Mass Market Monday: Moon Sworn by Keri Arthur

Moon Sworn 

by Keri Arthur

9780440245711, Bantam Dell (Random House), $7.99

So, when I said in my first Keri Arthur post that I wanted to read more of this series, apparently what I meant was I'm going to read #1 and #just released and skip all the ones in between. The problem with this is now that I know what happens in the latest book, I don't want to go back and read the heartbreak that happens in the previous ones! Moon Sworn is such a great plot, and Riley Jenson is in such a good place at the end of the novel that I don't want to go back and read about a time when she wasn't doing this well. That said, if you're new to the series and haven't already read the latest, I highly recommend reading them all in order because though you can understand it even if you skip around, the stories do build upon one another.

I really enjoy the depth of Keri Arthur's characters. The action scenes are well-written, the dialogue is funny, the sex is hot, but most importantly, the complexity of her characters doesn't read as banal drama but real human (or not-so-human, as the case may be) interest. She's not afraid to kill off characters you've come to love, but she also doesn't make her main characters suffer endlessly. There's a happy ending wrapped up in there, and that's something I can get behind.

In this latest novel of the Riley Jenson Guardian series, old foes turn up to get their final revenge. Using nanotechnology, Riley's enemies find a way to strip her of her identity, her shapeshifting, and everyone she loves in this ultimate game of payback. Payback's a bitch, though, and her abductors better watch out, for Riley has too many secrets and too much to live for to let some twisted psychos take her life from her. After a murder occurs that is similar to the case Riley was working on prior to her abduction, Riley begins piecing together her fractured memory, needing to regain everything from her true name and true forms to her true loves. While not giving anything away, let me just say the book finishes very well with both Riley and her tormentors getting exactly what they deserve.