If you look through Sophie Jordan’s backlist, you’ll see many historical romances, some contemporary romances (including the Devil’s Rock series which I quite liked) and then books in a smattering of other genres, including an early 2010s dragon shifter series Firelight. In an author’s note at the beginning of Marked by Moonlight, the author reveals that this book was published around the same time (in 2007), and a little investigation on my part discovered it under the pseudonym Sharie Kohler (it’s still available on Amazon though not as an ebook and the print copies, as it’s out of print, are very expensive from used bookstores). So this is a reissue under the author’s current name but since I hadn’t read it before, I was intrigued enough to pick it up in its new form (though to my understanding the content remains the same).

Claire Morgan is a conscientious and quiet teacher who cares about her students. The night before a troubled student is supposed to write his SATs, she goes looking for him to make sure that he’ll make it to the test. When she does find him outside of his apartment building, he sprints away from her, making her follow him into an alley. As the full moon goes behind the clouds, Claire finds herself attacked by a large dog-like creature. Bitten through the shoulder, the attack suddenly ceases and she escapes, seeing two beings fighting behind her. But her ordeal is just beginning.

Gideon Marsh lost his family when his mother, bitten by a werewolf, became rabid at the first full moon after her infection and killed her husband. Rescued by a werewolf hunter, Gideon grew up to become an agent for NODEAL, the National Organization for the Defence Against Evolving and Ancient Lycanthropes. Their goal is to destroy all lycanthropes (werewolves), and most especially to kill anyone newly bitten before they turn at the next full moon to become an indiscriminate killer.

Gideon saw the attack on Claire (and killed the werewolf who attacked her, who unfortunately turned out to be her missing student) and he visits her in her home that night while she is asleep with the goal of killing her. But something stops him. He can’t do it. Instead he waits for her to wake and tells her what has happened. What he’s sayin is beyond belief – although she does believe he saved her from a dog attack. Still, when he points out her perfectly healed skin under the bandages and the newly silver eyes facing her in the mirror, she’s forced to admit that something has definitely happened to her. Despite knowing what he’s doing is wrong, Gideon offers her time to adjust to the news, with the warning that if she wants to survive past the next full moon and not turn into a killing machine, she needs to listen to him. Gideon knows the only way to save Claire is to find and kill the source of the infections before the next full moon. As the days go by and Claire’s transformation continues, she changes into a sultry female dynamo. Intense lustful feelings develop between Gideon and Claire making Gideon’s quest even more important. Because now he’s not just trying to save Claire for her sake, but for theirs. Will he succeed in time?

This story definitely has the feel of paranormal romance in its heyday. It has a darker, more violent plot than I was expecting – which I suspect may be because I’ve read a lot more of the light-hearted paranormals that exist currently (like How to Help a Hungry Werewolf by Charlotte Stein and Not Your Crush’s Cauldron by April Asher) than the intense J.R. Ward, Kresley Cole et al. novels of that era of romance publishing.

I enjoyed seeing Claire’s character evolve from the mousy schoolteacher to a confidant and sexy woman…errr …werewolf. She has an emotionally abusive father whom she becomes very comfortable standing up to, and her assertiveness doesn’t go unnoticed by her co-workers and friends either. Her attraction to Gideon is somewhat beyond her control as she is going into heat (and other men have trouble resisting her too, which Gideon uses to his advantage to try to draw out her werewolf ‘parent’). But Claire also sees what Gideon is willing to do for her, including hiding her from his NODEAL allies, which leads to stronger feelings for him. As for Gideon, he knows the risks he is taking but he also knows it’s only because Claire was trying to help her student that she’s in this predicament to begin with. Deep down she’s a good person who doesn’t deserve to die and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to save her. His sexual and emotional attachment to her only increases as the days to the full moon go by.

Eventually the moment of reckoning comes and there are several twists and turns as secret identities are revealed and the full moon rises. Claire and Gideon get their happy ending, though it’s a bit clichéd after all they’ve gone through. My feelings about the overall story are mixed and it’s difficult to articulate why. Maybe because I’m not used to the paranormal character being the bad guy? In so many paranormal romances I’ve read, the paranormal character can still be the good guy, whereas here, any werewolf is definitely bad. So it’s a human vs paranormal story, vs having the paranormal character as the central and usually positive figure. I hope that makes sense.

At any rate, it’s dark, it’s steamy, it’s insta-love/lust, and it’s the first in a series of what appears will be six books, assuming the whole series will be republished. I’m undecided whether I’ll continue the series (I believe the second book, if they are re-published in the same order, will feature Gideon’s sister Kit) – I’ll have to be in the right mood for it, though I’d definitely know better what to expect. If you do give Marked by Moonlight a go, I’ll be interested to hear what you think!