when the Moon Hatched, Sarah A. Parker

when the Moon Hatched, 

(Moonfall #1)

by Sarah A. Parker

copyright 2024

read in June 2024

fantasy, chicklit

rated 7/10: well worth reading

Well worth reading but yes, there are "trigger warnings". The book is violent. Nasty things happen, even to nice people. Yet the writing is not nasty, not restrained, either. Brutal things just happen. Described but not in salacious detail.

So, the story:

There are two points where I almost gave up reading. A few chapters in, I feared that this book would be a series of cruel disasters, wIth the heroine dragged ever further into pain and misery. Then she escaped, to a more normal level of fantasy suffering.

Then, several chapters from the end, I was expecting a grand reveal but... no. No new information, just page after page of very explicit sex.

Speaking of which, the sex is (I think), written for the female reader.

Oh, and the men are all built like mountains with muscles like boulders. They dress in leather and metal -- and the hero can cook. The heroine is well-rounded, with large breasts... but takes a long time to confirm the chicklit genre by dressing in a beautiful but revealing dress. Which is, incidentally, provided by the hero.

Much of the plot is driven by the heroine's dark secret, or fear, which she refuses to reveal to anyone who could (a) help or (b) be killed by it. Idiot woman but, understandable.

The best part of this book is the world. A complex world, well described with some detail and much just mentioned, with enough detail for the reader to complete the image. Fascinating, fantastic, unEarthly but never to be doubted.

The book ends with one major thread well and truly wrapped up. There is a discovery which leads into the next book. And a character who is left almost but not quite hanging on a cliff. I would have liked a more conclusive ending but... it is definitely an end. An end which encourages a return for book two.

Nick Lethbridge    /    Consulting Dexitroboper
Agamedes Consulting    /   Problems? Solved.
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Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood