Mona Lisa Craving

Mona Lisa is unique for being the first Mixed Blood Queen in the history of the Monère. Through a former act, she is becoming even more unusual. Fear from other Queen’s will grow and consequently the threat to her will increase. Halcyon, the High Prince of Hell, proposes a formalization of their relationship publicly acknowledging her as his and under his protection. This will mitigate the difficulty that she now faces.

Even as one problem is solved, another arises. A Monère father takes a desperate gamble when he and one of his son’s kidnap this Queen as the only chance at saving his other son, Dante. Healing him requires that Mona Lisa bask and intimacy is the only way to do so at the moment. The experience is cataclysmic and the male someone she finds disturbing, almost familiar in some way.

She brings this family into her fold; a complicated mix of her people, her lovers, her responsibilities. Changes in her body do not bode well. It is difficult to know whether to worry for that more or for the strange mix of magnetism and fear she feels for the one whom she has saved. A history has come back to haunt her, but will the ending differ or will tragedy ensue?

Readers have a reason to be excited with this continuation of the Monère: Children of the Moon series. As the fifth story, fans are already rather familiar with the Monère and this author’s writing style. Our expectations are fulfilled but anyone who thought it would be just more of the same is deeply mistaken.

Sunny manages to take the storyline in a direction that one doubts anyone could have foreseen. We are kept at the edge of our seats for suspenseful situations, teased with ephemeral memories, sighing over the emotion and loyalty of characters that we grow to love, and revelling in the scenes of eroticism. She reaches deep into a past that she makes real to us in a most impressive manner.

Our heroine continues to learn about her own history and that of the Monère. Likewise, she and her abilities are changing in fascinating and disquieting ways. It is a relief that through all of this revelation and turmoil, we find Mona Lisa true to form in her compassion, devotion, and occasional bouts of pitilessness to her enemies.

The heroes in the series are so compelling that even one such character would have been amply satisfying to discover. There are a handful of males who qualify for the title but this account introduces and focuses on Dante. He, his twin brother and his father are from a diminishing line famed for warriors. Readers who are particularly fond of the bad boy, wounded hero will luxuriate in this one.

MONA LISA CRAVING is a complete page-turner so be ready to set aside enough time to go from start to finish. It can be read as a stand-alone book, but really one would want to begin with the first story of the series MONA LISA AWAKENING and work one’s way through.

December 2007