Beneath a Rising Moon - Keri Arthur

This is a re-release of one of Arthur's pre-Riley Jenson books, the first of the Ripple Creek duology. I stopped reading the Riley Jenson books because, as much as I loved Riley, I hated her main love interest, Quinn. He was controlling, dismissive, cruel, bordering on racist (to werewolves, anyway) and I had no idea why an intelligent woman like Riley wanted anything to do with him. I have exactly the same problem with Beneath a Rising Moon.

Women on the Ripple Creek werewolf reservation are being savagely attacked and murdered. Neva Grant's twin sister, Savannah, was almost another victim. Now she's recovering in hospital and Neva's determined to find her attacker. Unfortunately it seems the only way to do this is to get close to one of the suspects - Duncan Sinclair. The Sinclair family are renowned as womanisers and bad boys, and Neva's running a risk by getting involved with Duncan. But she does it anyway, of course. And they are very attracted to each other. Of course. So we know how this will end.

So here's my quibble. Neva is a perfectly intelligent woman. She's not your average angry chick in leather, but she's set up as brave and strong in her own quiet way. Duncan is a raging alpha male, domineering, possesive, often manipulative. Early in the book he binds Neva to him in a way that allows him to psychically control her if he wants, forcing her to do his bidding. It's not quite mind-rape, but close enough. And he does this to her a lot.

But Neva doesn't really protest. She doesn't fight back apart from some token protest, and she continues to sleep with the bastard no matter how often he abuses his hold over her. It's really fucking annoying. This is supposed to be a romance novel. There's nothing romantic about Duncan's treatment of Neva. And yes, you can tiptoe around that and say well, he does it to protect her, he loves her, they're soulmates, etc. But still. Nothing turns me off a man faster than this in paranormal romance. Its like, come on woman! Who cares how big his cock is, he's still a total bastard. Get a grip and have some self-respect.

Okay, so that aside, I did like a lot of things about this book. I liked the relationship between Neva and Savannah. In fact, I liked Savannah a lot more than Neva, and will definitely buy her book, Beneath a Darkening Moon. I liked the werewolf society Arthur created, and could see early Riley-esque touches, like the moon dance and the notion of soul mates. I liked the unfolding of the murder mystery; even if the killer was easy to spot, their motives were interesting.

I like Arthur's writing generally, and I think some of her other early works sound fascinating. It's a shame I don't seem to get on with her heros, but frankly I don't find them very heroic. There's alpha male and there's wanker, and Duncan was a wanker. Sorry, Ms Arthur. I'm looking forward to the re-release of the Spook Squad books though.