HAUNTED MOON - Yasmine Galenorn
An Otherworld Novel , Book 13
Jove
ISBN: 978-0-515-15281-4
February 2013
Fantasy

Seattle, Washington - Present Day

Camille D'Artigo has faced many challenges with her husbands and her sisters, but they've had a little time to recharge since her sister Menolly's wedding.  It's a good thing, too, since what they are about to face now is pretty bad—and strange.  Chase, the captain of the FH-CSI calls Camille to a graveyard where he has been injured, and two of his detectives are missing after a fight with some bone-walkers (living skeletons).  By the time Camille finds Chase, the bone-walkers have been joined by goblins, and when they meet up with the rest of their team, they find Smoky and Delilah fighting bloatwargles (demons).  Suddenly, the air is shrieking and then silent as the spirits of the graveyard are sucked into the sky and disappear.

Unfortunately, this is only the beginning, as this happens a few more times over the next day, and knowing what they are up against doesn't make things easier on Camille or her family.  They are sure that Gulakah—the Lord of Ghosts, banished from the Netherworld into the sub-realms, but now residing somewhere Earthside—is responsible for the disturbances at the graveyards.  Somehow, the Aleksais Psychic Network is connected to Gulakah, and Camille will need to covertly infiltrate the organization to figure out what all is going on, and to defeat Gulakah.

The latest book in the Otherworld series, HAUNTED MOON has the D'Artigo sisters moving ever closer to demonic war and doing their best to stay a step ahead.  Camille is the oldest of the three half-Fae, half-human D'Artigo sisters, a Priestess of the Moon Mother, and married to three men: Trillian, a Svartan (dark Fae); Smoky (a dragon); and Morio (a youkai-kitsune or fox demon).  The sisters have fought many battles since arriving Earthside, but after Menolly's (the youngest sister and a vampire) wedding things quieted down for a while.  Now that Gulakah is making his move, Camille and her husbands, along with her sisters and their mates, are once again stepping into the fray to save their adopted world.

There is definitely a lot going on in this book that may be better understood if you've read the series in order.  Readers do get explanations as to who the major characters are, but they are fighting a battle that has spanned several books and is only growing in intensity, so it is, in some ways, a continuing storyline.  The tales alternate among the sisters, and HAUNTED MOON is a little lighter than Camille's last book, COURTING DARKNESS, but still compelling.  The world Yasmine Galenorn has created is by turns terrifying and intriguing, and HAUNTED MOON will keep readers glued to the pages.

Jennifer Bishop