Review: Emotional and bittersweet, a fine romance with engaging characters
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 1, 2014
Book provided by author in exchange for an honest review.Get ready for a detailed, emotional story about love, loss and triumph. Diana by the Moon is a roller coaster of a story that embraces a more realistic feel for the time period in which it takes place.The Romans have long since abandoned Britain and those who have remained loyal to the empire have no patience for the young British leader named Arthur, or his ideas for uniting Romans, Celts, free men and slaves against the Saxons.In a matter of hours, young Diana's world is shattered. Her oldest brother has left her with their abusive parents to fight for Arthur's cause, taking with him most of the men in her village. On the very night he leaves, Saxons invade, her parents die and her innocence is ripped away from her. A year later she is struggling to keep the survivors of that night alive on the little they managed to save. The last thing she needs is Celtic warrior Alaric on her doorstep with a mission from Arthur. Alaric needs the hill on Diana's property to build a signal beacon in order to begin establishing security in Britain. Prejudices and tempers begin to fly when Alaric and his men move into what's left of Diana's home.Diana by the Moon was for me, a great story of courage, triumph and love. The romance between Alaric and Diana takes a long time to develop but they both had a lot of growing and thinking to do and the problems that were between them were not going to be solved over night. The pacing of the story was moderate, not too slow and not too fast and there was plenty of events, details and character growth to go though and all of it was very interesting.Author Tracy Cooper-Posey doesn't shy away from darker themes and while the themes of rape, murder and abuse aren't explored in explicit detail, they are still present. Without these themes, readers would have been at a loss for what drove Diana to be so stubborn and unwilling to accept help from Alaric. On a basic level, I understood and applauded Diana for her choices. To say she was hurt badly in the past would be a grave understatement and an injustice because then it would make it sound like she was just stubborn and stupid. She was traumatized after the Saxons raided, raped and murdered people in her home. She felt abandoned and had to push past her timidity to become the best leader she could for the surviving people, most of whom were women.I admired Diana as a character. She went from being a timid, shy woman resigned to her fate as an unmarried, unwanted daughter of Roman parents to a brave, loyal and stubborn woman who was willing to fight tooth and nail to survive and to keep control of at least one part of her life. I often forgot that Diana was still a young woman because of all the responsibilities she had on her shoulders.Alaric was a surprise as well. He was a very honest character in his behavior. Neither saint nor the devil, he had his faults and didn't try to hide them. He had a deep rooted sense of honor above every thing else and a need to protect those he perceived as defenseless, which is part of why he and Diana kept butting heads. He was a patient man even though he was in a hurry to complete his mission and he grew to admire and respect the women in Diana's villa.The romance between Alaric and Diana is virtually non existent in the first half of the book, it takes a while for them to even begin to feel an attraction towards one another but that doesn't mean that Diana by the Moon is a dull read, quite the contrary, I really enjoyed this book. It was a dark and emotional story and the characters really have to fight for their happy ending.