Bitter Moon is the 4th book in The Huntress/FBI Thrillers and I really liked where Alexandra Sokoloff took this one. Cara aka The Huntress has escaped custody and is in the wind. Roarke has taken a leave of absence to get his head on straight. He is trying to keep a low profile, but he receives a cryptic message from a police detective in the California desert, so he heads off to find out what this detective wants with him. This has him taking a deep dive into Cara's past. He ends up in the town where Cara lived after being released from Youth Detention. What he uncovers while there is a horrendous attack on a high school girl, which eventually kills her, the suicide of another and an unsolved murder. Was Cara behind the murder? What was happening in that town that the police are turning a blind eye to?

This was a very intriguing story and I really enjoyed seeing Roarke investigate on his own. He did have support from his analyst, that gives the impression that this sexual predator was still active. The story is told in flashbacks to what had happened sixteen years earlier, and it was a very dark, and sad story. You need to have a strong stomach to read some of these crimes, yet, these are things that really do happen to young girls. The other aspect of this story is the treatment of the children and teens who are in the custody of social services. There was one worker who tried to help and had compassion, but others who always thought the worst and didn't seem to care about those they were supposed to protect. As dreadful as this sounds, there are some good guys/heroes who help them, try and protect and find justice. This story really gave me a good background on Cara and I was glad to have that. There are two more books in this series and I hope to get to them soon.

Matthew Roarke is on the hunt for answers. This is a well done thriller with good characters and a plot that will satisfy those who enjoy the genre.

I love the characters in this story and I recommend you read the series in order. The plot is great in this one and I didn’t want to put it down. Very well written.
Many thanks to Thomas & Mercer and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

FBI agent Roarke and vigilante murderess, Cara, continue their story in this fourth instalment. I really enjoy this series as Cara is not your ‘standard’ killer and Roarke needs to understand this.

Not a standalone and it would be wrong to read without immersing yourself in the series correctly. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This is the 4th book in a series. I would recommend that you start from book one to get a better idea of the main characters and the build up in their various relationships. I really enjoyed this book with the parallel time lines; it made for a very interesting story. Action packed and thrilling. A very enjoyable read.

