Moon Shadow — Review

Thought for the Day:

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” – 

~ Norman Vincent Peale ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

Douglas W. T. Smith has a great post HERE with Four Ways to Build Suspense in Your Novel.

Literature for Kids has a very helpful post HERE that will help you raise the stakes for your characters.

Janice Hardy. What can I say. Her posts are always so good and this one is no exception. HERE you can find out how to describe character reactions in different ways.

I know we are all readers here, and we all probably have more books than we need. I know I do. This picture is of the bookshelves in my study. My coffee table is covered with books three and four layers deep. And just about every flat surface in my house has a pile or two of books on it. Sometimes I lose track of books. The other day, I moved something and found a stack of books I had received quite a while ago for review from NetGalley. Sheesh. I totally forgot about them. And they look pretty good! I grabbed the top one, Moon Shadow by Erin Downing, and got to it. I hope I can get the others done sometime soon.

Lucia is turning thirteen and has gone through some significant changes in the last year. She and her good friend, Will, who lives next door, share a kiss, and it isn’t what one hopes for in a first kiss. Lucia’s parents announce they are divorcing, and Lucia’s mother is moving to Sweden to be with her new soul mate. Lucia bares her soul to her best friend, Velvet, about the kiss before leaving for Sweden for a two-month summer visit. When she returns, Velvet has dropped Lucia like the proverbial hot potato and claimed Will as her new beau, doing everything she can to keep Will and Lucia apart. Fortunately, Lucia makes two wonderful new best friends, Anji and Jonathon, who help her navigate middle school, but she really misses her friendship with Will.

Velvet is having a huge party the night of Lucia’s thirteenth birthday and everyone in the class is invited. Lucia wants to go. She was born during a total eclipse of the moon, and this very night there is supposed to be another total eclipse. Her “new age” mother has indicated this will be a really special time for Lucia. Mom had given Lucia a moon stone for protection, and she carries it with her all the time. Velvet has a big roof-top deck at her home, and Lucia thinks it will be fun to see the eclipse from there. She plans to make wishes on her moonstone during the eclipse. When Lucia, Anji, and Jonathon arrive, Will decides, much to Velvet’s chagrin, that he will join the three friends on the roof. Just before the eclipse is to begin, Lucia makes a bathroom trip and gets lost going back up, ending up on a separate deck. She makes her wishes, hears someone behind her, and then faints. She wakes up with Velvet yelling at her. Lucia has no idea how long she was out or what really happened. But this is the beginning of a series of strange, magical happenings. Each morning, Lucia remembers flashes of strange dreams, but they are things that seem to have actually happened while she slept.  Lucia’s life seems to be spinning out of control.

Author Erin Downing has written a fun, exciting book that will have readers cheering for Lucia and turning those pages to find out what the heck is going on and how Lucia can get her life back. The writing is crisp, the magic of the moonstone is mysterious and dark, and the characters are very believable and colorful. And don’t you love that cover? I loved every word of this one and will be looking for more books by this author. I highly recommend this book if you haven’t already read it, if it hasn’t been lingering in a pile of books stuck in a corner somewhere as it was for me. Shaking my head here.

There will be no giveaway this week.  I am giving the nice hardbound copy I received for review to the library at my granddaughter’s charter school with a tiny budget. Check back next time. I may have a giveaway then. If you are reading this in your email, please click HERE to get to my blog, then click on the title of the post, and leave a comment. And don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at the Greg Pattridge’s blogHERE.