Daughters of the Moon 2

Ah, Serena. 

I can't remember if she was my favorite first or Jimena. Possibly her because I loved her in the first book, while you barely saw Jimena.

Serena was always presented as the edgy one. She's got piercings in her nose, navel and tongue. This was a much bigger deal back in 2000, I assure you. She has dark, shorter hair that was red in the first book and now is growing out her usual dark shade but still tipped with red. Later in this book, she gets curly extensions, but they're still only shoulder-length. Her green eyes are mentioned as much as her tongue piercing. Heh. 

Vanessa is also described in this book, moreso than in her own. She's your typical blue-eyed blonde. 

Catty has brown eyes and curly brown hair. 

Jimena has black hair and dark eyes.

Antagonist Morgan is blonde. 

Essentially, they mostly look like their book models. 

Anyway, Serena the mind reader spends this entire book dealing with two Followers messing with her own mind. I'm not even pretending like I'm protecting you guys from spoilers. These are really old books. She's got a crush on a new boy at school named Zahi. Well, turns out he's a powerful Atrox Follower and he's trying to turn her to the dark side, so to speak. Working against him is Stanton, the blond bad boy from the first book, who genuinely cares for Serena. Get used to that because they're the bad boy and girl couple that lasts the entirety of this series. 

There are two things that really annoy me about this book. Aside from the typos and such I'm noticing more as someone much older than the target market. (Bolder instead of boulder not once but twice on the same page?) And that they act far older than fifteen.

First, there is absolutely zero backstory ever given about how Stanton and Serena became a couple. He says Zahi has been erasing all her memories of him, but it's never explained what those memories are. From his end, he was interested in her as soon as they mentally faced off in the first book, but we never hear how he got close enough to her to end up with them as a couple. It feels important, but like the author either couldn't figure out how to make it work or just plain didn't want to write it and in both cases, used the mindwipe as an excuse to not have to. It's lazy. I can't remember if it's gone into in future books. It's been so long since I read these last. If she does end up writing it, I'll note it in future reviews.

Second, there's a scene where Zahi and Serena are going to a rave. The setting is a nighttime rave on a California beach. I can't remember if they mentioned the time of year. It's not summer because school is on. One thing about this series is that there's a lot of outfit description. Serena is always well-dressed, though in an unusual and flashy style. Zahi's outfit descriptions were also more well-dressed than your typical teen guy. So what does she wear to this rave? Bright boas, wild makeup, fancy Docs and...sweats. And Zahi is in a sweatshirt and khakis or something. I've never been into rave culture, but I definitely don't think sweats are part of it. 

All the Daughters of the Moon are linked to Selene, but some of them have other goddess connections. Serena's is Hekate and her appearance was fun. 

I don't hate this one, but it's far from my favorite. Jimena was the highlight of the book, so I have a feeling this is where I started liking her more than Serena when I first read these. 

Daughters of the Moon 1

It's been almost 24 years since this book came out. I loved this series so much! I know I reread them a few years ago, but I've never done reviews for them here. I got the urge to reread yesterday, so here we are.

Daughters of the Moon was probably my first non-anime experience with magical girls. (I watched Sailor Moon on TV before each day of high school.)

I loved the idea of mixing Greek mythology with the magical girl badass squadron concept.

This book follows the first of the four main girls, Vanessa Cleveland. Vanessa has known she was different for years. She has the power to make herself invisible, though it's not as simple as most invisibility. It's like she pulls herself apart at a molecular level and can travel around that way. (Expect her to talk about her molecules a lot if you choose to read these.) She meets her best friend Catty at a young age, and a few years after becoming friends, Catty shows Vanessa her own power, which is to travel a day into the past or a day into the future. 

Vanessa is your typical blonde, popular, goody goody type. Everyone likes her because she's friendly and nice. Lots of guys have crushes on her. But she's not stuck up or really even that confident. She's very nervous about her power and what might happen if she gets too close to a guy. 

Vanessa has a few big worries going on.

First, she's caught the eye of her crush, Michael Saratoga. He asked her out. Can she even kiss him without going invisible out of nerves and excitement? The pair spend the entire book going back and forth on what exactly they're doing. Vanessa distances herself to not out her weird powers, while Michael sees this as her pulling away from him, so he's put off by her constant mixed messages. They work things out in the end and they're a cute couple, if I remember correctly. 

Second, Vanessa is convinced someone is following her and even coming into her bedroom.

Third, Catty disappears. Vanessa knows something happened to her when she was travelling back in time to investigate who was following Vanessa. 

Fourth, this new girl named Serena has been a little too interested in her. Vanessa finally gives in and goes with Serena and her best friend Jimena to meet the person that can help find Catty. Enter Maggie, who tells Vanessa that she's a goddess, a daughter of the moon. She explains about the ancient source of evil, called the Atrox, that's the enemy they'll be fighting the entire series. Vanessa is in disbelief. 

