Reviewed by Becca
TITLE: Rough Sleepers
SERIES: Lunar Shadows #2
AUTHOR: Nem Rowan
PUBLISHER: JMS Books LLC
LENGTH: 326 pages
RELEASE DATE: September 4, 2019
BLURB:
Leon, drag performer and club owner, is attacked by a werewolf one night and loses an arm — and more, after massacring his club guests. Now homeless and tormented by nightmares, he runs away from everything he knows.
Eventually he meets Ceri, who invites Leon to live with him above a shop owned by a woman who lost her husband and son to a werewolf attack. She and Ceri are still hunting the unknown perpetrator, and Leon gladly lends his own assistance, eager to atone for his bloody past in the hopes he might one day be able to have a home and family again.
REVIEW:
I absolutely love paranormal stories. Werewolves, vamps, witches, all of it. And I’ve read a lot of them over the years. I’ve read some that would make your hair curl and make you jump at shadows and some that are much milder. This one is somewhere in between. There’s a lot of gore, and murder and mayhem. If that’s not for you, then be careful. Otherwise, it’s really a good book. A different interpretation than what I’m used to reading and I liked it. I like seeing how people interpret things in their works.
Leon/Leona, was a club owner and drag performer, but it was more than drag for him/her. Just depended on how they felt for the day. Not that it’s something you can switch on and off like a switch, but even as Leon, Leona was always there with him. But one fateful night, Leona had wished she had stayed in her dressing room with her “adopted daughter” Amy, after an ex was an ass to her on stage. But she wanted to show that nothing could get to her and she went back out and it forever changed her life. A werewolf attacked her after seducing her, biting off her arm and causing her to change herself. And in the midst of changing, a bloodlust came over her and she, unfortunately, killed everyone she held dear to her. Including Amy and her father, who was Leona’s best friend. Now homeless and on the run, she meets a man who is offering to help her and some others Leona meets, who are like her. Ceri wants to help rid them all of the curse and atone for his own horrendous mistakes in doing so. But things aren’t that simple and more people are being changed. Now it’s up to Leon/Leona, Ceri and a few others to take on the one who started all this to begin with.
I always wondered what it would be like to be a shifter. But in most stories you hear of most shifters being good upstanding citizens, even under the full of the moon. But in this one, they are good people until the moon hits full and then all hell breaks loose. So in this story, it would scare me to be a shifter. I don’t empathize with Leon/Leona and the others that have nightmares everyday of what they’ve done but couldn’t control. Of the utter destruction and loss of family that they can never have back. Thankfully, with Ceri’s help, things seem to be a bit better, but it’s not foolproof. Especially when the trouble keeps coming to find them and make it worse. But somehow through all the horror, they’ve made a family of their own. And have bonded over all the bad in their own way. They’ve bonded over being the same and with the losses they’ve suffered. They recognize in each other what it means and console each other when times are tough.
It’s like that saying. Family isn’t always blood, but what you make it. While trying to battle the evil, they’ve learned to hang on as much as they can to the good. Maybe that’s the lesson we all need to learn.
RATING: 
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