Review - Mona Lisa Eclipsing (The Monere, Book 5) by Sunny (2/5 stars)

Reading level: Adult
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Size: 320 pages
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Release Date: April 5, 2011
ISBN-13: 978-0425238943
Stand Alone or Series: 5th book in the Monere series
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 2/5 stars

This is the fifth book in the Monere series by Sunny.  This series has been very up and down for me, the fourth book Mona Lisa Darkening was my favorite in the series.  This book was okay, but there were a lot of things I didn't like about it.  It was more like two novellas than one book.

Mona Lisa has recovered from the events in Mona Lisa Darkening, but Dante is still missing.  She ends up getting a tip that he is in Cozumel and rushes to find him.  When she gets there she is attacked by a drug lord named Roberto and looses her memory.  She can't remember anything about being a Monere and is confused about her abilities.  This is the first half of the book.  The last half of the books deals with an incident where a Monere was caught shapeshifting in public.  The Monere Queen must decide whether or not to let the Monere go public as a race.

The writing is easy to read, just like Sunny's previous books.  The plot though didn't make a whole lot of sense in the overall scheme of the series.  Why did Mona Lisa have to loose her memory?  It doesn't seem to add much to the story, that is unless the drug lord Roberto is going to feature in later installments.  I just didn't understand it and the idea of having the heroine loose her memory is pretty cliched.

Then the second half of the book had nothing to do with the first part.  Suddenly we are onto a totally different story that has Mona Lisa and her men in Washington DC fighting for Monere rights and publicity.  This sudden turn of events felt artificial; that and it is has just been done too often in recent paranormal series (Sookie Stackhouse and many others).  Not sure why Sunny felt that her series also need to suddenly focus on the coming out of a paranormal race to the general human population.

All the strange plot stuff aside, the characters were lacking.  None of the characters (excepting Mona Lisa) get much page space.  Sunny touches on each of the males a little bit and gives Mona Lisa enough time to sleep with each male and then moves on.  Amber was back which was nice, but even he doesn't get a ton of page space.  Halcyon also shows up briefly then is gone again.  Dante probably gets the most page space of all of them, but he is there as a plot vehicle and doesn't develop as a character.

I would be remiss if I didn't address the sex scenes in this book.  One of the things I really liked about previous books in the series was the sensuality and creativity of the sex scenes Sunny writes.  This is another thing I found to be disappointing in this book.  The sex scenes are rushed and not at all creative.  It is like Sunny quickly wrote them in to say that they are there, they don't link to the story and don't promote any character development and I was disappointed.

Overall by the end of the book I was happy that I borrowed this from the library.  I really love some of these characters, but the series has been pretty inconsistent and with this book it took a turn for the worse.  It is more like some cobbled together novellas than an actual book; the plots don't make sense in the scheme of the series and there are so many characters involved that none of them are developed or get much page space.  The direction she takes the book in at the end (revealing the Monere race to humans) has been done a million times before and I just can't get excited about where this series is going.  Although I love Mona Lisa and Halcyon, I think I may have to bid them farewell and spend time on more consistently interesting and creative series. 

This book goes twords the following reading challenges:

- 100+ Reading Challenge

Mona Lisa Darkening (Monere, Book 4) by Sunny (4/5 stars)

This is the fourth book in the Children of the Moon series by Sunny; and it was actually my favorite of the series. The setting was more interesting than previous books and there was a lot more action; there wasn't as much sex and romance so people who really dig that may not like this book as well as some of the previous ones.

The book starts out with Mona Lisa basking for her Monere. Suddenly a black light comes out of the moon and Mona Lisa is taken somewhere else. Strangely enough Mona Louise's personality is stronger in the new place and Mona Lisa soon finds out she is in a different version of Hell than she ever knew existed. Can Gryphon and Halcyon save her before something more deadly finds her?

I really liked that Mona Lisa's character took things into her own hands in this book. Mona Lisa's compassion matched with toughness really set her character above all other characters and made her character something special.

I loved that both Halcyon and Gryphon were in this book a lot; Halcyon is my favorite character and it was interesting to see him have to deal with limitations to his power. Once again though Amber was absent for most of the book. Mona Lisa did make some progress in her relationship with Dontaine which was nice to read about.

I thought this book had more purpose, a better story, and a faster pace than the previous book. There are less sex scenes than normal; the ones that are present are well written. I enjoyed that this left more room for action scenes. After the third book I was ready to give up on this series, but after reading this book I am convinced to stay with this series a bit longer.

Mona Lisa Craving by Sunny (3/5 stars)

This is the third book in the Children of the Moon series by Sunny. It was okay, nothing special. In fact I think I liked the second book a bit more.