Cara wakes because of the moon. The moon always sends the rush of fight or flight chemicals in her blood, galvanates her body with a warning of danger , a command to wake and act. The mechanical scratching announces Its presence. The monster is after her again, coming for her. That had left her scratched and bleeding and almost dead. She had a few minutes because she knows. She knows the sound of It. It’s smell. The hoarse and grating breath, the stench of sweat and malevolence. She knows because she has been in a room with It before. But now she is bigger, stronger, and deadlier. Now she is angry. It stole her family, left her alone and scorned, and shunned. This time she will fight back. This time Cara will fight to kill. The creature slips stealthy into the locked room. The counselor has brought a fifteen year old bully for company or camouflage or maybe both. He tells the bully to hold her down but she jumps forward and It is caught unaware and she is punching, scratching, and kicking. She broke the boys nose and he is bleeding. The mans testicles are crushed. She brings her foot down on the man's knee to snap the joint. Both man and boy are unconscious. It will be back she knows it. For nw she waits for them to take her to jail. Cara is twelve years old. Two years later-Cara is in an ugly dark official transport van. The sun is blinding after two years of confinement. The feeling of movement is alien. She has only been transported a couple of times during her captivity. She feel the drugs in her blood, dulling her senses. She does not know where she is being taken. Since she was five she has not known where They will send her next or what she will have to face when she gets there. She had been at The Cage - low brick prison-maximum security juvenile detention prison. Than she realizes she is in Riverside County where her aunt lives. Where she had been arrested, convicted, and sentenced two years ago. Than she is in the desert which is better than the city, there are less people and you can see things coming and run. Than she sees the group home. She sees her new jailer Mrs Sharonda . Her mouth is in a hard line, a warning :Don’t mess with me. There will be no slipping past this one. Than Ms. Sharonda said they were on a levels system. The home was level five. Cara was an expert on group homes since she was nine years old. She is to be in the ninth grade and Ms. Sharonda asks if Cara can handle that and she said yes. Cara has not been in school since seventh grade, The Cage only had textbooks. Than Cara is told to read something and it was some poetry. It was a test. Her first instinct always is too hide any abilities from strangers until she knows what the test is for. She was told a mini bus would would take her back and forth to Las Piedras High. She was to start the next day. .Than Cara was told she’s t see the psychiatrist. Cara asked for a name change Maybe if she could be anyone else the monster will not be able to find her this time. She was told the school changed her name on the role, she will be Eden Ballard. It was a start. Than she seen Dr. Everhard and questioned. Every answer is Cara gives is made to make her appear normal. No matter how she answers she will get medications. She wish the medications would work. Since that night she sees and hears Them. She grabbed a pen from the psychiatrists desk. A pen can be a functional weapon. When in her room she checks the door. She has spent most of her life learning to pick locks and get out and into places. At dinner Cara meets the other kids. A spectrum of psychiatric disorders. Monique was the largest girl and when given the chance she asks Cara /Eden had been sent to Y A. Cara had been the youngest in jail. There had not been such a thing as home since Cara had been five. Roarke has been dreaming but all he remembers is the glare of the moon. Roarke is an FBI agent. Than Roarke checks his phone and he has a message” Special Agent Roarke, I’ve been trying to get you for a long time.” Roarke is getting many voicemails by Sheriff Ortez taunting him on Cara’s disappearance. Cara had been captured but escaped. Roarke is obsessed with Cara. Roarke is on leave as he needed to step away he was shaken from his last interaction with Cara. Roarke is driven to investigate a cold case involving Cara- she had been fourteen. Roarke questions many of the rules he has lived by. Roarke goes to the place of Cara’s childhood where the sheriff works and lives. Roarke needs answers and it brings him to seeing the horror Cara experienced when so young. Roarke learns a human monster is troweling Cara’s old H S. Roarke goes back to Cara’s first group home and something wasn’t right there. Roarke was going to find out the truth.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. But it was sad there can be such reality in a novel that is so horrendous . This was great writing with a great plot. This grabbed me right from the start and didn’t let go until the end. You must read the books in this series in order. This was so realistic you can find a lot of these type events in our lives today. My heart went out to Cara and all she endured to become what she was a vigilante killer of what she saw as evil. Somehow the past and present being told didn’t annoy me like it usually does. The author did an excellent job on this story and handling of the horrible at can and do happen. This book is fantastic and I highly recommend the whole series as well as this book.

This series is gritty and dark, but well worth the read. It takes a page from current events. I never thought I'd enjoy a serial killer protagonist, but Sokoloff draws me in.

Received from NetGalley for my honest review
Completed 12/14/16
466 page ebook

This is the 4th book in the Huntress series, so don't try to read it without reading the others. That said, I won't give anything away with this book because they are really tied closely to the others. It was a good continuation of the stories before and definitely enjoyable. I already have the 5th book from NG, I just need to take the time to read it.

Fans of suspense should give this book a try, it's one of the rare Female serial killer books, and even with that, there's some different stuff of what you see with it. It's not the best books out there, but they are definitely enjoyable and worth the read.

Setting = A
Plot = B
Conflict = B
Characters = A
Theme =A

Book 4 delves deeply into the back story of Cara Lindstrom. The reasons she became who she is. FBI agent Roarke is investigating her suspected first murder. He learns more about 'It' and the evil that exists in the world. The connection between him and Cara is getting stronger with each book.

This book was better than the third. More suspense and excitement. These books really deal with a sensitive subject. Rape, molestation & trafficking of kids. They've stirred up alot of anger but the books are SO good and entertaining! This author knows what she's doing.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for my copy to review.

Where most books start to fail and sag after a third installation, Bitter Moon continues a great and interest mystery series and I can wait to read the next installment!

Cara Lindstrom is a killer. Matthew Roarke is an FBI agent (though in Bitter Moon he is on leave). Their paths have crossed and it has had a profound impact upon Roarke’s life and his career. Bitter Moon is the 4th book in Alexandra Sokoloff’s Huntress/FBI Thrillers series and reading the first three books in the series (Huntress Moon, Blood Moon and Cold Moon) will ensure you get the best reading experience for Bitter Moon.

So the book…it’s a corker.

