Review: Moon Shadows by Neena Jaydon

Reviewed by Fehu
Moon Shadows by Neena Jaydon
Torquere Press
Novel: 276pgs
4 Pants Off

Blurb:
Not every werewolf is leader of the pack. Theo Dimitriadis, games tester by profession and werewolf by nature, has built himself a quiet life. But he puts himself into the public spotlight after he pulls Anastasia Shevchenko out of a river. This brings him to the attention of Max, Anastasia's brother. Max is a dog trainer who, like Theo, has a family secret. He's a medium, able to communicate with ghosts and spirits.

When life-draining shadow spirits appear in Fort Rivers, Theo and Max take action together. Max starts wanting the gorgeous man he sees hidden behind Theo's shyness. The more Theo retreats from his attention, the more Max goes on the chase. Theo loves to submit but fears that he'll give up too much control to Max. They struggle to understand each other even as they zero in on the shadow spirits. But before they can reconcile their differences, an even darker threat comes along, intent on harming more than their relationship. If Theo and Max want to be together, first they have to get through this supernatural battle intact!

Review:
I’m a sucker for a well-written werewolf story and Moon Shadows did make me loose some pants!

It’s the ghost part that wasn’t all to my taste. Let me tell you why:

I missed the background about the ghosts, mediums, and why these shadows tried to cross into the world of the living. Also, about how spirits can possess humans. While I had some information about Theo and his werewolf family, the medium part was not really explained all that well.

After saving a woman, Theo becomes the hero of the small town where he lives, he gets noticed, something he has avoided so far, because of the secret he has to hide. Theo is a computer geek, he plays games for a living and is very shy, and he is a werewolf. This is supposed to be a secret but strangely enough, he didn’t have a problem admitting this to Max, the brother of the woman he saves.  I overlooked this because I really liked Theo. He was strong, protective, but shy and sweet when it came to Max, though I liked it that he made Max chase him and did actually say no to him a few times.

Max is not a character that was easy to like, he was sure he didn’t want a relationship and was sometimes hot and cold to Theo. Theo fell pretty fast but I enjoyed reading how possessive Max felt towards him with time, and fell for him along the way. Mostly I liked reading about Max and Theo and the ghost were secondary. I still don’t know what the shadows wanted and what the role was, besides bringing the protagonists closer to each other.

There was one scene that led me to put away the book, after I stared at my ereader for a few seconds, and later checked that Theo was still a guy and not wolf but no he was and so I gave up on reading the book for a while. Imagine you read a sex scene and Max is treating Theo like a dog with commands like fetch and Theo doing that! So that was strange and not my cuppa, at all. I’m glad I went back to read it, because it got better and I ended up liking the book a lot. Max for all his bravado did turn out to be a caring partner, installing a full moon app so he remembered Theo’s shift and staying with him on the nights, was really sweet on his part.

The werewolves were quite interesting and there was something new added to the whole transformation issue, like the light and how they can change back in the nights of the full moon. I think the paranormal aspect could have been explained more at the end it felt a bit too easy how they managed to defeat the shadows. I still don’t know what or who those were and it’s one of those open questions that bothered me, but I liked the Theo and Max enough to let it go and just go with flow.

4 Pants Off