Nori's Closet: Blood Moon by Teri Harman (Blog Tour, Review and Giveaway)

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Summary from Goodreads:

Willa dreams of true events and her best friend is a ghost. Simon can heal any wound with a touch and senses others’ emotions, intentions. All their lives they’ve felt alone in their bizarre abilities, hiding behind a facade of normalcy, wondering why and how. The night Simon walks into the Twelve Acres Diner and meets Willa face to face, in a swirl of electric heat, they are bound to one another and glimpse the magic of who they are.

Across town a witch is held prisoner in the derelict basement of an old Victorian house. One night as it rains, she dares to reach her filthy, scarred hand out the window. Willa, walking home from work, recognizes the pathetic hand from a recent, terrible dream.

After a daring rescue of the witch, Willa and Simon are catapulted into the alluring but dangerous world of witchcraft and the magic of The Six Gifts. Answers to all their questions are within reach, but they’ve stepped into the middle of a deadly fight for the Powers of the Earth. Do they stay, risk their lives on the promise of power, or walk away?

Review:

Lately, I have been turning down book review requests because I just have so many books to read and not enough time in the day to read them. I really do want to read them all! But, I absolutely could not turn down a YA witch book that promised a lot of romance. So, I’m so happy that I signed up for this tour! Also, I kind of love the cover with different phases of the moon and the really detailed bordering. It’s sometimes nice to see a cover of a YA book with no photograph of a girl on it.

There were a lot of super interesting things in this one. I especially loved learning about the different witches’ powers. There was a really fun chapter or so where Willa and Simon are training in their powers and you finally really get to see all that they are capable of.

I also loved the historical bits. At first I was annoyed at any deviation from the main story –which was all about ghostly best friends, tortured/imprisoned withces, and clairvoyant dreams, but then I almost loved the side history stories more. The founding of the town, the mistakes of the women in the past, and the failures of the dark witches were even more interesting then the learning experiences in the present.

I also super loved how magic, while acting as something you’re born with, is still something you need to learn and practice to be good at. It’s not just some easy way to cheat out of plot loops. Though, more and more things were getting to be a little to easy for Simon toward the end (though so much foreshadow was happening, it’s hard not to see where this is going).

I wasn’t actually the biggest fan of the romance. I tend not to love instant “love at first sight” type romances. And well, this was way above and beyond some of the cheesiest “love at first sight” romances I’ve seen so far. The two characters just had a burning feeling to be near each other…The guy even found Willa (at her house) without being given an address because he could feel her presence. If the romance is this cheesy, then I at least expect some hotter moments than a few kisses. The romance was very PG13, which just did not go well with the copious comments about them being soul-mates.

But, what I really didn’t like about the romance was that there was nothing really between the main couple besides physical chemistry (that never went anywhere). They didn’t have anything in common, besides not so chatty parents who neglect to mention anything about the whole magic thing. The book starts with Willa loving history and volunteering all her hours at the history museum where she can hang with her ghost best gal pal. But, it never really seemed as though Simon was that interested in history. Like what do they talk about? The first moments of the relationship is pretty much skipped, and I kind of needed to see that part to fully believe in their soul-mate status.

All in all, I loved the magic, the plot, the darkness, and the suspense. I just wasn’t really feeling the romance. I give this a 7/10 and recommend it to fans of Alyson Noel and fans of the book, Wicked: Witch and Curse by Debbie Viguie and Nancy Holder.

The author (Teri Harman):