This reader truly wanted to like and enjoy "Moonlight (Moon Series Book 1)" by Lisa Kessler. Unfortunately, she did neither. Male lead Adam is a wolf shifter and next in line to be Alpha; but he was written and described in such a cowardly fashion - afraid to tell his pack and family members that his mate was a non-human, non-wolf female, but a born (not bitten or converted, making her a rarity in Kessler's world) shifter, this reader found him unacceptable and unbelievable to be the next Alpha. Also, in Kessler's world, wolves shift on the night of the full moon only, a single day a month, while typical lore has shifter's that follow the moon - as in, the moon dictates when they shift - shifting for three days. The night before, during, and following a full moon... so Kessler's creativity on that fell flat for this reader. Protagonist Lana is a jaguar shifter that spends the majority of the story claiming she's unworthy of Adam and how rotten her life is because she grew up in the foster system and life would be so much better for Adam and his pack if she would just leave... frankly, her whiney little butt frustrated and pi**ed this reader off to no end, enough that I just wanted to slap her and leave Kessler's world. This reader doesn't really read many inter-species romances, although she does have alien's abducting and impregating her Sims quite often. That being said, the idea of a feline/canine cross was simply too unbelievable for this former dog breeder. Different species of feline would have been more acceptable to me, like a jaguar/lion cross, etc. But not a canine/feline... this reader simply could not suspend her disbelief and get into the story... furthermore, horses "trusting" predators? Had some of the horses on Adam's ranch snorted nervously when any of the wolf-shifter's or Lana entered the barn, it would have been far more believable for this reader. Perhaps my own knowledge of animal behavior played too strongly against the behaviors Kessler was describing. There were a few grammar, spelling and punctuation errors found, mainly a missing word in a sentence such as: "he", "it", "the", or "a". Words the brain will typically fill in for a reader, without missing a beat or tossing them from the world. However, Kessler's writing style was nice and fairly inviting, and it was obvious she put a lot of thought and planning into the plot. It just really missed the mark for this reader; therefore, I cannot recommend this book. ** Review originally posted to Amazon reviews on July 1, 2017 and Goodreads on the same date. **