Roarke is on leave of absence from the FBI but a call from an angry law enforcement officer wanting to know why Roarke doesn’t want to catch Cara Lindstrom, sees him hitting the road and heading to Riverside County, California. On meeting the angry cop face-to-face, Roarke is puzzled why the officer is so irate over Cara being on the run. Roarke knows that Lindstrom spent time in Riverside County shortly after the “incident” (spoilers) which determined the path her life would take. He elects to stick around and do a big of digging into the background of the town.

What I loved about the direction Bitter Moon takes is that we follow Roarke trying to piece together what Cara may have been doing in Riverside County, the places she visited and the people she crossed paths with. But between the sections of the narrative which follow Roarke we get a Cara narrative. A Cara narrative from when she was a schoolgirl, trying to fit into her new school, her new social care house and trying to contend with the monsters she has faced and must continue to battle. The shifting timeframe of the book is wonderfully worked and makes Bitter Moon stand out in the series as the tone feels so different.

What really makes these stories resonate with me is the fact Roarke is still torn over the crimes Cara commits. She kills sexual predators, killers, men who prey upon young vulnerable girls. Cara is looking to protect those innocent victims by killing the host of the EVIL within the predators. Roarke as a law enforcement officer knows she is a killer yet also knows that her victims are committing crimes which bring Cara’s judgement upon themselves. In Bitter Moon he almost seems bewildered that Cara could be killing at such a young age (and with such ruthless efficiency). The reader gets to see Cara identifying the threat and we watch how she deals with it. Alexandra Sokoloff paints an unflinching picture of all the crimes and the series is all the more powerful for the anger and energy which drive the stories.

Bitter Moon can be read and enjoyed as a stand alone novel but this series is so damn good I really would recommend picking up Huntress Moon and working your way through the 4 books in order. Bitter Moon is a 5 star read for me. I loved it and I cannot wait to see where the Cara/Roarke story goes next.

Bitter Moon is book four in the The Huntress/FBI series by Alexandra Sokoloff. It is a sequel and a prequal to the series, telling the story of serial murderess Cara Lindstrom and FBI Special Agent Matthew Roarke and their lives before and after her capture and escape from custody.

Special Agent Roarke has retired, the long manhunt and eventual capture of the killer Cara Lindstrom has taken a toll on him. He cannot deny his attraction, both for the woman and the justice that Cara deals out to rapists and all men who hurt women and children. For those are exclusively the victims she goes after. Her murders are as much an act of vigilantism as they are that of a serial killer. Somehow, the FBI agent has developed a bond with Lindstrom and has found his commitment and his desire to continue as an agent of the FBI in question. So he has retired. But then Lindstrom escapes and a haunting message from a police detective left on his home phone has Roarke taken on one last mission. A cold case of the books that very well may have been Lindstrom's beginning.

"...The creature slips stealthily into the tiny locked room, the counselor with the pitted skin and fat sausage fingers, and the fifteen-year-old bully he has brought for company or for camouflage or maybe for both.
The man is muttering, his breath reeking with alcohol. 'Hold her down. Little whore...you know you want it. Strutting around like you own this place. Grab her arms. Hold her down--'
She launches upward, out of her bed. It is caught unawares, and she is a spitfire, punching and scratching and kicking. It happens in moments: the boy's nose is broken, his eye bleeding; the man's testicles crushed. And as the boy shrieks and the man lies moaning and clutching himself on the floor, she breathes through the fire in her chest and picks up the man's foot in both hands and holds the leg straight and brings her foot down as hard as she can on the knee to snap the joint-
The man screams once...and is silent. Passed out. She stands in the dark over the still bodies of the man and the boy, her whole body shaking, her heart slamming in her chest. The harsh breathing is still there, all around her, resonating in the room. Then it slowly recedes, foiled, but not vanquished.
She breathes in, breathes out, calming the frantic racing of her heart.
It will be back, she knows.
For now, she sits and waits for Them to come and take her to jail.
She is twelve years old...."

As a young child Cara Lindstrom met true evil. She was the lone survivor as her family was massacred in their home. Cara hid herself away as her family was butchered and then stayed silent with the dead until she was found. Sent to live with her aunt, her visions of evil haunt her until her aunt could no longer take care of her and Cara finds herself being shuttled from group home to group home. Here, she finds the evil that haunts her hurting other young girls and Cara must stop it. It is here, in her early teenage years that she finds the strength to fight back.

