Official Review: Moonlight Serenade by MJ Compton
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Official Review: Moonlight Serenade by MJ Compton
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Moonlight Serenade" by MJ Compton.]
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Moonlight Serenade is a romance/erotica novel written by M.J. Compton. The story centers around Delilah Tenney’s search for her missing brother, with the help of Tokarz (Toke) Garnier, an undercover agent and werewolf. Delilah’s brother goes missing during an assignment he was covering at the insistence of Delilah. Her guilt and worry over her involvement in his disappearance causes her to become dependent upon Tokarz and his pack to help find her brother.
What starts as a simple kidnapping case escalates into something bigger than either could have imagined. The case that Delilah’s brother was covering involved a series of unsolved murders that took place in bars in the mid-west. As the team continue their search, more bodies are being discovered and Delilah is getting threatening messages telling her to stop her search.
One aspect that I found myself liking throughout Moonlight Serenade was the actual concept/plot. Normally with romance novels that feature werewolves as the main characters, there is a tendency to make the plot of the book about the female character learning to cope with werewolf life and that’s about it. Granted, there was still a good amount of moments were Delilah freaks out, but those moments aren’t the sole “problem” in the book. With this book, there was the added element of a murder mystery so it wasn’t solely filled with female/male relationship hurdles.
I have a weakness for paranormal romance novels, so this book was right up my alley. I like that their actions were still tied to the phases of the moon and the interesting concept of alcohol and its effect on their transformations. I also found the idea of suppressed sexuality interesting. Werewolves basically are turned off from sex through their genetic makeup and only find their mate to be attractive. However, the way that Tokarz reacted once he found Delilah didn’t portray authentic virginity. Up until he actually admitted to being a virgin prior to meeting Delilah, I thought he slept with a bunch of women just from the way he acted and spoke to Delilah.
I had mixed feelings about the mystery element within the novel. I normally don’t enjoy reading mysteries because I get frustrated with the characters and their lack of knowledge. They either genuinely don’t know anything and I worry for them or they have all the elements and are too clueless to put all of them together and I am just angry at them and fell no compassion for the situations they find themselves in. In the case of Moonlight Serenade, I was feeling the latter for the entire book. The characters find repeating names in their search for Delilah’s brother but don’t think anything of it. Tokarz’s pack is the number one pack that the U.S. government turns to if they need supernatural help so I assumed they would be smart at making deductions. However, as much as they frustrated me in their fumbling investigating skills, it added to the element of uncertainty for the safety of the characters. I kept thinking that at least one of them would end up dead at some point and for some reason that frustration was entertaining for me. I would still say that I would never pick up a mystery novel if I based the genre on this book alone.
“I’m too tired to resist you.” She sounded miserable. “Good. Don’t resist, enjoy.”… She made a small sound, deep in her throat, as she tried to dislodge his hand.” (Chapter
My main dislike of this book stems from the relationship that Tokarz and Delilah have. The entirety of the book takes place over a two week span, and in that time the two meet, get married, get pregnant, and search for a murderer. A lot to do, right? And yet, in that time, Tokarz is also extremely sexually aggressive towards Delilah, and in many of these situations her response to his advances are similar to the quote I used. Because Moonlight Serenade is meant to be a romance novel, I don’t think that it was the author’s intention for Tokarz to come off as a rapey guy who only has sex on his mind, but that was the way I saw him. Now, I would have had no problem with him wanting to have sex with his wife if she was more receptive to the idea, in fact I would have welcomed that over what I had read. His disregard for Delilah’s feelings also didn’t help in his argument that he was a virgin.
Overall, Tokarz came off as abusive rather than loving throughout the book which is definitely a problem for a romance novel. I also began to think that maybe his actions where made to show his alpha nature as a werewolf, but even then his mate is supposed to be the most precious and important person in the world, so wouldn’t he listen to what she wanted from time to time?
And in this vein, I also hated the pregnancy aspect of the book. Delilah gets pregnant in a day and because of werewolf super noses, the pack knows immediately and uses it as a means to control her. I am always up for cute babies, especially little werewolves, but the fact that Tokarz smelled that Delilah was fertile and still had unprotected sex did not sit right with me. Especially because she was under the impression that the marriage was fake and he did it to keep her from leaving him, it added to my thoughts on him being abusive and controlling.
The last factor that I thought detracted from the book was Restin’s (Tokarz’s cousin and best friend/right hand man) attitude towards both Delilah and Tokarz throughout the novel. For someone who loves Tokarz, Restin has a funny way of showing it. Right from the beginning he makes it no secret that he doesn’t like Delilah and even threatens to kill her if she leaves. What a loving family… If this attitude was just reserved for Delilah, I would see how it is justified, Restin trying to protect his alpha and family from an unknown threat. What puzzled me was his hostility towards Tokarz: he kicked him off the investigating team, he put him down for his choice in women, bad-mouthed Delilah in front of Tokarz, and kept trying to get him to leave and go back home. Since Tokarz was still the pack alpha, I thought that Restin would have tried to defer to Tokarz for help, but instead, he acted as though he was made alpha.
The pack dynamics are different from human interaction, but I did not feel as though the reasons behind his hostility and competitiveness were ever fully explained. They felt more like a way to create extra useless tension in the book between characters who did not need it.
