Another fabulous instalment in the Tales of Inthya series! Though it could be read as a standalone, it has plenty of cameos from characters we've already grown to love, so I think you would get the most out of it if you read in order.

I was apprehensive about this book before I started it, as Netheia was a previous book's antagonist, and I wasn't sure how she could be redeemed as she was pretty horrible - and indeed, she is pretty horrible for the first part of this book! I found her frustratingly unlikeable at first, and that did mean I struggled to connect to the book at first, but actually, it's her journey towards learning to be a better person that makes the story so compelling. Our other lead, Klavida, also takes a little bit of time to warm up to, as she's hiding a secret about her magic that makes her seem rather aloof, but they both grew on me hugely and by the end of the book I was really rooting for them. I liked that they both had to work to be emotionally open with each other as it made the romance feel really rewarding.

I love having a whole series of f/f fantasy to be able to point people to - this queernorm world is such a joy! I want to note that even though Klavida is a trans woman, this is never an issue at all (and it's not the secret I refer to above, to be clear!) - the world has a very different attitude to gender, and the magical "Change" is totally accepted. What a delight to be able to read a book where characters can just be themselves without any fear - it's one of the reasons I find these books so lovely as comfort reads. I don't think this knocks my favourite off the top spot (that honour goes to Daughter of the Sun) but it's another wonderful book from Effie Calvin.

This series just keeps on giving, the worldbuilding, the characters, gods and goddesses, and dragons, I’m a fan! What I enjoyed about this book is that one of the mains is actually the bad guy (girl) from the fourth book, who you start rooting for. While she’s is a truly horrible person in the beginning, she changes gradually with some frustrating setbacks and even in the end she is still a bit of a work in progress (as well as the romance between her and Klavida) and I liked that decision.

In the fourth book Ioanna and her younger sister Netheia fight for the throne of Xytae. In this book, Ioanna (who has won the battle for the throne) exiles Netheia to Ieflaria where she is held at the royal castle in Birsgen as a guest with restrictions. Here, Netheia meets Klavida, a student at the university, who hopes to find an answer to a problem concerning her gift in the royal library.

As I said, Netheia is an awful person, and even though this is not an excuse, she is a product of the goddess she worships (Reygmadra, the goddess of war) and her surroundings. She is rude, aggressive and childish and solves every problem with fighting instead of thinking, let alone listen to reason. Her personality is quite over the top (although apparently normal in Xytae) and I couldn’t help thinking how she could have ever ruled Xytae without reason or common sense. That aside, Netheia quickly realizes that her behavior is not acceptable in Ieflaria and slowly, very slowly, her friendship with Klavida makes her reevaluate her behavior. What I thought was special in her growth as a person was that she also still wants to please Reygmadra, who she has worshipped all her life, so for a long time Netheia is torn between wanting to change to become a nicer person and pleasing her goddess who has her own plans.

Like practically everybody, Klavida doesn’t like Netheia at all, but over time they develop a friendship and more (although the romance is very light). Klavida is an absolute saint dealing with Netheia’s erratic behavior and even though I often thought Netheia didn’t deserve her, their connection was special and I was hoping that they would figure things out together. Also, the mystery concerning her gift was an interesting addition to the story.

Some occurrences that happened already in the second book hinted at what is unfolding in this book, which shows how nicely these books fit together. There were a couple of points in this book were things were happening a bit fast, but I could still follow it. I enjoyed seeing princesses Adale and Esofi and their dragon Carinth in a small role, yay! I hope to see Netheia and Klavida return in the future as well.

I recommend to read these books in order and especially fantasy and YA fans will likely appreciate this series a lot.

This was an entertaining read. While this isn’t my favorite book of the series, I love this series as a whole and am completely addicted to it. I can’t believe that this is book 5 already and I hope there are many more to come. This book is tied into book 4, and other past books, so I would not recommend starting here. If this series peaks your interest then I would actually suggest that you read book 2, Daughter of the Sun, first. It is one of the best books in the series and a great way to start it. After that I would suggest reading book 1, 3, 4 and 5 in that order.

When I realized who this story was going to be about, I was really excited. I love morally grey characters and this character is on the edge of being morally grey or just plain evil. That’s a big ask Calvin tried to tackle. Could we as readers come to actually care about such a character? I’m impressed to say that it worked on me. Shockingly, I did actually care and I thought the HFN ending was a really great choice.

One issue I did end up having is that I wanted more story. These are not very long books for such an epic fantasy world. This world is incredible and I love that there are new magical beings added every book. My problem is that I felt like things really fast-forwarded in the last third of the book. I just wanted everything to slow down and for Calvin to add maybe another 50 pages and just let us experience things better. Some really important parts happened right near the end, one after another, and I just got a bit of whiplash because it went by way so fast.

