Blood Moon - Everealm #3

The aftermath of the wildfire has caused undesirable events to unfold in Everealm. When something precious is taken from Junacave, Bree and the others must hunt down a wizard and retrieve a stolen amulet in order to save their beloved. Little do they know, the amulet may very well be hiding secrets of its own.

On her journey to a better life, away from Labara, Rianne discovers that being on her own is more challenging than she had predicted. Determined to escape her betrothal to King Carneath, she must do everything in her power to avoid being captured or else face a certain life of misery. Along the way, she stumbles upon a new ally, who may be the answer to her prayers.

Bonds are broken, relationships are tested, and new love is forged under the Blood Moon, Book Three of the Everealm Series.

Ah Everealm, let me count the ways I love thee. Magic, romance, far away kingdoms, girl power, faeries, magicians. The first two books in this series had set the bar high, and I'm pleased to say that Blood Moon doesn't disappoint!

Set after the events of Wildfire, Blood Moon expands the Everealm world, introducing new characters, new threats and new adorable pairings. It dials up the female empowerment too, one of my favourite aspects of the books.

There are almost two parallel stories running, with the old characters in Junacave fighting it out with chief bad guy from Wildfire Mereck for the blood moon amulet and Labara princess Rianne fleeing her impending marriage of convenience to an aging king. I loved reading more about this expanded world! There's still plenty of hot and heavy romance too. One of the most refreshing things about the Everealm series is the healthy attitude towards sex. It's not a precursor to heroines immediately being punished by the plot, or the kind of "once in a book" thing that wraps up a female characters story by suggesting that she's complete now that she gets to share a bed with the lead male character. It's part of the characters relationships, with plenty of fire, but is a consequence of the plot, not a plot point in itself.

There's a lot more going on in this book than the previous ones, with a lot more characters to keep track of. Frustratingly, a lot of them have fairly similar sounding names. Rhea, Reeve, Rianne, Raven and Ruby, Xavier and Zander. More than once I was a bit confused which one was which, especially with the new characters. I was a bit put out that some of the more established characters got a bit sidelined by the newbies (what happens to Adelphie!?) so I'm glad that book four is already in the works! That said though, it's kind of nice to see the story moving towards the next generation of characters, like the guys from Everealm have had their story told, and things are now starting to move on. I don't ever want to stop reading about Bree and Rowan or Sidonie and Dagan though!

But it's official, Dagan and Sidonie have been replaced in my affections by my new favourite Everealm pairing; Rianne and Zander. Seriously, these two are just too cute together! And Labara princess Rianne is my new favourite character, just the right amount of determined and resourceful even though she's hopelessly out of her depth when she flees into the wilderness. Her burgeoning relationship with sorcerer Zander is adorable to read.

One of my criticisms of Wildfire was that there was no real big bad that Everealm did so well with Silas, and that's kind of true again in Blood Moon. He's still around, but is kind of a non-entity in this book and I think I'd have prefered to see him and Vallica jettisoned entirely or his angle beefed up a bit. Mereck is pretty good as villains go, but he's only really present for one of the two story threads, so I still feel a little short changed in the bad guy stakes.

Overall though, I absolutely loved Blood Moon! Just like with books one and two, things are explained just enough for you to get a clear picture of the wheres and why, without spoonfeeding you every aspect of a situation. One of my pet peeves in books is over description, and I love that the author gives her readers enough credit to be able to read between the lines and has enough faith in her story to paint pictures rather than explaining every aspect of situations and surroundings. Roll on book four; Aurora!