Serpent Moon Review

Serpent Moon (Tales of the Sazi 8)

– C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp

Publisher: US – Tor

Eric Thompson’s wolf howl can ruin electronics and send aircraft tumbling from the sky.  Considered dangerous even by his fellow Sazi, Eric has become a lone wolf, living in self-imposed isolation.  Yet when the very foundations of Sazi life come under attack, Eric knows he must defend his fellow shapeshifters at any cost.
Attacked by a band of vicious Sazi, Holly Sanchez should have died.  Instead, she survives, emerging as a powerful Sazi healer. Sent to return Eric to the Sazi world he rejected, Holly finds herself by his side as the lone wolf tracks the monster that is killing the Sazi.  Holly soon realizes she must make a choice—between a Sazi life with Eric, and life as a “normal” human being.  But first, she must survive long enough to make that choice—and she must save her people, and the world, from evil.

I won this book in one of Jackie from Literary Escapism's giveaways, a few weeks ago. I haven’t read any of the previous Sazi tales and usually I wouldn’t jump straight into book eight of a series without starting at the beginning. However, I’d been talking with some other bloggers about reading series out of order and the pros and cons of jumping at the latest release. So as a challenge to myself I thought I’d read this as soon as possible without reading the previous stories or doing any research on what’s happened previously. So I leapt in blind, as it where and how did my experiment go?

I really enjoyed this book! It is more action and adventure than romance based, but there is a definite romance between Eric and Holly. While there is no explanation of the Sazi world and how it works, I was able to pick it up quickly. The first chapter has a lot of names and characters are thrown at you and it is a little confusing at first trying to figure out what is going on. I assumed the names and characters throughout the story would be familiar to someone who has read the whole series as there appears to be a lot of cameos – people are mentioned or seen briefly and then disappear.

However, I didn’t let that bother me as the two main characters in this book were fabulous - I absolutely loved Holly! She’s been through so much with a tough upbringing, a life-threatening attack and has held herself together to become one strong independent smart cookie! She doesn’t need a man to look after her or rescue her, but she welcomes Eric as an equal. Holly just stole the book for me. She’s strong without being aloof or cold. She doesn’t need barriers broken down or to be taught how to love. She is a complete person, but would welcome a partner. The story of the relationship between Eric and Holly and getting to know each other again after all these years was beautifully done – even set against the world changing circumstances of a God on the loose!

And there is plenty of action with loads of fighting throughout as the Sazi world comes to a major change. This book covers the climax of an ongoing storyline for this series and I certainly felt at times like I’d strolled into the last half hour of an action movie! There are some great characters introduced early on that are forgotten about later and the ending is a bit abrupt. Considering the big changes occurring I think there could have been an epilogue to round up some of the loose pieces, but hopefully there’ll be another book in the series to do that!

While not perfect the writing was so smooth you never felt like this was combination of two authors but the book flowed easily. I was able to read through it in a couple of days and had such a great time - I can’t wait to try some other books in the Sazi series. In addition I might have to rethink my stance on reading series out of sequence as this was a successful series!  

Recommended for fans of Patricia Briggs and Jaye Wells. 8 out of 10