Blue Moon by L. Handeland

One of the ways I can always tell I’m going to love a book is if I fall hook, line and sinker for the first line and don’t resurface until the very end. Lori Handeland’s Blue Moon sucked me in and I didn’t want to try to leave the seductively dark world of Miniwa, Wisconsin.

Miniwa, Wisconsin is under siege, but not by the usual summer tourists. The area’s normally shy wolf population has begun stalking human prey, and their victims have been disappearing…or worse. Something is happening in the woods. Something brutal and primitive…

Officer Jessie McQuade has seen plenty in her years on the force-but nothing as intriguing as the gorgeous, naked man she encounters while tracking a rogue wolf. Professor Will Cadotte is a Native American activist. He’s also the only man capable of distracting Jessie from her work. And for a cop, distraction-no matter how pleasurable-can be deadly. It’s against Jessie’s better judgment to accept Will’s help in her investigation, yet she soon finds herself doing exactly that-and more. Will’s dark, penetrating eyes see into a part of Jessie’s soul she never knew existed. It’s exhilarating…and terrifying.
Now, as a town’s deepest secrets come to light, no one is safe: not friends, lovers, or strangers. And as Jessie follows a bloody trail to the shocking truth, she’ll have to decide who she can trust when the moon is full…

To be honest, Blue Moon reminded me of one of those cheesy, made-for-T.V. movies on the SyFy channel. Small town setting; federal government conspiracies; scientific research gone wrong; the beautiful, stupid, popular people either getting infected by the virus or getting mauled by the giant werewolves; the hunter from out of town that seems to know more that he lets on and the cop, born and raised in that same small town, who wants to save everyone and solve the mystery.

That’s not to say that Blue Moon was full of bad acting, poor graphics and a cheesy plot line. Every character gave off the sense of a real person, most of them hinting at possibly knowing something more than they’re actually saying. While you can’t have graphics in a novel, Lori did manage to make giant wolves (with human eyes) seem completely realistic. Most of all, the plot line actually worked. It wasn’t cheesy or unbelievable – probably because it was a book instead of a movie.  And while those SyFy movies, a relationship between the cop and a would-be suspect isn’t exactly uncommon, none of them ever come close to the scorching relationship between Jessie and Will.

I don’t think it was Lori’s intention to make Blue Moon like one of those cheesy movies but as a fan of those cheesy movies and good paranormal romance novels, I can say that Blue Moon seamlessly blended both together creating an excellent novel.

Read Order:
Blue Moon
Hunter’s Moon
Dark Moon
Crescent Moon
Midnight Moon
Rising Moon
Hidden Moon
Thunder Moon

Also reviewed by: Chrissie’s Corner

About Casey 203 Articles
Casey is the founder of Heart Full of Ink, Director at Reading Until Dawn Con, and a full time cheese addict. She's been ranting and reviewing for Literary Escapism since 2010, and is part of the trio #3Bloggers1Series podcast. When she's not reading, looking for new books, or stalking authors online (waiting for more books), she can be found binge watching Netflix. But really, her life is all about DEM BOOKS!