Fifth, Vanessa is dealing with a bad boy named Stanton, who says he and his fellow Followers (of the Atrox) have Catty. It's him that's been following Vanessa. Vanessa asks him how he became a Follower and he puts her into his memories so she can see for herself. She tries to save young Stanton in the memories and for that kind act, he can never harm her. He gives her a location to meet, but Maggie warns her it's too dangerous.

So of course, Vanessa decides to go and Catty is indeed there. The two girls fight off the Followers as best they can, but they're not doing that well until in strut Serena and Jimena. The four goddesses are able to hold off the Followers and escape. 

I've read this book several times over the many years it's been out and I think this is the time I've most liked Vanessa. I was always more of a Serena or Jimena girl until Tianna joined them in the fifth book and she was my fave for the rest of the series. Vanessa was always too timid for me, but I've grown to appreciate her. I'll be curious to see if my feelings on Catty have also changed. She was always my least favorite. 

It's good to be back in the DotM world! I even ordered the four Sisters of Isis books off Amazon. I lost mine in the hurricane. 

Julie & the Blue Guitar

American Girl is starting a graphic novel series called Mysteries Across Time! 

In the present, Emma finds Julie's journal in a thrift shop. She gets sucked into Julie's world and the mystery of the blue guitar. 

I liked Emma and lot and I've always loved Julie, but I was a little disappointed that we got a slightly changed version of Julie's silver guitar mystery instead of something new. 

But whatever! I'm nitpicking. I'm thrilled to have some new historical content from AG and the art was super cute. I hope to see many more of these and the new journal style series in the future. Don't just do the more modern girls, AG! 

The New Girl

Thank you, Amazon, for suggesting this to me. It was WONDERFUL.

Lia, her younger brother, and their parents are moving from Romania to Montreal. I honestly don't think it was ever clearly explained why. I assume it was job-related, but moving to a French-speaking city where the kids have to learn the new language the hard way has got to be a struggle. It certainly was for Lia. 

Lia is placed in a class with other new students from around the world, so we get girls from China and Poland and Sri Lanka and New York. 

After struggling a lot at first, Lia befriends some of these girls thanks to English, which she speaks better than French. There's an asshole boy from Romania who's a dick to her. I hate that kid. And she's got a cute little love interest. 

So Lia deals with language drama and friend drama and eventual boy drama, while also enduring the horrors of painful periods. Poor thing gets her first just as they're about to fly out of Romania! 

I love the art and all the characters. It's semi-autobiographical and I'm really hoping the author has more Lia stories for us soon. 

Rex Ogle

This one's been out for a little over a year, but I never reviewed it. I need to get better at keeping up with my reviews. As the new volume just came out, it's the perfect time to review both. 

Rex Ogle writes from an autobiographical point of view. He tells about growing up poor in the early-mid 90s. I don't remember him mentioning an exact year, but that could just be me not paying attention. But both TMNT and Power Rangers are a thing, so that's gotta be 90s. 

Rex lives with his mother and stepfather and their young son. His father never makes an appearance aside from a couple phone calls when they need help paying for Rex's new glasses. His grandmother is my favorite character. She is AMAZING. 

So Rex is entering 6th grade as a poor student who doesn't know many kids at his new middle school. Something about rezoning blah blah. He's already on free lunch and embarrassed by it. Now he needs glasses. His mom can't afford the expensive frames he falls in love with, so he gets something similar, but not as good. And they're quite thick. So now you've got the typical glasses bullying going on at the same time as Rex's best friend gets pulled away by the popular crowd. 

Rex makes some new friends (and enemies) along the way, but eventually gets more comfortable in his new school. 

 

The newest volume, which just came out, introduces poor Rex to puberty. He gets the acne and stinky end of the stick without growing or his voice deepening. 

Rex struggles with this, as well as with the reappearance of a childhood friend that ends up being a lot of trouble. He makes some pretty big mistakes but ends up with some new friends at the end. 

Once again, Abuela saves the day. I understood Rex's mother better in the first one, but if you can't afford to buy your almost teenage son deodorant, something's gotta be done. I found her way more unlikeable in this one. His stepfather shows a hint of the violent person he seems to have been, too. The parent characters are why I don't want to read the author's memoir books. I know domestic violence plays a big role. These graphic novels are very sanitized. I'll stick with the more feel-good version with the cute art. 

Nicole Rayburn 1, 2 & 3

This is the book I mentioned last post, the one by the same author as Lost Colony.

The Hanging Tree is the first of six (so far) historical mysteries featuring non-fiction history writer Nicole Rayburn. 

