'Mona Lisa Eclipsing' Monère: Children of the Moon #7 by Sunny

From the BLURB:

From the time she was an orphan, Mona Lisa knew she was different. As a Mixed-Blood daughter of the Monère, she rules her domain in the Louisiana Bayou. But she’s about to become the hunted as her mind begins playing tricks, and no one is who they seem.

Roberto Carderas, a dangerous drug lord of mixed Monère heritage, arrives in Cozumel to eliminate a rival. But the jaguar-shifter has encountered a much more valuable prize on the island: Mona Lisa, the first female Monère he’s ever met—and one especially vulnerable in that she has lost her memory. Now, with all knowledge of her real life as stripped away as her defenses, Mona Lisa can be manipulated into believing…anything.

Convinced that Roberto is her kind and sensual protector, Mona Lisa thwarts all attempts at her rescue—including those made by her desperate lover Dante. As Roberto’s devious scheme gets underway, Dante can only hope that the touch of his warm flesh will reignite total recall in the body and mind of the woman he loves. But escape for both of them could be as forever elusive as Mona Lisa’s past.

When we last saw Mona Lisa she had just violently miscarried and banished her lover, Dante, from her Louisiana territory. She had escaped the clutches of an evil Monère queen, but suffered serious injury at the hands of her demon-lover, Halycon, in the process of her escape.

When ‘Eclipsing’ begins, Lisa’s life is in turmoil. Dante is banished and Halycon is in self-imposed exile. With two of her lovers missing or silent, Lisa is distraught and with a divided heart. So when rumour spreads that Dante’s saber-toothed tiger shifter has been spotted in Mexico, Lisa is on the first plane to find her lost lover and bring him home.

But a rumble in the jungle sees Lisa badly injured and amnesiac. She has lost the last six months of her life . . . the crucial months in which she learnt of her Monère queen status, took on warrior lovers and mated the demon king of hell.

Will this memory loss be the end of everything Mona Lisa has built, or will it be the clean slate she needs to move on and accept the changes in her life?

‘Mona Lisa Eclipsing’ is the seventh book in Sunny’s sublime paranormal erortica series, ‘Monère: Children of the Moon’.

We haven’t had a ‘Monère’ book since 2009. In fact, Sunny was silent for a long time on the status of her series. Fans assumed the worst – that the adventures of Mona Lisa and her Monère men would be put on permanent hiatus. And then, just like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, Sunny comes out with ‘Mona Lisa Eclipsing’ . . . a stunningly fresh and revolutionary instalment in a much-missed series.

This book does have the feel of rebirth to it, like Sunny is opening a new chapter in Mona Lisa’s life. ‘Mona Lisa Darkening’ left off on a somewhat small cliff-hanger, with Dante being banished and Mona Lisa miscarrying. I appreciated the fact that Sunny addresses this precipice in ‘Eclipsing’, but doesn’t harp on it. Mona Lisa and Dante have a lot to work through after the damning events of ‘Darkening’ . . . but Sunny pulls a literal Tabula Rasa, by wiping Mona Lisa’s memory.

Mona Lisa’s memory loss serves a dual-purpose. On the one hand, Sunny is able to revisit old plots and characters to refresh the memory of fans who have been waiting for a new instalment since 2009. On the other hand, the memory loss allows Sunny to acknowledge loose-ends and old wounds, and then move on. As much as Mona Lisa has to relearn her life since becoming Monère, she also has to accept the pains of the past as her memory slowly seeps back . . . that means that Dontaine’s paranoia at being thrown aside is addressed, Halycon can admit his shame at having hurt Mona Lisa and Dante’s banishment can be smoothed over. I loved the memory loss storyline; I thought it was invigorating and all-encompassing.

In the second-half of the book, the plot veers into a totally different direction. I don’t want to give anything away, save to say this new direction all but guarantees there will be more Monère books. This storyline opens up the entire Monère world to infinite possibility.

