Review: whets the appetite for Vampire Dawn
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 15, 2012
In keeping with the overall tone of the series, Christmas Moon is another fun peak into the world of Vampire mom and private eye, Samantha Moon.Sam's growing more comfortable in her relationship with Kingsley as the holidays are approaching and since Christmas is coming, Sam is busier than usual.  Not only is she busy with the normal roles of mother/parent with cookies and presents and decorations, but she's also got her private eye business to maintain as well.Not one to take off for the holidays Sam accepts a case from a mousy but friendly man who wants her to retrieve a family heirloom that was stolen from his home.  It's actually a safe and rather than take her usual retainer fee, she accepts the case on the condition that she gets half of whatever the safe contains. The potential client doesn't know what's in there but he wants it back badly as it's been willed from father to son for several generations so he agrees.  (as an aside, there's also a mention of a case that she's consulting on for Sherbet...I'm not quite sure if it's the same case that was mentioned during the course of the short story Vampire Blues..perhaps not every case she works on or mentions will be the focus of a story or full length novel)But this book isn't all about the holidays and her job.  A mysterious man keeps showing up in Samantha's presence.  She doesn't have any psychic alarm bells but she's still worried about the man because he knows things about her.  In fact, he knows EVERYthing about her.This novella is very Samantha-centric but Fang and some supporting cast do show up as cameos.  And that's fine, it is her series after all.  That's not what kept it from being a 5 for me.  While I enjoyed the book I thought a couple things a little odd.First her demand to get half of whatever was in the safe.  That seemed very un-Samantha like.  Having a pretty strong moral compass and knowing that it has been in the client's family for several generations this seemed a little out of character to her.  She also finds something during the course of her investigation that I found a bit too convenient.  Minor quibble.Secondly, I still find characters falling in love with her so suddenly (to the reader anyway) a little too easily.  That, once again is a minor gripe.  I just hope she doesn't go the route of a 'Mary Sue' and just have a line of men falling in love with her from her till eternity.which could happen..since she is immortal and all..but I digress...Minor complaints aside, this is very much a Samantha Moon novel in feel and content and Rain keeps things interesting by changing things up every so often and keeping the character fresh.  Just makes me want to get Vampire Dawn all the more!!! (January 2012 has come and gone..hopefully it'll be out soon!)