This book, like most of the books in this series, does have a romance. In this case it is an opposites attract romance but the romance itself is very light. It is lighter than I expected but it did work with these characters in my opinion. Once you realize who the star of this book is, her even having the possibility to find love is a bit surprising so I thought this possibility was handled well.

I’m going to keep this on the shorter side since this is a series so it’s hard to mention too much without giving much away. This is a great fantasy series and I’m always so excited to get my hands on another book. This world gets more and more interesting and is so well written that I’ll read these books as long as Calvin keeps writing them.

Just how far will Netheia go to appease her god and will she overthrow her sister from the throne that she has always know was hers? Can love change you. These are some of the answers Netheia will discover in this story. This was a good book I would recommend it

This is essentially a continuation of the last book, The Empress of Xytae, in which we mostly follow Netheia Isinthi the fallen second daughter of Xytae. She's childish, rude, and arrogant, but still harbors a deeper secret that perhaps makes it harder for her to change. When she is exiled to the kingdom Ieflaria where she is to remain in the capital city of Birsgen. She's bored and uncomfortable with the new culture that she wants no part of until she meets the mage, Klavida of Nalova. Klavida is also burdened with a gift that could harm her if her secret comes out.

So, this is more of Netheia's story than Klavida, even though the title refers to Klavida's gift. Netheia does all of the growing here, as even though Klavida is sad about essentially having half a gift, very much knows herself. Netheia is the rich, prodigal kid that no one taught the meaning of restraint or even 'no'. She's so entitled that, despite grooming to be the head of her country, she doesn't bother to learn other cultures, especially ones in which she would have had to deal with as Empress. So the fish out of water plot threat was actually kind of annoying, especially since she refused to see that she was being offensive until she met Klavida.

This hints very heavily of some Beauty and the Beast themes, but doesn't quite pull it off. Although it was fun having the Beast (Klavida) be the emotionally stable one, there are very few areas in which our Beauty- Netheia- shows that she did the work to make herself better. There's some cases where Klavida responds to Netheia's humor and her flashes of maturity, but I felt like Klavida was doing most of the emotional heavy lifting for Netheia.

In the vein of the Disney animation, there's not much romantic overtones until later in the book where Netheia actually decides to put in the work to show she's ready to make a turn. But where as the emotional punch of the animation always gets me, this felt flat. There is some scrambling to stop Xytae and Ieflaria from going to war, the chemistry between Netheia and Klavida is just a bit off for me.

What continues to be interesting for me is that each book unlocks a different aspect of the worldbuilding that could hint at some massive world changing event. Here, there's something strange going on with the gods that was heavily hinted at in the last book. Netheia's patron goddess is off, and her manifestations become increasingly unstable as the book moves along, which is such a nice touch. There's also a great scene at the end of this book that answers some questions but still gives a hint of mystery.

So for me, this book was fine, and I think fans of the series would enjoy it. I did enjoy the parallels with Disney's Beauty and the Beast, but was a little disappointed that it didn't quite pull off the themes as nicely as the animation did. That said - Klavida is a great character, and I hope we can see more of her in the future. She's also hinted heavily as trans (as she went through what the world calls 'The Change' and decided to stay in her Changed form). Which, yay! I love how much this world is just full of LGBT characters, and it just is. There's no big thing about genders or orientation - it's just built into the worldbuilding.

Effie Calvin takes us on an intriguing trip of opposites in Daughter of the Moon. I think this is how Netheia would describe her new world in exile, except leave out the word “intriguing” and insert vexing (laugh). Nothing about this country is to Netheia’s tastes, but then it represents everything she is not. Calvin then takes us on a voyage of self-discovery which is extremely uncomfortable for Netheia.

Whereas Klavida is embracing the knowledge and looking for more. In a desperate search for answers, Calvin blends the paranormal and mythology to satisfy today’s question regarding identity in one way (though we all know there are many different answers). Calvin gives us a mythological and romantic answer for Daughter of the Moon.

This solution allows both characters to move forward and it works for this story. The beauty of fiction is that we can believe whatever we choose to and Calvin gives us the perfect fantasy setting where love can overcome even a power greater than us.

I enjoyed this journey and I appreciate Daughter of the Moon for exactly what it is: a fantastical story of two who fall in love and become better for it.

I received an ARC of this book and I am writing a review without prejudice and voluntarily.

Daughter of the Moon is the fifth book in Effie Calvin's Tales of Inytha series of F-F queer fantasy romance novels, which began with The Queen of Ieflaria (my review here) back in 2018. The Tales of Inthya novels feature a fantasy world where mortals - mostly humans, but dragons and other creatures sometimes have significant roles - are often dealing with a group of meddling gods (among other things) as they wind up getting into trouble and romance. It's a chaste romance series - the most you ever will see on page are kisses - but the books are short and genuinely charming for the most part, which is something I really could use right about now.

