Thursday, October 13, 2016

The Meddlers of Moonshine by A.E. Decker

So, you have a vampire/human mix, a shapeshifter, a talking wolf who reads, a cat that has wings and a fella named Rag and Bones who looks just like that.  They're traveling the land, seeing what they can see.  Their only quest at the moment is to get a bottle of an elusive wine for the Queen.  Why would anybody notice them?  Didn't you notice my description of the group?

World Weaver Press and Library Thing gave me a copy of this book to read for review (thank you).  It will be published October 25th, so you can grab a copy then.

I really, really enjoyed the first book and wanted to see where the author would take the story from there.  This is a longer, slower read.  There are a lot of politics and some alchemy involved.  There are more shapeshifters.  But somehow the humans look worse.

Rag and Bones finds an old hair comb that he feels is "bad".  He doesn't know why.  He gets the cat to steal it back from Ascot for him and heads out to where it came from.  The rest of the troop is heading the same way and doesn't realize he has another interest.  Dmitri, the wolf, gets shot trying to get Rag and Bones down from a statue.  Luckily Ascot saves him.  Now they have to stay in town until he heals enough to walk.

The wine they want to get is disappearing.  All the grape vines are dying.  The poor town uses the wine for their main money source.  How will they survive if they can't provide the wine?

The ghosts in this story are different.  There's a boy most people can't see.  There are the equivalent of hell horses, an alchemist who is partly insane, and a professor who is completely insane.  There are those that believe in magic and those who don't.  And somehow Alcott's group has to make sense of it.  When she does, it's not good news.

The ending bothered me but I know the next book will probably resolve the problem.  If not, I'm going to be upset.

This was a good fantasy story again.  More action and less words would have been better.  But you can bet I'll be watching for the next book in this series.

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