Beneath a Rising Moon (Ripple Creek Werewolf, #1) in Aussie Readers

May 11, 2010 Bex rated it really liked it

Shelves: own, e-books

Neva Grant, a werewolf of the golden fur pack would never, on a normal occasion, be caught seen at the Sinclair's mansion participating in the moon dance. That is because her pack is known for their almost strict lifestyles, with a heavy emphasis on correct morals. Neva's pack looks down on the silver-haired Sinclairs, who are notorious for their drinking, taking more than one mate, and of course hosting the moon dance where everyone completely throws away their inhibitions.

However, Neva has a Neva Grant, a werewolf of the golden fur pack would never, on a normal occasion, be caught seen at the Sinclair's mansion participating in the moon dance. That is because her pack is known for their almost strict lifestyles, with a heavy emphasis on correct morals. Neva's pack looks down on the silver-haired Sinclairs, who are notorious for their drinking, taking more than one mate, and of course hosting the moon dance where everyone completely throws away their inhibitions.

However, Neva has a reason for being at the Sinclair's mansion this night: there is a killer on the loose, who has already killed three women and left Neva's twin Savannah in the hospital. At every scene of attack, the killer has left silver hairs, which makes the rangers believe that it is one of the Sinclair’s doing the killing. The only person Neva and her sister know for sure is not the killer is Duncan Sinclair, a son of the leader of Ripple Creek's Sinclairs. Neva will do anything for her sister, so she attempts to seduce Duncan in order to gain access into the Sinclair mansion. On the night of the moon dance, she links herself to Duncan for the remainder of the moon phase.

In Arthur's world of werewolves, each is subject to the call of the moon, which heats the werewolves blood and fills them with the need to mate. The moon also has a hold over the females, who, once they agree to be a male's mate for the moon phase, can be forced by the male and the moon's power to honour this agreement. When Duncan thinks he realizes her reason for becoming his mate, he decides to push and push at her until she goes running back to (as he believes) the person who hired her to snoop around. He embarrasses her in front of her parents, who are very old-fashioned, and leaves them not on speaking terms.

Despite this, Duncan and Neva find themselves falling in love, even though Neva is terrified to admit it, and she has good reason: Duncan has a reputation of getting drunk, never staying with one mate for more than a week, and getting thrown in jail. Will Duncan convince Neva that she is his soul mate? More importantly, will Neva have the courage to look beyond Duncan's reputation and acknowledge her love for him before the moon phase is up and he leaves her life, possibly forever?

Amidst all this is the mystery of who is committing the murders, although this becomes pretty obvious about halfway through the book. What kept me guessing was why they were doing this, and how.

While I very much enjoyed this book, my one little complaint is that, for being a book about werewolves, I didn't think that Arthur went into enough detail on her idea of a werewolf. For example, she didn't describe the change from human to wolf and back again; did it hurt? Did their clothes rip off their backs when they changed? When they changed from wolf back to human, were they naked?
I did like that the golden-haired pack had strong telepathic and empathic abilities and could use that as a weapon; for example, they could fling their emotions of fear and anger back into the minds of another werewolf, and severely injure them.

This book was definitely worth my time and money, and I couldn't put it down. I suggest you pick up a copy for yourself.
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