Moonflower: Vampires of Los Angeles by Heather Ewen-Foster was a fun and exciting story.
A very intriguing urban fantasy that I honestly devoured. Heather’s suspenseful tale immerses you in a world of danger, romance, and mythical creatures. This was a great adventure that I really wished was a bit longer.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Xpresso Book Tours for the opportunity to read this ahead of its publication date in return for my honest review.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC. This book starts off very fast past, it quickly brings you into the story and makes you wonder what is going to happen next. .
However, my biggest complaint is I would have appreciated a little more background on the world, and the characters.
The author portrays some sort of bad history on the part of the main character “Sonia” but never finishes the thought. Leaving me wondering her origin story. I would have loved more. Additionally, I’d love kore details on Alex, and his former lover.
However I really appreciated the mystery, and the romance. It’s pretty basic, good guys win, bad guys loose, but it’s a fun twist throughout.
I’m not sure if the author planns to write another book to follow this, but i hope she does because I feel as if a lot of questions were left unanswered.

Moonflower is an interesting one - it is absolutely brimming with potential and I do think the author shows promise but Moonflower just didn’t pack a punch for me.

I was expecting an action packed urban fantasy with a murder mystery twist and while that does seem to be what the author was angling for, in reality Moonflower dragged and left me bored with a very predictable plot and unengaging characters. For me there were 3 big areas where Moonflower fell flat; plot, character development, and pacing. If there are issues with just one or two of these then it’s not the end of the world e.g. poor characters can be overlooked if the plot is engaging and it’s a fast paced page turner. But when all three are weak it turns the read into a bit of a slog.

Plot: I kept expecting a twist, an unexpected development, some shocking turn of events but everything played out almost exactly as I would have predicted and honestly some of the explanations were just plain boring. I wanted more complex vampire political intrigue or some earth shattering reveals and I just didn’t get that.

Characters: I did like our FMC and I actually think the whispers of her background was well done. Characters really fell down when it came to the side characters who all just felt very one dimensional. Even our love interest - he just seemed so bland I couldn’t get myself to care about him (which then made Sonia’s interest in him less believable and interesting)

Pacing: This was slow and the action scenes were honestly a bit boring. I will be the first one to say I rarely find action scenes interesting so that’s very much a personal preference point. The overall pacing of the book was slow though and while it did amp up a little in the last quarter even then it was still on the slower side. I think for a novel with this sort of premise you’re expecting fast paced so for me this slower read really didn’t fit.

Overall, I honestly think Ewen-Foster has potential as I loved the concept of this novel and I think the world she’s created is really interesting. I also think that with a bit more finessing and thought Moonflower could have been a really gripping novel but it just didn’t feel polished up. I will be keeping an eye on anything else she puts out in the future though as Moonflower showed a lot of promise.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ewen-Foster for an E-ARC

I unfortunately had to DNF this book. I kept picking it up to read and quickly found myself losing attention. I liked the synopsis and the concept of the book but I just wasn't drawn to it enough to finish. I really wanted to like this one but it was a miss for me.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The cover and description drew me to ask for this ARC. Unfortunately, the reality is disappointing.

At the beginning the author spends an undue amount of giving information about the characters instead of drawing the reader's attention to the plot itself. Therefore, my attention began to wander.

I thank Netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this ARC. It just wasn't for me.

If you like a lot of action with suspense and twists, where the good guys win and the story has a HEA, then this may be a story for you. This was a true escape from reality type read for me.

(ARC)
DNF at 15%
I was pretty excited to read this since the cover AND title were quite catchy. but guess what? We're not supposed to judge a book by its cover.

There was too much information overload starting from the very first page of the first chapter. I ignored and continued because, well, it could still have good stuff, right?

poor me had no idea what was going to happen. I had read the introduction before applying for an ARC of this book but turns out this is a very, very, disgusting book.
I couldn't read any further than 40 pages because the writer couldn't go longer than one paragraph without mentioning smutty stuff. like, dude, seriously?

read only if you think you can handle smut.