Oh Sandra, you get me every time! I had mounds of laundry, and as a mom of four, this book, just kept the taste entertaining with this story in the background. It was so good! The ending gave me chills! You know how to grab the reader from the start and carrying them to the end. Love this one!

Loved this and really loved Bowie so much. Was really hoping for a redemption arc for him and DID NOT see that twist coming. Wow.

Detective John Bowie is the perfect antihero, a cop whose love of alcohol and pushing boundaries has gotten him to within an inch of losing his job. Now, the producers of popular, true crime show, Crisis Point, plans to air an episode about missing girl, Chrissy Mellin, who disappeared three years ago. Bowie is painfully aware of the mistakes made in the investigation into the girls disappearance, but he’s been warned by his superiors, not to breathe a word of his misgivings about the case to the TV crew. Beth Collins, the producer of the show, believes that Chrissy’s disappearance is linked to that of other missing girls, all of whom have disappeared during a blood moon. Beth is pinning everything on Bowie being able to help her solve the case and find the killer before he can strike again. Another winner for prolific Brown

Audiobook 4 stars — great narrator
Ebook 3 stars — the plot has too many “romantic” distractions

I have a mixed experience with Sandra Brown — I really liked her last novel “Out of Nowhere,” but the one before it, “Overkill” wasn’t my cup of tea. I don’t recognize a particular style of hers (beyond interesting plots). Author Brown has been writing since 1981 and is credited with nearly 80 books. She’s been coy about whether co-authors are assisting. For “Blood Moon” I clearly had the vibe that it was written by a man. Either that or the author is *really* identifying with the psyche of a horny middle aged police detective (“she came and came and came….”) The serial killer mystery was enjoyable, but the immediate sexual attraction between the two main characters with a significant age disparity (detective John Bowie and TV producer Beth Collins) was never believable and, in audiobook form, sounded lascivious and awkward. Instead of moving the plot along, grumpy Bowie is distracted by the “half-moon shadows of her [Beth’s] breasts” rather than trying to prove Beth’s theory that there are other murders connected to one of Bowie’s old cases, which all occurred under consecutive blood moons. Like, just, ugh.

I had the opportunity to preview both the book and the audiobook read by Kyf Brewer. Brewer is a great narrator and put the emotion that was necessary into “Blood Moon.” Initially, it hard to tell who was talking when John and Beth were conversing (I’d really prefer a male and a female narrator in all audiobooks), but that was more the fault of the author who goes long stretches of closed quote paragraphs, where, even when reading it, you lose track of who is talking without an occasional “he said” or “she said.” Eventually, I came to prefer Brewer’s narration over the ebook. The plot was interesting enough to keep me engaged to the end. 3 stars for the book (get rid of Bowie’s sexual fantasies that were marginally requited by Beth), and 4 stars for the audio narration.

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO Gray, brown and some impossible “smoky topaz” eyes, but no green ones.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO The local swamp gets adequately described with its cypresses, live oaks, and Spanish moss.

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Audio and NetGalley for an advanced copies!