Review: Claire de Lune By: Christine Johnson

Title: Claire de Lune
Author: Christine Johnson
Publisher: Simon Pulse, 256 Pages May 18th 2010
From: Author/Publisher - Thank you!

Synopsis: Torn between two destinies?

Claire is having the perfect sixteenth birthday. Her pool party is a big success, and gorgeous Matthew keeps chatting and flirting with her as if she's the only girl there. But that night, she discovers something that takes away all sense of normalcy: she's a werewolf.

As Claire is initiated into the pack of female werewolves, she must deal not only with her changing identity, but also with a rogue werewolf who is putting everyone she knows in danger. Claire's new life threatens her blossoming romance with Matthew, whose father is leading the werewolf hunt. Now burdened with a dark secret and pushing the boundaries of forbidden love, Claire is struggling to feel comfortable in either skin. With her lupine loyalty at odds with her human heart, she will make a choice that will change her forever?

Review: 4 Stars - Claire de Lune was so unlike any other werewolf book I’ve read in the past. There were many things that shocked me about this book, but all in good ways. I don’t want to give too much away so I’ll try hard to be spoiler free.

Things start off pretty quickly and never waver or slow right through the last page. On Claire’s sixteenth birthday she finds out she’s a werewolf. Just as she thinks she’s figuring things out, figuring out who she is. she comes to find out that her life will never be the same again.

The struggles of being a teen come through strong along with the struggles of her coming to terms with what she’ll change into at each full moon. Claire questions things, but really deals with everything pretty well for all she’s facing.

The strained relationship with her mother will be one that many teens can relate to and understand. It was great to see that relationship change throughout the course of the book. Claire first love – Matthew and their budding romance was nice and sweet and fresh. Through this you could see Claire come more into whom she was as a teenage girl and a new werewolf; something she really struggles to come to terms with on both counts and how she’s able to find balance between the two vastly different sides of her life.

With a threat – of a rogue werewolf hanging over her and her fellow pack members heads, she has to learn fast how to survive in a world that knows that werewolves exist and those who want to capture and cure them. That part was shocking for me to see just how everyone reacted as werewolves coexisted among humans, though no human really knows the true identity of who the werewolves are, I would have liked to hear a bit more about that back story, to see when and how the world found out about them.

There’s a little bit of everything in this book. Paranormal, romance, angst, mystery, danger…. Just the right amount to make this story flow from page to page. Johnson had me hooked from page one and didn’t waiver her storytelling in the slightest. She’s an author to keep an eye out for. I can’t wait to see what she gives us next.

FTC Disclaimer: I did not pay for this book, nor have I been compensated at all in any way or means for reading and writing this review.