chez_jae | Book 19, 2022

Master of the Moon by Angela Knight

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

During lunch today, I finished the book I'd taken to work. It was Master of the Moon, which is the second book in Angela Knight's "Mageverse" series of paranormal romances. Main characters are police officer Diana London, a werewolf known as Direkind, and Llyr Galatyn, King of the Cachamwri Sidhe.

No one in Diana's small town knows she's a werewolf except for the police chief, a staunch ally. When a vampire comes to town and begins murdering young men, Diana is determined to bring her down. She doesn't need the added aggravation of her Burning Moon, nor the distraction of Llyr Galatyn.

Llyr is tired of repeated assassination attempts from his brother, king of the Morven Sidhe. In a bid to force Ansgar's hand, Llyr travels to the mortal realm to deal with one of the many vampires that are now creating havoc. There, he encounters Diana, and the attraction between them is instantaneous. However, there is still the matter of the vampire to take care of, not to mention Ansgar, and all while keeping mortals blissfully unaware of the magic in their midst.

The story was tough and gritty and would have made a decent urban fantasy if the author had kept the budding romance on the back burner. Instead, it ended up being erotic romance with some plot thrown in as framework. I feel like I should iron my own hands for saying there was too much sex, but...yeah. There was too much sex. Each time I'd get invested in the plot, Diana and Llyr would take a nookie break. Maddening. Beyond that, characterizations were only okay. Diana was fully-realized, Llyr less so. Ansgar was at best a two-dimensional villain with no redeeming qualities and no real reason for doing what he did except that he was a two-dimenionsal villain. The vampire had more character than he did and more back story. The plot, what there was of it, could have been more cohesive. It seemed to ping-pong from a murder/investigation to a sexual encounter, lather, rinse, repeat.

Other things that annoyed me:
- Diana being 'in heat' and unable to deny her sexual urges wasn't sexy. It was cringe-worthy. Would this have been considered sexy if she was sloppy drunk and unable to control herself? No. Yet this is how it came across, especially the first time she and Llyr had sex. I don't think it would have aggravated me as much if Llyr had asked Diana if she was sure she wanted to proceed, rather than basically using her heat against her and then acting like a smug asshole about it.
- The second time they had sex, he used magic to involve bondage. Without asking her first. Sexy? More like 'sexual assault' if you ask me.
- Throughout the book, I got the impression that, to the Sidhe at least, women are little more than chattel, property to be used/abused or prizes to be won. Wow, how sexy. On that subject (TRIGGER WARNING), there was an off-screen rape, along with an on-screen attempted rape that were sickening. Never mind that one instance involved a villainess. It was still rape. I really got the impression that the author, despite being a woman, doesn't harbor any fondness for women. Female characters were "punished" by being beaten and sexually assaulted, and even Diana, a fearsome Direkind, needed a man to save her. If you're going to write about bad-ass women, then make them more...I don't know...BAD-ASS. Let them save their damned selves. Hell, let them save the menfolk in their lives. Give them some actual agency and autonomy, instead of insulting your characters and your readers by portraying them as vulnerable damsels in need of salvation.
- Llyr is 1600 years old (give or take a decade), and yet he often flounced onto his throne and draped one leg over the arm like a sullen tween. Pardon me if I expected a little more maturity from His Majesty.
- This was written/published in 2005, but the townsfolk acted like offended Puritans that Diana had Llyr staying with her in her home. Welcome to The Town That Time Forgot.
- I am bitter that there was no resolution regarding one shrill Puritan woman and her abusive, redneck son. You know, the son who could do no wrong. If any character in this story deserved to be torn apart by the vampire, it was Roger. Way to drop the ball, Ms Knight.
- During one of the (many many many) sex scenes, Llyr stripped Diana and bore her down to the carpet. There followed several pages worth of ungh ungh ungh and then they were in bed when it ended. At what point did they move from the living room floor to the bed?! Editing. Make use of it.
- Finally, if Ansgar had murdered several of Llyr's wives/consorts/mistresses/possessions and all of his children, did Ansgar himself not have wives/consorts/mistresses/possessions and children to avenge him?

Favorite line: Diana didn't trust herself to keep a choke chain on her libido with the King of the Sidhe flexing under her nose. All she needed was to lose control, rip the enchanted Armani off his luscious body, and bang his fairy brains out in front of God and the Verdaville City Council.

Did I find this book entertaining? No, I found it distasteful. I know I have at least one more book in the "Mageverse" series, and I'm tossing it in the donation bag along with this one. I refuse to subject myself to any more of what the author considers romance. The book was well-written (for the most part), but it gets only two stars from me.