Moonshifted

Title:  Moonshifted        

Author: Cassie Alexander

Publisher:  St. Martin’s Press

Publish Date:  27 November 2012

Pages: 352

ISBN:  9780312553401

Source:  bought

Genre:  werewolves, YA, vampires

Series:  Edie Spence

Other books in series:  Nightshifted,  Shapeshifted (04 June 2013), Deadshifted (tbd)

Rating:  LOVED!!

After surviving a brutal vampire attack, Nurse Edie Spence is ready to get back to work—attending to supernatural creatures in need of medical help. But her nursing skills are put to the test when she witnesses a hit-and-run on her lunch break. The injured pedestrian is not only a werewolf, he’s the pack leader. And now Edie’s stuck in the middle of an all-out were-war…

With two rival packs fighting tooth and nail, Edie has no intention of crossing enemy lines. But when she meets her patient’s nephew—a tattooed werewolf named Lucas with a predatory gleam in his eye that’s hard to resist—Edie can’t help but choose sides. The question is: can she trust this dangerous new ally? And can she trust her own instincts when she’s near him? Either way, Edie can’t seem to pull away—even if getting involved makes her easy prey…

What has Edie Spence gotten herself into now?  After everything that happened in Nightshifted, she has no desire to become that involved in the paranormal again.  Then she and co-worker, Charles, witnesses a hit and run with a werewolf.  They quickly put their medical training to work and the werewolf becomes a patient on Y4.  They soon learn that this werewolf is the alpha of one of the local packs.

What Edie doesn’t realize is that this is the start of a war between rivaling werewolf packs and that the hit and run wasn’t an accident.  Someone is trying to get rid of the alpha.  She has vowed not to get involved.  She has been down that road before and has been burned.   Then Lucas comes into the picture.  He is the nephew of the alpha that was hit.  As much as she tries to stay neutral, it doesn’t happen.  She tries to get assistance from her vampire friend, and when that doesn’t work, Edie needs the help of the pack to remain safe.  Lucas is the one who is assigned to guard her.  What will happen to Edie?  Will she be able to stay uninvolved?  How will this werewolf war be resolved?

 … cell phones made people act stupidly.  It was a scientific fact.

I have said it before that I really like the Edie Spence series.  Being in the medical profession, it is hard to read books (or watch shows) that represent medicine in a serious nature because I get nitpicky about things that they are doing wrong.   That is my job.  When it is present in a comedy, it is easier for me to forget my job and just enjoy what is happening to the characters.  That is exactly what this series does.  I know that this is not reality and I can put my nurse hat away.

That being said, I love paranormal books.  Having both of those two wrapped up together is the perfect package for me.  I really like Edie Spence in the fact that she is a new nurse and is especially new on Y4.  That means that she doesn’t always know what the policies/procedures are.  This is good because the reader doesn’t know them either.  You learn when she is learning.  Alexander’s writing is done in a way that you don’t really have to know anything about medicine to understand the book.  That is not what it is all about.  It doesn’t go into medical jargon that the lay person cannot understand.  It is an easy read and one that I highly recommend to anyone who likes paranormal books. 

I also like the variation in the books.  You never get bored reading them.  Nightshifted was mostly about vampires.  Moonshifted is mostly about werewolves.  Even though those are the main themes, there are other paranormal creatures in the books.  In Nightshifted, there was an incident with a fire-breathing dragon.  Y4, the paranormal unit within the hospital, houses every kind of paranormal being, so there is a vast assortment to write about and still make sense within the story line.  Lastly, I love the quotes.  I had shared some with my review of Nightshifted and I’ll share some here too.  Most of these are funny because they hit home and again, I shared quotes with my co-workers.

We walked in calmly, which got us past the security desk despite the blood.  It was the running that was frowned upon – mere bleeding was fine.

"The sound of retching is like a mating call to a wild nurse."

It was one thing to consider yourself a highly skilled waitress with access to narcotics – it was another for someone else to treat you like it.  Repeatedly.