"Werewolves and Romance"

Jessie McQuade, a police officer in a small town in Wisconsin, works the night shift. She is called out to an accident and finds a hysterical woman that has been bitten by a wolf. Following the blood trail of the wolf, Jessie only finds a naked man near his cabin in the woods. Will Cadotte is a breathtakingly handsome man, an Indian belonging to the Wolf clan, a professor at the local college and an expert on Indian artifacts.

The following day when Jessie stops by the workplace of the bitten person, the woman is foaming at the mouth, has killed one person and is on a rampage ready to kill again. Something is very strange -- if the woman had gotten rabies from the wolf, it would not have manifested so quickly! The sheriff shoots the wild woman but when Jessie stops at the coroner's office the following day, the bodies have disappeared. Stranger and stranger....

The only clue in the mystery is the wolf totem that Jessie found by the accident site. A lot of Indian mythology is attached to the totem and after evidence is stolen and offices ransacked, it is obvious someone is looking for the totem that is in Jessie's possession. The old wolf hunter, Mandenauer, arrives in town and he and Jessie go out wolf hunting.

The attraction between Jessie and Will continues to grow as the mystery deepens and Jessie doesn't know if she can allow herself to love this man or if he is part of the mystery.

The first page of BLUE MOON catches the reader's interest immediately and it doesn't stop -- it just gets better and better. This book has everything -- excellent writing, fascinating characters, suspense, comical one-liners, and best of all, a super-good romance.

BLUE MOON is a frightening tale of a woman who only believes what she can see, hear and feel but when strange things start happening in her small town, she soon starts believing in the impossible. It is a well rounded book with equal parts of romance and suspense for the reader to savor with a chuckle in-between. I must admit that I do not usually like comical books -- I find the humor rather silly but I thoroughly enjoyed the humor in this book; it has some laugh-out-loud funny lines. It is easy to visualize the heroine with her tart tongue and the hero giving as good as he gets. You can't help but like the feisty Jessie and one look at Will definitely will catch your imagination. The supporting cast is excellent, from the wolf hunter, Mandenaur, to Jessie's boss, the sheriff, and her best friend, Zee.

There is no lapse of action, romance and good story in BLUE MOON. It is a book easily read in one sitting but perhaps not late into the dark night when the wolves come out! Lori Handeland is definitely an author to watch. I will be looking forward to her next book.

Reviewed by Marilyn Heyman
Posted October 1, 2004

Read an Excerpt

Summary

By the light of a blue moon, danger prowls—

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...

and desire is unleashed...

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...