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.

Nightshifted

Title: Nightshifted

Author: Cassie Alexander

Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks         

Publish Date:  22 May 2012

Pages: 352

ISBN:  978-0312553395

Source:  Bought

Genre:  YA, paranormal, vampires, werewolves

Series:  Edie Spence

Other books in series:  Moonshifted (27 November 2012)

Rating: Loved

From debut author Cassie Alexander comes a spectacular new urban fantasy series where working the nightshift can be a real nightmare.

Nursing school prepared Edie Spence for a lot of things. Burn victims? No problem. Severed limbs? Piece of cake. Vampires? No way in hell. But as the newest nurse on Y4, the secret ward hidden in the bowels of County Hospital, Edie has her hands full with every paranormal patient you can imagine—from vamps and were-things to zombies and beyond...

Edie’s just trying to learn the ropes so she can get through her latest shift unscathed.  But when a vampire servant turns to dust under her watch, all hell breaks loose. Now she’s haunted by the man’s dying words—Save Anna—and before she knows it, she’s on a mission to rescue some poor girl from the undead. Which involves crashing a vampire den, falling for a zombie, and fighting for her soul. Grey’s Anatomy was never like this.

Who takes care of the paranormal when they get sick?  Edie Spence is a nurse on Y4, the unit that takes care of them.  It is a secret floor in County Hospital that not too many people know about.  Edie is just trying to survive and learn the ropes, when “Mr. November” turns to dust before her eyes.  His last words were “save Anna.”  Now, it is up to Edie to figure out (1) who Anna is, (2) what she needs saving from and (3) how to save her.

Feeling guilty over the death of Mr. November, Edie sets out to figure out who he was (Mr. November was his alias because they couldn’t identify him) and his connection to Anna.  This is more challenging than what Edie has first anticipated.  Meanwhile, she has her brother calling her for money.  Her brother, who is the reason she is working on Y4 for less pay than she was making before.  What Edie doesn’t realize is that while she is digging into the identity of both Mr. November and Anna, this will involve her in the paranormal world like she has never known, or wanted.

What will happen to Edie Spence?  Will she rescue Anna?  Will she get into trouble for her involvement in her release?

I didn’t have to stick around to give the report to day shift. There’s no report to give when your patient’s become dead.

When I first heard that this was centered on a nurse who took care of paranormal patients, I was excited to read this.  Being a nurse, I had hoped that it wouldn’t be like the TV shows that depict nursing as something that it is clearly not.  I wasn’t disappointed in this book.  There were moments of hilarity in it with quotes that I showed to my co-workers.  Edie Spence is a well-written character.  I like the way that Alexander has written her.  I don’t like medical dramas or stories very often because they sugarcoat what the profession is about.  In Nightshifted, you don’t get that.  That is what made it appealing to me.

Now that I spoke on the nursing aspect, the paranormal stuff in the book was just as good.  There were dragons, vampires, ghosts, and more.  I liked that things were different in this book.  You don’t often hear about paranormal beings getting sick or having diseases, so this was a refreshing take on a genre that is popular and sometimes repetitive.  I’m anxious to read Moonshifted, which is centered around werewolves, when it comes out in November.

…anything that fell on the floor anywhere in the hospital was always suspect. Somedays there wasn’t enough hand sanitizer in the world to chase after a dropped pen.

Nurses are natural kleptos.You don’t want to be in a room without enough supplies, so every time you walk past the med-cart you pocket another saline flush. By the end of the shift you can look like a chipmunk if you’re not careful. Some days it’s hard to remember that the gum at the end of the grocery checkout aisle isn’t there just for you.

Waiting on Wednesday

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we cannot wait to read.

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…

Moonshifted is the sequel in the Edie Spence series.  Edie is a nurse who works on a paranormal ICU unit.  Being a nurse myself, the first book, Nightshifted, was an interesting read that kept me laughing.  I shared a bunch of quotes from the book with my coworkers, who also found it hilarious.  A lot of the things that were in Nightshifted I could relate to real life.  Well, not the paranormal aspect, just the nursing and the reactions in the medical field.  This book is set to release on 27 November 2012.