And Daughter of the Moon is a highlight for the series, with a pair of protagonists who rank up near the top of any in the prior books. The book takes place just a few months after the last book (The Empress of Xytae), and features a surprise character as one half of its protagonists while returning us to the city of Ieflaria. There once again we have a pair of young women struggling to figure out what they have in life and why things have turned out in a certain way, who despite all odds fall in love with the process: to the consternation and pleasure of some of the goddesses. You can probably read this book without reading the rest of the series, although you'll probably want to read book 4 at least before this one. But either way, you'll enjoy this one, even if it continues a trend from book 4 that's a bit awkward.

-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
Klavida of Nalova has come to Ieflaria in search of answers: in particular the answer to why she seems to only have gotten half of her family's blessing from her Goddess Talcia, and cannot transform like the rest of her clan. She hopes that either the libraries of the capital will hold the knowledge she seeks...or that she will somehow obtain an audience with Princess Esofi, the woman who has Talcia's clear blessing to the point where she and her wife have a baby dragon as their adopted child, and might possess some answers, if anyone does.

But what Klavida did not anticipate was that on her way to the library she would meet Netheia Isinthi - one time princess of Xytae, who led a coup against her sister for the sake of her goddess, the War Goddess Reygmadra - and now finds herself exiled and friendless in Ieflaria, in a land that hates the violence she represents and shows her no trust at all. But what started as a random meeting and then an association of convenience blossoms into something more, as Klavida realizes that Netheia has never really known what it is to feel friendship and soon finds that she can't help but teach the other girl what that really means.

But even though Netheia is herself enjoying Klavida's company, her old allies from Xytae, and Reygmadra herself, are not done with her just yet....and Netheia may soon find herself torn in two by her goddess' demands and the girl she is coming to feel something for.....
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Daughter of the Moon takes place just a few months after book 4 and features book 4's antagonist (kinda) as one of its protagonists - Netheia, the young woman who, blessed by the mad goddess of war, attempted a coup to take the throne from her sister when their father died. It's a very interesting choice, because well, Netheia wasn't a nice person before, and she still basically isn't to start this book. But what the last book made clear is that Netheia's patron goddess, Reygmadra, is kind of broken, and we see here that her madness affected Netheia's childhood as well, preventing her from really growing up in the environment to teach her the importance of caring, of kindness, and of other people. And so, much of this book is Netheia learning these things from Klavida, the rare outsider without the knowledge/reason to hate Netheia for what she's done and who can thus get close without being repulsed.

This leads to one of the series' most charming romances from beginning to finish as Klavida finds herself drawn to Netheia because she can tell it's not quite Netheia's own fault for growing up this way. In a way Netheia is sort of like Aelia, one of our prior protagonists, in that love changes her from selfish and uncaring to a better person, except whereas in that book (Daughter of the Sun) the change was unintentional, here Klavida is trying deliberately to change Netheia for the better, something Netheia doesn't quite think is really possible. And Calvin writes this all so well, so you can tell the two are falling for each other (the moment where they have their first kiss is truly perfect for the two of them) and see the changes in both of them as they happen, all the while really showing the series' great charm.

I should note somewhere in this review that Klavida is a trans woman, a fact that this book notes but never makes a big deal of, because well - it's not really an issue in this world, no more than any of the queer relationships are. People are men, women, non-binary (referred to as Neutroi here) and love who they want, and with magic (courtesy of the Goddess of Love) they can have their body changed to fit their image if they feel the need - temporarily or permanently (in fact, it's noted that the priestesses encourage people to try out the other gender to see if it fits them better, and our other protagonist absolutely hated the experience, showing her comfort with her own feminine body). Klavida is a woman, she changed as a child, and that's all there is to it.

The book also features a return to Ieflaria for the first time since book 4's timeskip, and seeing how our original protagonists Adale and Esofi and their dragons have done in the meantime only adds to the charm - especially in how they've really had a great happy ending - love in each other's arms, no need for one of them to bear a child to have an heir as they'd kind of dreaded, with dragons and humans mostly in peace...it's kind of great. The book's only real problem for me is that it features the second book in a row where the romance is stated outright to have been manipulated by the goddesses - not to spoil, but Klavida and Netheia running into each other is not quite coincidence, and it raises questions of free will that kind of ruin the spontaneity in retrospect of their love.

But even that can't make me disappointed that much, and Klavida's own personal struggle with her mixed-blessing, her inability to transform into something others would fear, really adds to it all and makes her easy to love right from the start. Netheia is a strong character, but Klavida is just a charm from the start, and is easily one of my new favorites in this series. I know the series was originally planned for only 6 books and as such I suspect this the last we see of her, but if we do get more, I really hope to see this duo again, as they just bring a smile to my face.