Bask In Their Moonlight

The Winter Moon by Mercedes Lackey, C.E. Murphy and Tanith Lee

What better unifying symbol for a collection of fantasy romance novellas than the moon-that silver disk so often associated with women and female spirituality? Likewise, what better symbol if the publishing house just happens to be Luna Books, the fantasy imprint of Harlequin. In what seems an almost too-perfect fit, one of its November 2005 releases is Winter's Moon, a collection of three novellas.

I'll confess that it wasn't the title that caught my eye on this volume. It was the authors, in particular the first two: Mercedes Lackey, Tanith Lee, and C.E. Murphy. Luna pulled out its powerhorses for this collections and the stories live up to their authors' reputations.

All of the stories create an excellent sense of place and give us characters that are easy to care about. They all have their strengths and vulnerabilities in nearly equal amounts. In fact, it is their vulnerabilities that feed and power their strengths.

Moontide

The first story is by Mercedes Lackey, a tale about a woman who understands and accepts her place in a patriarchal society. Does this mean that she is a weak, submissive woman? No. She is a strong, submissive woman and what she submits to his not a man, but to her people and to the debt she owes them.

Moira is the eldest daughter and heir of Highclere Sea-Keep. She's been a fosterling of the Countess Vrenable and has become one of her Grey Ladies, women with numerous, often hidden, talents. She is recalled to her home by her cold-hearted father Lord Ferson who has hatched some plot that she must divine and foil.

Moira is someone who shows her cleverness by hiding behind demure submissiveness and making the most of another person's false assumptions about her. She is also an eloquent defender of the concept of noblesse oblige and is willing to be wed where it would benefit her people the most.

While the plot is interesting, it is really the character of Moira which holds the most appeal. She is passionate, wise, and capable. She is a person that you want to learn more about and follow her future adventures.

As it is a Luna book, there is a love story. While it is not part of the main theme, it is very much a feel-good addition. It boosts the story's catharsis and leaves the reader with a smile at the end.

The Heart of the Moon

Tanith Lee's story begins in a warrior society where most of the warriors and clerics are female. Clirando discovers that her best friend and her lover are having an affair. She immediately demands justice and challenges them to a duel in which she thoroughly shames them and is responsible for their exile. While this is justice, she is so beset by guilt that she is eventually set upon a quest where she must either conquer it or be conquered.

The Heart of the Moon is a very magical tale, even while Clirandro herself practices no magic at all. Instead, it is the magic of the human heart and what we must do to find forgiveness-not for others, but for ourselves. During her journey, she meets Zemetrious, another injured soul. The two of them journey in search of healing, even while they both think they are searching for something else.

It is a very psychological story. There were times when you could almost hear the voice of a therapist wrapped in the sparkle of magic and the words of sages. The paths that these two protagonists are set upon are paths that many of us must traverse in our lifetime, even if we don't travel to the moon to find answers.

Banshee Cries

C.E. Murphy's novella is an intermission between her June 2005 release of Urban Shaman and the second book in the series due out in 2006. One could almost call it version 1.5. She takes the same characters and gives us more background about them by giving them another adventure.

Though perhaps adventure is too hearty and upbeat a word to apply to the investigation of a grisly serial murder. The would-be mechanic beat cop is called upon to use her newly found spiritual abilities to find the inhuman evil that has murdered women in a park.

The story is a tale of mothers and daughters and coming to terms with the past. Joanne, the mechanic, beat cop, and urban shaman, is suddenly having intense conversations with her mother who died nearly six months before. Their relationship-one that had lasted only a few months before her mother died-was a cold one and it now undergoes a strange and unusual transformation.

The magic in the book ranges from Native American to Irish while having an almost hard-boiled detective feel to it. Of the three novellas, this was the one which had the least love story. The love story was the love between a mother and daughter, not a romantic love shared by lovers.

The bright and witty writing had me frequently laughing aloud. This novella could almost be a marketing piece for her novels. It certainly inspired me to read Urban Shaman--which is now sitting at my bedside as the next book on my list to read.

The Winter Moon was entertaining from start to finish. It was almost impossible to set down and it traveled with me everywhere I went during the weekend that I read it. If you're looking for enjoyable reading with engaging characters, then indulge yourself in these three novellas.

--B. Redman