Special Agent Roarke investigates the murder and torture rape of a young high school girl from over a decade past and finds that these acts were covered up and that the men responsible may never have been brought to justice. But not all of them escaped. Roarke also finds the work of a very young Cara Lindstrom as well. Now Roarke must choose whether he is going to stay retired and turn a blind eye or continue with his investigation. As he digs, he is beginning to understand the events that helped create the serial killer he now knows as Cara Lindstrom.

This book is told in two narratives, that of a teenage Cara Lindstrom and that of a tired and worn out Agent Roarke. Though the events are over a decade apart, they will together unravel the mystery of the death of a young girl and the torture and rape of so many others. Alexandra Sokoloff has created quite a duo here. There play between Lindstrom and Roarke in the prior books has always been a strength of the series and here, where they don't technically share the same timeline, she has somehow kept it even stronger.

Lindstrom is a far more accessible character here as she works through the evil that haunts her and dealing with the social aspects of high school. When she sees the devastation on he faces of the girls that have been hurt, she knows she must act. She also knows that the evil recognizes her as well.

Roarke, in carrying on this investigation finds himself. He makes his way back to being the FBI agent he was before Cara Lindstrom came into his life.

Though this a stand alone novel and you do not have to read the other books in the series to know what is going on; I highly recommend that you do. The Huntress series is one of the more entertaining and original crime novels going right now. Sokoloff has developed her characters with care and skill and now offers us a different view into the very complicated Cara Lindstrom.

Pick this one up but make sure you pick up the other three as well!

It was a interesting book. I would recommend that you read the other books first for full enjoyment or understanding.

Cara Lindstrom is in the wind and Matt Roarke has taken leave from the FBI for awhile as he tries to get his head straight. But, he decides to start from her beginning to seek answers and it leads him to the town where she was assigned to her first group home. There is definitely something off in that place and Roarke makes it his mission to uncover the truth.

I loved how this story was told almost as much as the story itself. Roarke's investigation is chronicled in the present as Cara's is real time when she was 14-years old, fresh out of California's dreadful Youth Authority. The contrast was fascinating as the two experiences were paralleled and we learn so much more about her and those who had a profound impact on her. Even more troublesome though is the abysmal treatment of the children in the custody of the social services system and the sad state of affairs regarding rape investigations. All feature significantly in this story but the last two aren't fiction. We've much work to do here as a society. There are some vile creatures in this story but balanced by some true heroes.

I especially enjoyed seeing Roarke in action on his own, getting a strong sense of the man and agent as he finds his way. Things are not completely resolved here but he (and I) have a lot more clarity as it relates to the enigmatic Cara Lindstrom. I'm still slayed by this series and impatiently await the next book.

Boring start that failed to hold my attention. Not interesting enough. Not for me

Alexandra Sokoloff has created a great series with the Huntress books and to wonderful characters in Roarke and Cara Lindstrom.

Bitter Moon
Author Alexandra Sokoloff

Bitter Moon is the 4th in the series The Huntress /FBI Thrillers. A thriller it is!

I have not read the first three , but it became easy for me to understand the relationship between Cara and Roarke.
Sokoloff superbly writes the past of Cara and the present of Roarke and intertwines them
beautifully without missing a beat.
Cara has a sixth sense and it is explained how she developed this gift or( curse ) and how she handled the problem of IT. The monsters she could see and feel.
Roarke is consumed with her & her history & the facts of her atrocious life that began as a
very young child and continued throughout her life.
Roarke desperately wants to understand her and in a way protect her.He discovers the horrible attacks on young girls ,one brutalized beyond our comprehension. Another wonderful character known as “Mother Doctor”helps him to unravel the horrific truths and the who & why.
This is an excellently written and thought provoking book that opens our eyes to the pure evil that some people around us endure in their life. Although it is fiction you know there is truth that lies in this series of events.
I Highly recommend Bitter Moon as one of the best crime thrillers I have read. I will definitely read all of this series.
Thank you to the author,the publisher & Netgalley for the oppertunity to read & review Bitter Moon.

I love this series, but I think this one might be my favorite. From a technical standpoint, it's flawless. Exactly the right way to tell a story. And the story... so gripping. I loved seeing a younger Cara--seeing where it all started. And the dual timelines were handled wonderfully. I highly recommend this series.