Hunter's Moon

Hunter's Moon
Bernadette Gardner
ebook
Published February 20th 2011 by Bernadette Gardner, via Smashwords
ISBN 2940011216213

When an inhuman scream silences the night creatures in a Pennsylvania woodland, Alliana Cambridge isn’t afraid. She’s angry. When she goes in search of the source of that tortured sound she expects to find another drunken hunter injured by his own gun.

Instead she finds something indescribable. He’s six feet of sensuous panther-black skin stretched over taut muscle. His green eyes glow with feral intelligence and though she can’t speak his language, Alli knows he’s asking for her help. She watches as his magnificent body heals itself of a vicious gunshot wound and she wonders if he’s come to enslave humans, starting with her.

Of course, she’s probably dreaming. After all, magnificent feline aliens don’t normally roam the woods behind Alli’s home. If he’s still there, in her bed, in the morning...well, she’ll worry about it then.

Alli is a survivor of domestic abuse, and the trauma has left her loath to start up another relationship. Living alone in the woods, enjoying a calm September night, she hears gunshots in the forest and the sharp cry of the wounded. What she discovers is a creature built like a man but with the fur of a beast.

The most appealing aspect of this story was the language barrier between the two main characters before Alli ultimately swallows a translator that screws with her brain and makes communication a possible thing. However, K'vshtin, or Adam as she calls him, isn't all that different from us earthlings. When I read about alien sex, I'm expecting something out of the box but, oh no, he took her like every other earth man.

And the ending, it was horrible. One more chapter might have brought about the closure of so many unanswered questions but it was not to be had. What becomes of Adam now? And how does this all get explained to Ben? 2 out of 5 stars.