orgasms, and lots of biting. It was hot, but a bit unrealistic. Yes, I know, they are werewolves, but still!
There were some editing issues, enough that I noticed but didn’t really distract me from the story. The writing was ok, but disliking a main character, and not liking the relationship between them, made this not a great book for me. This one was ok, didn’t love it, but I’ll read the next one!
RATING:
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TITLE: Rebel Moon 
SERIES: Moonstruck #2
AUTHOR: Shannon West
PUBLISHER: Dark Hollows Press
LENGTH: 164 pages
BLURB:
After a long search for the rebel group of wolf shifters located in the eastern Canadian woods, Brandt Malik finally stumbles upon them while hunting one day. But before he can report back to his alphas, Brandt is captured by the rebels, who take one look at his uniform and believe he’s spying on them for the Bureau of Lupine Affairs. The rebels don’t make any attempt to hide their contempt and mistrust of the former agent, and Brandt is sent to be interrogated by the second in command, Zayne Sala, a powerful and dominant alpha.
Zayne, a huge Alaskan wolf, can’t believe what his senses are telling him when he discovers the good looking BLA agent. This man, this traitor to their kind, can’t be his mate, despite all evidence to the contrary. Despite his growing compulsion for the agent, he takes charge of Brandt and tricks him into leading the rebels back to his camp. They capture the entire group and lead them back in chains to their stronghold. Now it’s up to Brandt and the others to convince the rebels that they’re trustworthy and that they only wish to join the rebellion. Zayne has vowed never to truly mate with Brandt, no matter how painful it is for him to stay away from him, but as it becomes obvious that his plan won’t work, he tries instead to teach his mate proper submissive behavior and ignore his painful past.
As their love struggles to take root, Zayne must learn to trust in Brandt and stand together against the forces trying to tear them apart or risk losing everything.
REVIEW:
Oh No! I did not like this book.
This one picks up where Moonstruck left off, the group of refugee wolves has been in the Canadian woods searching for the rebels they have heard lived there, hoping to find a home. Brandt, Jaden’s older but not alpha brother is out on his own hunting for the rebels when he finds them. He’s captured by them, and is taken to their home. The leader of the group that finds Brandt is an alpha named Zayne. Zayne is a fucking douchebag asshole. He realizes Brandt is his mate, decides to fuck him, use him, and dump him. He drags Brandt to their home, and takes him to his alpha, a horrible bitch of a woman named Lillian. Lillian doesn’t believe a word Brandt says, and thinks he needs to be killed. She sends him off with Zayne, telling him to fuck him, then maybe kill him.
So Zayne takes Brandt to a barn, Brandt feels some attraction to Zayne but doesn’t understand why. Zayne is nasty and rude to Brandt, and basically rapes him. Just because Brandt says yes, doesn’t mean he really wants it. It felt like he said yes to the fucking, so he didn’t get hit. Zayne fucks him over a dirty bale of hay and on the barn floor a few times, giving him the mating bites against Brandts will. He then turns him loose and follows him right back to Jaden, Ty, and the pack. Who get beaten, tied up, and hauled back to the lodge Lillian and her pack have been living in.
Zayne is horrible to Brandt, there is a fine line between dominant and abusive. Zayne crosses that line repeatedly. Lillain invites the former BLA wolves to “train” with her wolves, then suggests that Zayne and Brandt fight. Zayne beats the crap out of Brandt, who is obviously a weaker wolf. Brandt gets his dander up and won’t back down, so Zayne just hits him. At the end, he tells Brandt to listen to him next time and he won’t do that again. Fuck that shit right there. How many abused partners have heard that?
Lillian is a big raging bitch. I won’t say what her problem is because of plot issues, but it made no sense to me. I don’t know why she was so adamant about it, so hurtful and disbelieving. I didn’t like that at all. Oh, and after she does decide they can stay for a few months, it’s basically to get slave labor.
