Captured by Moonlight
Grade : B-

The characters in Captured by Moonlight are all intriguing, but I couldn’t help but feel that leads Cee Cee and Max are a bit too reminiscent of a broken record. Even so, I saw enough that I liked to put the previous books in the series on my TBR pile.

In this third book, NOPD Detective Charlotte Caissie is deep into her relationship with Max Savoie, who happens to be the new leader of a notorious criminal empire in New Orleans. What most people don't know is that this crime ring is also a group of shifters, and they see Max as their hope for a life outside of crime. Someone has just murdered the brother of one of his people, and Max knows that he is the real target. In an attempt to protect Cee Cee, he refuses to tell her anything related to the case, because he knows she’ll get herself mixed up in trouble in her effort to save him. Of course, Cee Cee won’t take no for an answer, and their relationship becomes complicated as they start trying to hide information in their attempts to protect one another.

I liked Cee Cee and Max very much. They had the Eve and Roarke vibe going on, which I'm a big sucker for, and Max is a slightly younger, less polished version of Roarke. Max has a murky past, and even he isn’t entirely sure of the extent of his powers. Not only does he have the heavy expectations of the shifters riding on his shoulders, but he is also going through some serious personal changes as he moves closer to Mating.

My problem is that there is practically no relationship development at all. Their conversations are always, always the same. He wants her to trust him, she can't take that final step and commit. He wants to protect her from himself, and alternately tries to push her away or keep her extra close. Somewhere in the middle of the story, they switch roles. She demands that he tell her what's going on, decides to push him away for his own happiness, so on and so forth. They're always like "Can't you accept what I am?" and the other always replies, "I love you!" Of course this eventually ends in a love scene. Towards the end there is a big change in their relationship, and I don’t want to spoil it here, but I felt like it was built up too high as the book progressed, and the actual change felt a little random.

With that being said, I am still a sucker for the good cop/gangster thing, and I did derive much enjoyment from the scenes where Max tries his damnedest to fit into Charlotte's clean, legal lifestyle. He is so happy to fit in for even five minutes that he doesn't mind that all the cops clearly hate his guts, and even lets them beat him up during a softball game. I liked that Charlotte got angry on his behalf, even when he insisted he was okay. Apparently he had always loved her from afar, and saved a teenage Charlotte from almost being raped. I am also a sucker for the bad-boy-trying-to-be-good, so the fact that he's been trying so hard to be worthy of Charlotte earned him kudos.

The character dynamics in the book are quite interesting, and I definitely plan to check out the previous books in the series. However, the lack of a driving plot and the repetitiveness of Charlotte and Max's conversations weakened the story considerably. In any case, Captured by Moonlight hit a lot of my weak spots when it comes to romance, and I fell for them all. There's a spark of something really good in this book, and I look forward to seeing how things progress.

Reviewed by Emma Leigh
Grade : B-

Sensuality: Hot

Review Date : August 19, 2010

Publication Date: 2010/07

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