I did like this second storyline . . . but I found it quite jarring when coupled with the memory-loss plot. I felt like these were two very big storylines, crushed together in a somewhat uncomfortable mishmash. The memory-loss plot could have taken up one whole book; likewise this second plot could have been the eighth instalment in this series. The combination of both fairly major storylines in one book made for somewhat hasty storytelling, oddly combined. But this is my only complaint in an otherwise unblemished book.

Of course this is a Monère book, renowned for being a simmering sensual experience. Sunny is back and better than ever in ‘Darkening’.

If we had kissed before I did not remember it. And it was so much more than the surge of pleasure I'd gotten from kissing Roberto. Like digging into ground looking for a trickle of water and finding a gushing well instead. Dante kissed me as if he would pour his soul into me and pass it into my keeping – a plentitude of giving, not a taking. A benediction of words and sweet sentiment and hotly sprinkled passion over my mouth, my chin, down my neck, touching off zinging sensations, an abundance of it, wherever those firm and tender lips roamed, pulling forth my own gasps and whispers of his name, spurring him more heatedly on.

I loved the fact that Dante was a big focus in this Monère instalment. We met him for the first time in ‘Darkening’, so I'm glad we followed-up with his character in this next book. I have my fingers-crossed that in future books, Sunny backtracks to explore more of the relationship between Mona Lisa and Halycon, Amber, Dontaine and Gryphon. I love those guys and some of them haven’t had much page-time in a while (Amber!).

Sunny is back and better than ever. Mona Lisa has been absent for too long, and having her reappear in ‘Eclipsing’ only highlights how sorely lacking the paranormal scene has been without the luminescent and lush Monère series.

4/5

Monère: Children of the Moon by SUNNY

Mona Lisa has always felt different. Abandoned as a baby and put through the foster-care system, she has always struggled to make connections in her displaced life, especially with men. And then everything changes. During a shift at the hospital where she works as a nurse, Mona Lisa finds herself fascinated by a mysterious patient called Gryphon. They spend a steamy night together and she learns that Gryphon is Monere – a child of the moon… and so is she.

Exiled from the moon long ago, the Monere are a strange fae-like race who have very few females. Because of their rarity, the female Monere are revered Queens who are guarded and sexually serviced by the plentiful Monere men. Monere Queens have difficulty conceiving with the men of their species, and pregnancy is often only feasible with human men – which is precisely how Mona Lisa came to be. Mona Lisa is Mixed Blood, abandoned as a baby for her muddied heritage – but the Monere are dwindling and they need all the Queens they can get, so Mona Lisa is somewhat reluctantly drawn into the world that once discarded her…

There are currently 4 books in this series, which has also spawned a spin-off series (‘Demon Princess Chronicles’), which started in 2007 and has a second book being released in October of this year.

I love this series, even though it is pretty much a carbon copy of Laurell K Hamilton’s ‘Merry Gentry’ series. Right down to a demon character called Halcyon who is very much a replica of Sholto from the Merry Gentry books. It is very similar, even in the issues tackled – mostly the domination of men by women, which is explored in the Merry, books through the sadistic Queen Andais, and in the Monere series by the slave-master relationship between the Queens and their Monere men.

Despite the striking similarities, Sunny’s series is far superior. There is great plot mixed in with the erotica (and this series is most assuredly paranormal erotica), so that the sex scenes don’t become tedious and predictable. Sunny’s characters are deeply explored throughout the series, there are only really 3 or 4 men that Mona Lisa really loves and it’s easier to keep track of and come to like those characters, as opposed to the bevy of men in Merry’s bed which sees some of them become wallpaper-characters.

I love the Monere world that Sunny has created. They are a very bizarre race, and it really works well that we are seeing them through Mona Lisa’s eyes so we can appreciate the extent of their foreignness – versus the fact that Merry grew up with the sidhe and is unfazed by their weird and wacky ways.

Lastly, I absolutely love the book covers. I know, I know – but I do often judge a book by its cover, and these covers are surprisingly elegant for erotica novels.

3.5/5