In this first adventure, Nicole is staying at a writer's retreat for a week. She wants to come up with a new book idea after publishing some of her history non-fiction. (She specializes in the Alfred the Great era.) Her agent suggests she try writing fiction and while at the retreat, she learns about its ghost story, where a girl in the 1600s was hanged for witchcraft from a tree that still stands on the grounds. 

Nicole delves into research on Alys Bailey, the supposed witch. 

The book runs in alternating sections. A few chapters will be from the present day and then it will flip to 1639-1640. Nicole is always first person POV, whereas everyone else is 3rd person. Nicole and Alys are the most frequent voices, but each's love interest gets a few chapters. 

Alys's story is that she's basically getting pushed out of her home because her parents are dead and her older brother has just married. His new wife isn't exactly keen on Alys. Alys joins the household of the just-married new lord, who married into his position and is new to both the household and this area. His wife is a Puritan bitch, who's so off her rocker, she's disappointed her new husband doesn't beat her because she thinks that's what a godly man would do. Alys and the husband find solace in each other, and I'm sure you can see where that would lead to witchcraft accusations. 

In the present, Nicole is dealing with her own mysteries. There are hints at the haunting maybe being true, but it's definite that someone is messing with her research. She and Kyle team up to solve the mystery, which ends up with a few surprising reveals at the end. 

The second book is set later in the pandemic. Nicole and Kyle stayed together during the whole thing, so their relationship is strong. 

Or is it? 

Kyle takes Nicole to a friend's fancy B&B-type of place, which overlooks an island that contains the ruins of a church and an abbey-turned-residence. Nicole is thrilled by the historical significance and unearths yet another mystery from the past to inspire her next book.

The present day chapters are Nicole's researching the new mystery, and dealing with Kyle's sudden drama. His ex-wife was in a bad accident and still has him listed as her next of kin. As the story unfolds, we learn she was with Kyle's ex-best friend, Len, who was introduced last book and is a complete shit. And she's pregnant. Kyle is a bit too much of a nice guy and keeps getting pulled away to help the ex, dealing with the police side of the accident (the other driver was killed, there are signs the ex wasn't the one driving though it was made to look that way, etc.), and the ever-increasing drama leads Nicole to question their future, especially after a phone call from the ex. 

The chapters from the past are far more interesting. We're back in 1540 this time, during the age when Henry VIII is killing monks and nuns and stealing from them. Isobel Devlin finds herself married to the man who forcefully took Montrose Abbey, though she doesn't realize the depths of what he did right away. She's happy at first and they're as steamy as the couple in the first book. (Not like romance novel steamy, but there are multiple sex scenes in these books.) Once she finds herself pregnant, she starts to learn some backstory on her new husband from her terrified midwife. Isobel unravels her mystery while dealing with a bitchy best friend and hiding the truth from her husband, who gets scarier the more she learns. The mystery that Nicole first hears of is that the abbey caught fire and Isobel disappeared, never to be seen again. So it's fun to see how Isobel goes about everything she does. 

This one's present day is 2021, so there are still pandemic elements going on. 

Kyle's aunt has just died and left him her home, which confuses him, as he thinks it should have gone to his sister. He and Nicole, now married and expecting, are tasked with going through her things and trying to decide what to do with the house. Nicole once again gets a mystery handed to her on a plate. There was a ghost ship/shipwreck right outside the house in the late 1700s. 

The couple go through Kyle's aunt's things and find more clues to the shipwreck mystery, while Kyle also deals with minor aftermath from the events of the previous book. Asshole Len makes another appearance. Thankfully, that's not the main present day mystery. That involves figuring out what happened with his aunt's secret baby. 

Back in the past, Elisheba Keenan is being dragged from town to town by her gambling addict alcoholic husband. When she begs him to stop gambling for the night, he ends up selling her. Yep, you could sell your wife back in 1783. She's purchased by a man that turns out to be ship's captain Gabriel Randolph. The ship, of course, is the Aurora, the one who wrecked behind Kyle's aunt's house. Elisheba, now Ellie, is tasked with caring for the captain's sick daughter, Violette. I loved all these chapters, though the ending for the family might be a little too happy? It feels on the unlikely side. 

The book ends with a cliffhanger about Kyle's family, so I'm excited to see where that goes, but taking a break from these for a short time. I have the next one to read and then the fifth ties in another of the author's characters from a completely different historical mystery series. I'm probably going to have to read all of those before tackling the fifth Nicole book. 

I enjoyed all three of these immensely, though that is mostly due to the historical chapters. Alys, Isobel and Ellie are all fabulous characters. Nicole and Kyle are okay, though their drama is much less interesting. I don't dislike either of them. It's just hard to compare to historical women.