Overall, I struggled with understanding a lot of what was going on with the characters in Moonlight Serenade. There were a lot of aspects that were not as well developed as I wish they had been, especially the relationship between Delilah and Tokarz. But, I did like the more inventive ideas that were introduced to the werewolf aspect of the novel and because of this, I would give Moonlight Serenade, by M.J. Compton, a rating of 2 out of 4.
***
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What starts as a simple kidnapping case escalates into something bigger than either could have imagined. The case that Delilah’s brother was covering involved a series of unsolved murders that took place in bars in the mid-west. As the team continue their search, more bodies are being discovered and Delilah is getting threatening messages telling her to stop her search.
One aspect that I found myself liking throughout Moonlight Serenade was the actual concept/plot. Normally with romance novels that feature werewolves as the main characters, there is a tendency to make the plot of the book about the female character learning to cope with werewolf life and that’s about it. Granted, there was still a good amount of moments were Delilah freaks out, but those moments aren’t the sole “problem” in the book. With this book, there was the added element of a murder mystery so it wasn’t solely filled with female/male relationship hurdles.
I have a weakness for paranormal romance novels, so this book was right up my alley. I like that their actions were still tied to the phases of the moon and the interesting concept of alcohol and its effect on their transformations. I also found the idea of suppressed sexuality interesting. Werewolves basically are turned off from sex through their genetic makeup and only find their mate to be attractive. However, the way that Tokarz reacted once he found Delilah didn’t portray authentic virginity. Up until he actually admitted to being a virgin prior to meeting Delilah, I thought he slept with a bunch of women just from the way he acted and spoke to Delilah.
I had mixed feelings about the mystery element within the novel. I normally don’t enjoy reading mysteries because I get frustrated with the characters and their lack of knowledge. They either genuinely don’t know anything and I worry for them or they have all the elements and are too clueless to put all of them together and I am just angry at them and fell no compassion for the situations they find themselves in. In the case of Moonlight Serenade, I was feeling the latter for the entire book. The characters find repeating names in their search for Delilah’s brother but don’t think anything of it. Tokarz’s pack is the number one pack that the U.S. government turns to if they need supernatural help so I assumed they would be smart at making deductions. However, as much as they frustrated me in their fumbling investigating skills, it added to the element of uncertainty for the safety of the characters. I kept thinking that at least one of them would end up dead at some point and for some reason that frustration was entertaining for me. I would still say that I would never pick up a mystery novel if I based the genre on this book alone.
“I’m too tired to resist you.” She sounded miserable. “Good. Don’t resist, enjoy.”… She made a small sound, deep in her throat, as she tried to dislodge his hand.” (Chapter
My main dislike of this book stems from the relationship that Tokarz and Delilah have. The entirety of the book takes place over a two week span, and in that time the two meet, get married, get pregnant, and search for a murderer. A lot to do, right? And yet, in that time, Tokarz is also extremely sexually aggressive towards Delilah, and in many of these situations her response to his advances are similar to the quote I used. Because Moonlight Serenade is meant to be a romance novel, I don’t think that it was the author’s intention for Tokarz to come off as a rapey guy who only has sex on his mind, but that was the way I saw him. Now, I would have had no problem with him wanting to have sex with his wife if she was more receptive to the idea, in fact I would have welcomed that over what I had read. His disregard for Delilah’s feelings also didn’t help in his argument that he was a virgin.
Overall, Tokarz came off as abusive rather than loving throughout the book which is definitely a problem for a romance novel. I also began to think that maybe his actions where made to show his alpha nature as a werewolf, but even then his mate is supposed to be the most precious and important person in the world, so wouldn’t he listen to what she wanted from time to time?
And in this vein, I also hated the pregnancy aspect of the book. Delilah gets pregnant in a day and because of werewolf super noses, the pack knows immediately and uses it as a means to control her. I am always up for cute babies, especially little werewolves, but the fact that Tokarz smelled that Delilah was fertile and still had unprotected sex did not sit right with me. Especially because she was under the impression that the marriage was fake and he did it to keep her from leaving him, it added to my thoughts on him being abusive and controlling.
The last factor that I thought detracted from the book was Restin’s (Tokarz’s cousin and best friend/right hand man) attitude towards both Delilah and Tokarz throughout the novel. For someone who loves Tokarz, Restin has a funny way of showing it. Right from the beginning he makes it no secret that he doesn’t like Delilah and even threatens to kill her if she leaves. What a loving family… If this attitude was just reserved for Delilah, I would see how it is justified, Restin trying to protect his alpha and family from an unknown threat. What puzzled me was his hostility towards Tokarz: he kicked him off the investigating team, he put him down for his choice in women, bad-mouthed Delilah in front of Tokarz, and kept trying to get him to leave and go back home. Since Tokarz was still the pack alpha, I thought that Restin would have tried to defer to Tokarz for help, but instead, he acted as though he was made alpha.
The pack dynamics are different from human interaction, but I did not feel as though the reasons behind his hostility and competitiveness were ever fully explained. They felt more like a way to create extra useless tension in the book between characters who did not need it.
Overall, I struggled with understanding a lot of what was going on with the characters in Moonlight Serenade. There were a lot of aspects that were not as well developed as I wish they had been, especially the relationship between Delilah and Tokarz. But, I did like the more inventive ideas that were introduced to the werewolf aspect of the novel and because of this, I would give Moonlight Serenade, by M.J. Compton, a rating of 2 out of 4.
***
Buy "Moonlight Serenade" on Amazon
Latest Review: "The Kiss" by Michelle Bolanger
