‘Timeless Moon’ – C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp (Tor Books)

A large part of Bank Holiday Monday was spent digging up our rather scruffy looking lawn in preparation for planting grass seed and having a nice new lawn for the summer. At least that’s the plan; there were a lot of birds sat on the garden fence waiting for all the seed to be sown… In between all this hard labour, I found time to read the next book for my themed ‘week of love’ on the blog even though ‘Hellbent and Heartfirst’ had done plenty to put me off this venture! ‘Timeless Moon’ was next up and an improvement could be seen…
On the front cover of ‘Timeless Moon’ Laurell K. Hamilton writes, ‘A world this enjoyable deserves more than one visit’. The fact that this is the sixth book in a series gives this statement a degree of validity but it’s the similarities between this world and that of Anita Blake which made me chuckle when I went back and read the blurb on the cover again. There are no vampire hunters (because there are no vampires!) but there are a huge number of were-creatures, called Sazi, all living in their own loose knit tribes which all seem to be at danger from the ‘snake Sazi’. The snakes have got an evil masterplan brewing and the only Sazi who can stop them is a Seer who is more than half mad as her visions mean she is constantly living in the past, present and future. The only Sazi who can get her to help is the man who walked out on her over a hundred years ago (these Sazi are very long lived). That’s where the love comes in…
As I’ve mentioned, ‘Timeless Moon’ is the sixth book in its series so it’s probably not the best book to start at, there’s a lot going on that it’s assumed you will already know about. I was left floundering for a bit but luckily the story picks up and drives things along quite nicely with a half decent blend of mystery and action. I say ‘half decent’ as the ‘love sub-plot’ and certain facets of Josette’s (the Seer) character sink their claws into the story and drag it down. If you’re a fan of ‘paranormal romance’ then you’ll probably love the ‘romance’ stuff but I found the endless soul searching (‘Does he love me?’ ‘Do I love him?’ etc etc) tedious and detracting from the story. Maybe I’m missing the point here… I’ve also come to the conclusion that if I ever go to America, I won’t be able to get a motel room as they will all be booked out by fey creatures who are after a little, you know… Yep, our two heroes decided to take time out from saving their people and get it on; this comes just after they’ve got rid of the third part of their love triangle so you can’t really blame them I suppose… This probably makes great reading for the target audience but that’s just not me. I guess I am really missing the point…
The other thing that made this read a jarring experience was Josette flitting between past, present and future whilst in her ‘Seer state’. If she didn’t know what year she was in, how was I meant to know? I lost a lot of time trying to figure out where I was with this…
‘Timeless Moon’ redeems itself slightly by attempting to stick to some kind of plot but there was too much other stuff that refused to let the story come through. I’m trying to be fair with a genre that is quickly turning out not to be my thing at all, hence the two scores below…

My score: Five out of Ten

A score for fans of ‘paranormal romance’: Seven and a Half repentant ex-lovers and a love triangle out of ten