Moon Dance

Vampire for Hire, Book 1

By: J. R. Rain

Narrated by: Dina Pearlman

Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Mother, wife, private investigator... vampire. Six years ago, federal agent Samantha Moon was the perfect wife and mother, your typical soccer mom with the minivan and suburban home. Then the unthinkable happens, an attack that changes her life forever. And forever is a very long time for a vampire.

Now the world at large thinks Samantha has developed a rare skin disease, a disease which forces her to quit her day job and stay out of the light of the sun. Now working the night shift as a private investigator, Samantha is hired by Kingsley Fulcrum to investigate the murder attempt on his life, a horrific scene captured on TV and seen around the country. But as the case unfolds, Samantha discovers Kingsley isn't exactly what he appears to be; after all, there is a reason why he survived five shots to the head.

Blood money: listen to more in the Vampire for Hire series.

©2009 J.R. Rain (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

loved this book

This book held my interest and kept me wanting more. cannot wait to read the next book.

Loved it!

I absolutely loved this book. The MC being a sassy mom vampire had me riveted to the story until the end. The narrator was perfect and brought the great story to life made it even better. I will be getting into the next one immediately. Highly recommended.

Good job all around

It has been a while since I read/heard a decent vampire detective story where I instantly wanted to buy the next one.

This is not a heart wrenching drama filled with complex writing. There is good character development and the starting situation/background story allows you to see the main character and relate to her. I almost shyed away because of the married, soccer mom description because I don't really car to read about that but that isn't what it's about. It more ads dept and development which is nice.

The story does take itself fairly seriously but it is still on the lighter, fun, easy to follow side. I was able to still relax while listening. Maybe I am getting more used to the audible format.

The voice actor does a good job she fits the main character well. The main character is not a late teen or early 20 something so I appreciated not having an actor with a high pitched voice. Some times the acting was slightly breathy, it helped add drama and a little more darkness.

Bert

Book was enjoyable. I liked it. the narration was great... good job. story well written.

Really good!

I wasn’t expecting for this book to be that good. Interesting story. The only thing That made me cringed a lil is that she can be mortal again which I could not buy it. But overall a really funny and good story.

J.R. Rain a terrific writer.

The more I read , the more. excited I became because of her. freshness take on the usual & characterization that she slips in so effortlessly. An excellent read.

For a romance, not bad

I saw the damage romance novels did to my mother and have always shunned them. But this was a daily special so I bought it and gave it a chance. Rain is a very listenable author even though it is romance novel shallow. She has drawn her protagonist with such skill that even though they are romances, I fully intend to purchase others in this series because i liked that character!

Fang & Moon Dance

it was an interesting idea for a story. had its fun moments. but the weird relationship between her and Kingsley didn't make sense. they shared no romantic chemistry until he randomly said he was falling in love with her. there was no sexual tension build-up. I also think there wasn't enough back story on her attacker and why he had the medallion or why Kingsley wasn't part of a pack. it was cliche that she turned into a giant man bat.
she had more chemistry with Fang and I'm pretty disappointed that we never got to meet him. I thought for a while it would have been interesting for Kingsley to be Fang but, it didn't work out that way. Had a hard time connecting to Kingsley and the lack of backstory for the butler who I'm pretty sure was a Gollum or something closed to Frankensteins Monster.
the narrator did a great job with the voices. I thought Sam's was a little too deep and man like. like I said, interesting concept. shakey follow through and cliche characters.

A solid 4 star, too short for 5 stars

I found it a little odd how the author added in so many "musings" about the nature of Sam's vampirism - not the source of it (that's not really disclosed) but what it means to be a vampire: if she's still human, if she's still alive, etc... these musings were sorta merged into other goings-on - such as a baseball game - which had no point in the story other than to provide a venue for these musings to be explored.

But this didn't detract from the story, which is a little bit of a mystery combined with a vampire-finding-herself story. There was a tiny romantic thread, but no sex (uncommon for this genre of book where the sex is usually quite graphic), and only the occasional bad word (also uncommon). I liked the story more than I thought I should - there is a bit of angst that develops out of the personal strife that Sam has to overcome, and the story's mystery was reasonable.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, even though it's a bit on the short side, and I'm going to start the next in the series right away. (It's not a cliff-hanger novel that makes you *have* to get the next one to see what happens, but if you want to find out how Sam deals with how her vampirism affects her life, you'll want to keep reading.) The narration was reasonable but a bit on the "breathy" side... I assume the narrator will settle into the role better as the books continue.

Enjoyable

Where does Moon Dance rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I enjoyed Moon Dance and the thoughts of a FBI agent/wife/mother turned vampire against her will and learning to live with it.

What did you like best about this story?

Liked her new romance, since her husband treated her so bad.

What does Dina Pearlman bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I like her voice. Enjoyed her narration.

Any additional comments?

Really enjoyed this book, different than other vampire type books I have read/listened too. Looking forward to others in this series.