Title: Bayou Moon Series: The Edge #2
Author: Ilona Andrews
Published: September 28, 2010
Genre(s): Romance: Paranormal
Page Count: 447
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:The Edge lies between worlds, on the border between the Broken, where people shop at Walmart and magic is a fairytale–and the Weird, where blueblood aristocrats rule, changelings roam, and the strength of your magic can change your destiny…
Cerise Mar and her unruly clan are cash poor but land rich, claiming a large swathe of the Mire, the Edge swamplands between the state of Louisiana and the Weird. When her parents vanish, her clan’s long-time rivals are suspect number one.
But all is not as it seems. Two nations of the Weird are waging a cold war fought by feint and espionage, and their conflict is about to spill over into the Edge—and Cerise’s life . William, a changeling soldier who left behind the politics of the Weird, has been forced back into service to track down a rival nation’s spymaster.
When William’s and Cerise’s missions lead them to cross paths, sparks fly—but they’ll have to work together if they want to succeed…and survive.
In this semi-related follow-up to On the Edge, Ilona Andrews writes a fast-paced paranormal romance that’s loads of fun. Bayou Moon has a definite swampy atmosphere to it that makes it stand out, and though it’s far from being an excellent novel, it’s certainly not awful.
Bayou Moon is about William, the wolf shapeshifter first introduced in the series opener. Other than that, Andrews deals with an entirely different cast of characters and entirely different section of the Edge (the border between the magic and non-magic worlds). The romance between William and Cerise isn’t the best (it’s pretty instalovey and lacking in meaningful connection), but it’s still cute enough.
As a character, I really did enjoy William. Because he’s a shapeshifter, he was treated like dirt for his entire life, and he has some definite abandonment issues. And while he does have animalistic (wolfish) tendencies, he always does his best to be a gentleman, which is something I can definitely get behind in a love interest.
Probably, however, Bayou Moon doesn’t quite manage to balance the romance/urban fantasy issue quite as well. The transitions between William and Cerise battling evil and William and Cerise making kissy faces were often clunky and awkward. The end of the book didn’t quite work, either. I think the problem is that with this book Andrews is writing neither paranormal romance nor urban fantasy, and though both genres are essentially similar, they’re also dissimilar. The fact that this book is neither is to its detriment, I think.
On the other hand, I do still enjoy this series. The world-building in particular is satisfying. We don’t get a lot of information but we do get some, and I like what little I’ve read over the course of these two books. The way magic works in this universe is different and interesting, especially in Bayou Moon, where we see the darker, more ominous side of magic, the side where magical experimentation has been taken to a disgusting level. Think Frankenstein’s monster, only not.
Bayou Moon could use some work in multiple places, but it has promise, and I liked it. Ilona Andrews hasn’t shown herself to be a particularly talented author in any area, but her books are more or less entertaining. If only she could spend just a little more time revising.