At the end of the book, all is well after some drama, then Zayne basically tells Brandt, his MATE, that he doesn’t want a mate but he guesses Brandt can stay with him. But he’ll probably ignore him sometimes because Zayne is busy, and he’ll treat him bad, just want to have sex, and be an asshole to him. And stupid Brandt is all fine with that.
This book had editing issues even more than the first book. Brandt is captured and his hands are tied behind his back. Then two sentences later his hands are tied behind his back again. Zayne fucks him over a dirty bale of hay in a barn, they fall to the floor in extasy, Brandt passes out. When he wakes up, still in the barn, they have yet more sex, and Brandt tosses his head on the pillows. Pillows? Where did they come from? Brandt’s name is spelled wrong at one point as well. Yes, these are minor things, but they were obvious to me.
So if you like reading a book with an abusive asshole of a main character, who treats his fated mate horribly, you might like this book. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the lack of connection betwen Zayne and Brandt, and the lack of caring between them. Fated mates can dislike each other at the beginning, but what I like to see is them growing closer and realizing that fate is right, and they do love each other. I didn’t feel that even by the end of the book. The story was interesting, I liked the world and the concept, but to dislike a character in the first book and hate a character in the second book means I won’t be reading any more of these. Usually I try not to rate a book low just because I didn’t like a character, if the rest of the book is ok. But I just can’t with this one. The way Zayne treats Brandt is too close to abuse for me to be able to like this book.
RATING: 
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OVERALL REVIEW:
I had a hard time with these two books honestly. I liked the world, I thought it sounded like a dark and scary place with the potential for change. The government agency that is doing this all needs to be brought down, and that all seemed like it could make for lots of action and drama. I also like fated mate stories, even ones with reluctant mates, but these mates were too reluctant! Although I like BDSM books very much, I didn’t see the caring domination and submission between the main characters of these books that I like to see. The first one wasn’t as bad, but I just did not like the way Zayne treated Brandt at all in the second book. That completely ruined it for me. But we each see stories with different eyes, obviously, so someone else may find these great. I couldn’t do it.
OVERALL RATING: 
Just wanted to show the other side of the coin here. I’ve read both of these books and loved them! I really like Ms. West’s stories and have always found her characters to be well-rounded and solid. These were no exception.
I feel that the author did a good job in building this world, unpleasant as it was at times. Let’s face it – there is injustice and unpleasantness in any world, but how the characters react to adversity is what makes the story interesting.
As for Zayne, and the others, I love them. I saw Zayne as fighting against the inevitable – that of having a mate that he wasn’t ready for or wanted.
Also, let me just add, there was no rape. In the barn scene, Zayne offered to stop three times and told Brandt he could go if he didn’t want it. That’s not rape to me
Again, I liked both of these books very much, and honestly didn’t notice inconsistencies because I was too involved in the story.
I’m a fan of Ms. West and, anyone who knows her work knows that this is a series. As in her other series, characters grow and develop, as I’m sure these will. She writes a true series, not just a group of discordant stories of new characters in the same world.
Everyone sees things differently. I just wanted to give my perspective.
Oh my! Did we read the same books? They say that everyone reads the same book, but everyone reads it differently and that certainly applies here. Personally, I liked both books and will get the next release in the series. Regarding the reference to the Nazi regime of WW2, I believe that was the author’s exact intentions – to show the similarities and I don’t remember any editing issues and I’m normally on the ball with that.
Rebel Moon for me was a much darker read. In my opinion, Zayne believes that Brandt is going to betray him and his pack but is confused by his attraction. I don’t believe for one second that it was rape – I didn’t read it that way at all! I do however, agree on your views of the “raging bitch” Lillian. I look forward to seeing how the author develops her character in the next book. I must admit that I don’t remember the “pillow incident”? Will have to reread to see if you are correct.
In summing up, I don’t believe Zayne abused Brandt (he’s big enough and man enough not to allow that to happen), he didn’t understand his feelings for Brandt and therefore asserted his dominance over him, he did care and their was tender moments between them.
As I said, we all read books differently.