In this book Mona Lisa continues the mindless wandering of the second book. She ends up kidnapped and this circumstance winds up leading to a number of interesting consequences. That is really all I can say without giving away some major plot points of the book.

Initially it appears that Halcyon is going to feature prominently in this book, which made me very excited. Unfortunately he is quickly dropped to the background. Amber is also scarce in this book. The man who dominates this book is called Dante, he is a rogue whom Mona Lisa meets when she is kidnapped. Having the characters past lives affect their actions was interesting. Unfortunately given the path of events in this book I am not really sure what the point of this book was. I thought things were being set up for some very interesting events to occur in future books, then all of that setup was dashed to bits at the end of the book.

There was a lot of sex again, although I do feel that this book had more action than some of the previous books. Normally I would like the additional action scenes, but for some reason they didn't add much to the story. I didn't really like any of the new character additions either. I did like the inclusion of demon nature into Mona Lisa's character. Hopefully that will be expanded on in the next book. As I said, this wasn't a horrible book, just not great. Once again it was a very quick read, only took me a few hours to read it. Hopefully the next book will have a more cohesive plot and delve into some more interesting things about Mona Lisa's demon part.

Mona Lisa Blossoming by Sunny (4/5 stars)

This is the second book in the Monere: Children of Moon series by Sunny. I didn't think the first book was all that great, it seemed to be echoing the Meredith Gentry series too much. But I borrowed this book from a friend so I thought why not give it a read. Luckily I actually liked it.

Mona Lisa is going to lay claim and move into her new territory. She has to deal with her enemy from the first book, who is now her neighbor and the existing Monere in her territory. If the premise sounds straight forward it is. This is a very quick, easy, yet fun read.

The characters are what make this book. More specifically Halcyon; without him this book would not be nearly was good. The Lord of Hell was also an interesting character. There is a lot of sex. The only thing I can say about that is that I think that the sex is more creative and more psychologically motivated than the sex in the Meredith Gentry series. Although I did get a bit sick of the different synonyms used to describe male parts.

So I guess if you know what you are getting into, liked the first book, and want more of that this is the book for you. It's a quick, fun read. There's lots of time spent on character development and sex. So if you aren't interested in that then don't read it. This is more of a romance than a fantasy or typical paranormal book.

Mona Lisa Awakening by Sunny (3.5/5 stars)

When I first started reading this book I thought I had picked up a book by Christine Freehan or Sherrilyn Kenyon. The book started out way too mushy and romancy for me. I mean geez, Mona Lisa was sleeping with her guy very shortly into the book. I actually started snickering at the cheesy descriptions of Gyphon's skin, hair, and eyes. I almost couldn't get past that. But I had borrowed the book from my mom and she wanted to know what I thought of it. I decided to preserver; my mom doesn't recommend bad books to me and I figured why should she start now!

Basically the premise of the story is that Mona Lisa always knew she was different; she finds out rather quickly that she is a Mixed Blood. Her blood is mixed with that of the Monere. Not only that but she is powerful enough to be a Queen Monere. The book follows her struggles to gain a place in Monere society, survive the trickery of the other Queens, and start to form a loyal following of men to be her guards. Mona Lisa is seen as a breath of fresh air for the male Monere who are used to Queens being deadly and treacherous.

This book did get better. As it continued on there was murder, mayhem, and fun galore. Some reviews I have read of this book have lauded the creativity of the Monere race created in this book. I guess I have to disagree with that; the Monere race seemed like a repeat of Freehan's Carpathian race or Kenyon's Dark-Hunter race. As the book continued I began to be reminded of Laurell Hamilton's Meredith Gentry series. The gathering of men that takes place in this book (along with plentiful sex) and the sharing and manifestation of new powers between the characters is very reminiscent of what happens in the Meredith Gentry series. One thing I really didn't like about this book was there was just too much rape in it!

Overall this was a fun book to read. It was a quick read, fairly well written, and (after the first few chapters) face-paced and action-packed. If you are out of Meredith Gentry, Dark Hunter, and Carpathian novels to read this one would be worth picking up. I thought the book leaned more to romance than fantasy. I suppose it is a fine line to draw. But personally where I enjoy Laurell Hamilton, Kim Harrison, and Charlaine Harris, I do not take much pleasure in the books written by Sherrilyn Kenyon, Christine Feehan, and others of that ilk. There is a line for me where a book becomes too much of a romance and this book teetered on that line.

I might go ahead and read the next book in the series since my mom has it already. Personally I am just getting involved in too many of these paranormal type romance series. These types of series seem to go on forever. This book wasn't good enough to trump some of the other series I am in the middle of reading.

Here is a link to this book on Amazon: