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beastreader's review
4.0
Mahri Zin and her people are desperate for a healer. Mahri knows that if she does not find one soon, it could be too late. Mahri knows that any healer she finds will no go willingly with her, so she kidnaps one. Unfortunately, Mahri ends up kidnapping not only a healer but Prince Korl Com’nder of the Sea Forest. Can Mahri convince Korl to help her people?
Beneath the Thirteen Moons is the latest novel from author, Kathryne Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy just keeps getting better and better with each book. When Mahri was jealous of Korl and all the attention he was receiving from the woman of her village, I was laughing. Mahri would not admit that she liked Korl, so she would pout, which was funny. Korl knew just how to push Mahri’s buttons without going too far. For being a Prince, Korl was cool. He and Mahri were a good match together. I wished that I had a pet like Jaja. He was so cool. Beneath the Thirteen Moons is one part paranormal, one part magical, one part romance and one hundred percent delightful good reading!
Beneath the Thirteen Moons is the latest novel from author, Kathryne Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy just keeps getting better and better with each book. When Mahri was jealous of Korl and all the attention he was receiving from the woman of her village, I was laughing. Mahri would not admit that she liked Korl, so she would pout, which was funny. Korl knew just how to push Mahri’s buttons without going too far. For being a Prince, Korl was cool. He and Mahri were a good match together. I wished that I had a pet like Jaja. He was so cool. Beneath the Thirteen Moons is one part paranormal, one part magical, one part romance and one hundred percent delightful good reading!
suzemo's review
3.0
I picked up this book after Fire Lord's Lover, and it's not nearly as good. Not terrible, by any means, just not great either.
This book takes place on a water planet (no really, it's all water, with forests growing on the sea), and the world-building is pretty decent for a romance novel, but incomplete.
The characters were very flat, and the best character, by far, is the "pet" in the book Jaja.
This book takes place on a water planet (no really, it's all water, with forests growing on the sea), and the world-building is pretty decent for a romance novel, but incomplete.
The characters were very flat, and the best character, by far, is the "pet" in the book Jaja.
blodeuedd's review
3.0
Plot:
Mahri needs a healer for her village and by mistake she kidnaps the crownprince, there is instant lust between these. But he is a royal that has everything and she is just a low water-rat.
My thoughts:
I do confess that it was not as good as her last book, but then this is an old book that has been re-issued so she has become a better writer, but the book is still good, and the world she creates is pure magic. Truly something I have not experienced in a while. I want to see it on a big screen, I fear my imagination could only take me so far. The world is hard to describe, 13 moons, trees growing out from the ocean and people living in them, beneath them the ocean beasts. The world is filled with wonders.
Mahri is a strong independent widow who does not want to love and loose again. But she and Korl are meant for each other but she fights it with every muscle. He realizes his love and yields to it. But I understand her, she is not him, she lives in a swamp, he in a palace. And even a golden cage would be a cage for her. She is a runner, I will give out that. But I understand her. And I do love a man who will give up everything. Of course these two have one rocky romance, they are so different.
I have already told you the world is pure magic, what a creation. For some reason I thought of Avatar, well had to think of something even though they are nothing alike. It came more when Mahri got the information that her people came from the sky in fire. Therefore the hint of sci-fi, but the technology is long go. Now they use magic they get from a root found in the swamp.
Final thoughts and recommendation:
Ok yes there is the romance, but honestly, the world intrigued me more. So that was my fav part in this book. I am a sucker for good world-building. Cos of that I will give it a 3,5. It was interesting, and something for lovers of fantasy romance, and sci-fi since even if there was not any sci-fi in it I had that alien feeling all way through.
Reason for reading:
Liked her other book
Cover:
I like the colors but the man, I mean he stands there and saying come here looking at my nipple...no.
Mahri needs a healer for her village and by mistake she kidnaps the crownprince, there is instant lust between these. But he is a royal that has everything and she is just a low water-rat.
My thoughts:
I do confess that it was not as good as her last book, but then this is an old book that has been re-issued so she has become a better writer, but the book is still good, and the world she creates is pure magic. Truly something I have not experienced in a while. I want to see it on a big screen, I fear my imagination could only take me so far. The world is hard to describe, 13 moons, trees growing out from the ocean and people living in them, beneath them the ocean beasts. The world is filled with wonders.
Mahri is a strong independent widow who does not want to love and loose again. But she and Korl are meant for each other but she fights it with every muscle. He realizes his love and yields to it. But I understand her, she is not him, she lives in a swamp, he in a palace. And even a golden cage would be a cage for her. She is a runner, I will give out that. But I understand her. And I do love a man who will give up everything. Of course these two have one rocky romance, they are so different.
I have already told you the world is pure magic, what a creation. For some reason I thought of Avatar, well had to think of something even though they are nothing alike. It came more when Mahri got the information that her people came from the sky in fire. Therefore the hint of sci-fi, but the technology is long go. Now they use magic they get from a root found in the swamp.
Final thoughts and recommendation:
Ok yes there is the romance, but honestly, the world intrigued me more. So that was my fav part in this book. I am a sucker for good world-building. Cos of that I will give it a 3,5. It was interesting, and something for lovers of fantasy romance, and sci-fi since even if there was not any sci-fi in it I had that alien feeling all way through.
Reason for reading:
Liked her other book
Cover:
I like the colors but the man, I mean he stands there and saying come here looking at my nipple...no.
bookstuff's review
3.0
Good world-building and concept. Some super-hot scenes. Incredibly annoying heroine.
thecanary's review
2.0
The last time the sickness visited Mahri Zin’s village, she lost her husband and child because the Healers refused to help swamp smugglers. This time, Mahri travels to the capital, knocks out a Healer, and dumps him over the wall into her boat. But the man she snatched turns out to be the arrogant heir apparent, Prince Korl Com’nder, and his enemies seize this opportunity to do their damnest to kill him. Suddenly, it’s up to Mahri to save the prince’s life–and perhaps convince him that the lives of her loves ones are worth saving too.
So let's dive into the bad, the good, and the shirtless…
The Bad: The romance is tiring. It’s heavy-handed and clumsily executed. The story relies on conveniently instantaneous magical bonds (instant attraction because they are soulmates? Check. An irrevocable magical joining that binds them together forever? Check. A prophecy about them being together and being awesome? Check.) instead of relationship-building. For me, this doubly a shame because there are scenes that could have built a real relationship between them. Instead, the author opted for hitting a higher quota of sex scenes.
The Good: The world sure is lovely. In a nod to science fiction, we learn that this world was colonized ages ago and then, in a Pern-like fashion, the colonists forgot their roots. In this Avatar-scale conception of the planet, water covers the entire surface and the only “landmass” consists of complex ecosystems of plants and trees that rise above sea level. The creatures that live in this world are majestic and varied, and Beneath the Thirteen Moons does utter justice to the majesty of the world both in prose and concept.
The Bad: This is not a story for you if you’re looking for social commentary or realism in your romance (I’m not the only one, right? Right?). Beneath the Thirteen Moons tries to appeal to the ninety-nine percent mentality, but with the heavy-handed social engineering of a drunk rhinoceros trying to take on Political Theory 101. The solution that removes the social barriers that stand between Korl and Mahri is laughable in its improbability; there should have been at least five years of civil way, right there.
Read more good and bad at the full post here.
So let's dive into the bad, the good, and the shirtless…
The Bad: The romance is tiring. It’s heavy-handed and clumsily executed. The story relies on conveniently instantaneous magical bonds (instant attraction because they are soulmates? Check. An irrevocable magical joining that binds them together forever? Check. A prophecy about them being together and being awesome? Check.) instead of relationship-building. For me, this doubly a shame because there are scenes that could have built a real relationship between them. Instead, the author opted for hitting a higher quota of sex scenes.
The Good: The world sure is lovely. In a nod to science fiction, we learn that this world was colonized ages ago and then, in a Pern-like fashion, the colonists forgot their roots. In this Avatar-scale conception of the planet, water covers the entire surface and the only “landmass” consists of complex ecosystems of plants and trees that rise above sea level. The creatures that live in this world are majestic and varied, and Beneath the Thirteen Moons does utter justice to the majesty of the world both in prose and concept.
The Bad: This is not a story for you if you’re looking for social commentary or realism in your romance (I’m not the only one, right? Right?). Beneath the Thirteen Moons tries to appeal to the ninety-nine percent mentality, but with the heavy-handed social engineering of a drunk rhinoceros trying to take on Political Theory 101. The solution that removes the social barriers that stand between Korl and Mahri is laughable in its improbability; there should have been at least five years of civil way, right there.
Read more good and bad at the full post here.
simplyparticular's review
1.0
The world buiding is confusing.
I've read 9 chapters and still can't believe the amount of lust that the heroine feels in between being battered and bruised. And I'm not a fan of "forced" love because of prophecies, natives helping it along, etc.
Just not buying it, and without his POV, it's getting ridiculous.
booksandlists's review
I couldn't care about this earlier on and negative reviews convinced me to stop reading
tc_mill's review
1.0
Content warning: sexual assault, angry ranting about the aforementioned
It's not the weird formatting that bothered me, even though the Sourcebooks paperback uses possessive apostrophes in pluralizations several times, and a reluctance to italicize inner monologue required me to reread a few paragraphs when the tone got confusing.
It certainly wasn't the setting, which was actually quite interesting. "Dune" meets "Earthsea" as the protagonists navigate the reaches of a world ocean as descendants of human colonists. Meanwhile a drug, zabbaroot, enables them to unleash psychic powers. Some of the "futuristic" technology is clearly dated (this book is from 2003, so a spaceship is carrying data on hard disks, for example), but not enough to make the basic concept untenable. Several scenes of the ocean environments are even quite beautiful. The action rarely lags: kidnappings, medical emergencies, assassination attempts, and sea monster attacks appear just as things threaten to quiet down.
And readers without the patience for a slow romantic build would certainly enjoy how very touchy feely Mahri and Korl are by page 50. Of course, this is partly because the story uses a Prophecy as a substitute for the characters having any in-world chemistry. Yet, given the genuine effort Kennedy spent in worldbuilding and action, I can forgive some cut corners in this department, especially as Mahri's reaction to the aliens trying to set her up with Korl is very realistic (although, if the native aliens are encouraging what happens later on...well, her anger was actually less than the bastards deserve).
Mahri in general for the first half of the novel was great fun. Plucky, intelligent--if sometimes reckless--compassionate, and with a touch of self-doubt, she balanced heroic and more mortal characteristics. All the same, she was not quite as dominant as I could wish from a woman who sparks off the plot by grabbing a handsome man and tying him up (for reasons that are not at all sexual in-plot, granted, but still, how can you not acknowledge the possible subtext there, especially in a genre that's at least partly about fulfilling fantasies?). She's taking no orders, not even doctor's orders from her captive healer, but in her own mind she takes this as a sign that she's "broken". Korl's characterization was more uneven--sometimes a soft healer, sometimes a pensive prince, and sometimes a chest-pounding 80s Romance Hero (TM). I should have taken that as a warning sign.
While taking notes for this review, I jotted down "80s Romance Hero--quote line for illustration." How about "I want you and nothing can stop me?"
How about--
"He's coming to claim his prize."
5 pages later : Yet, in a tiny corner of her mind lay the knowledge that he had manipulated her, using the gifts of the Sea Forest [aka an herb, or what we here in the 21st century might call a roofie or a date rape drug] to get what he wanted...so did Korl pound himself into her, trying to lay a claim, and Mahri fighting it all the way. (p146)
It's a bad sign when we're not even at page 150 of a romance novel and I want the hero to die. Sure, Korl is sort of called out on this behavior--in an "Oh, you" slap on the wrist way. Oh, sure, the narrative seems to say, Mahri's just having a temperamental tantrum over being seduced via drug, she'll come to her senses and return to him soon. She spends a few chapters making him suffer, not so much for raping her as for his privileged princely perspective in general. Still, I decided to give this story a chance--partially because I knew I was going to write something scathing and felt it was only fair to hear the full story first.
The full scathing review, which talks about rape scenes in romance and erotic in general, continues at my blog. But the most pertinent bit--the fact that I will give 1-star reviews to books which try to portray rape scenes as evidence of the hero's love in anotherwise vanilla-friendly romance--has been established, I think.
It's not the weird formatting that bothered me, even though the Sourcebooks paperback uses possessive apostrophes in pluralizations several times, and a reluctance to italicize inner monologue required me to reread a few paragraphs when the tone got confusing.
It certainly wasn't the setting, which was actually quite interesting. "Dune" meets "Earthsea" as the protagonists navigate the reaches of a world ocean as descendants of human colonists. Meanwhile a drug, zabbaroot, enables them to unleash psychic powers. Some of the "futuristic" technology is clearly dated (this book is from 2003, so a spaceship is carrying data on hard disks, for example), but not enough to make the basic concept untenable. Several scenes of the ocean environments are even quite beautiful. The action rarely lags: kidnappings, medical emergencies, assassination attempts, and sea monster attacks appear just as things threaten to quiet down.
And readers without the patience for a slow romantic build would certainly enjoy how very touchy feely Mahri and Korl are by page 50. Of course, this is partly because the story uses a Prophecy as a substitute for the characters having any in-world chemistry. Yet, given the genuine effort Kennedy spent in worldbuilding and action, I can forgive some cut corners in this department, especially as Mahri's reaction to the aliens trying to set her up with Korl is very realistic (although, if the native aliens are encouraging what happens later on...well, her anger was actually less than the bastards deserve).
Mahri in general for the first half of the novel was great fun. Plucky, intelligent--if sometimes reckless--compassionate, and with a touch of self-doubt, she balanced heroic and more mortal characteristics. All the same, she was not quite as dominant as I could wish from a woman who sparks off the plot by grabbing a handsome man and tying him up (for reasons that are not at all sexual in-plot, granted, but still, how can you not acknowledge the possible subtext there, especially in a genre that's at least partly about fulfilling fantasies?). She's taking no orders, not even doctor's orders from her captive healer, but in her own mind she takes this as a sign that she's "broken". Korl's characterization was more uneven--sometimes a soft healer, sometimes a pensive prince, and sometimes a chest-pounding 80s Romance Hero (TM). I should have taken that as a warning sign.
While taking notes for this review, I jotted down "80s Romance Hero--quote line for illustration." How about "I want you and nothing can stop me?"
How about--
"He's coming to claim his prize."
5 pages later : Yet, in a tiny corner of her mind lay the knowledge that he had manipulated her, using the gifts of the Sea Forest [aka an herb, or what we here in the 21st century might call a roofie or a date rape drug] to get what he wanted...so did Korl pound himself into her, trying to lay a claim, and Mahri fighting it all the way. (p146)
It's a bad sign when we're not even at page 150 of a romance novel and I want the hero to die. Sure, Korl is sort of called out on this behavior--in an "Oh, you" slap on the wrist way. Oh, sure, the narrative seems to say, Mahri's just having a temperamental tantrum over being seduced via drug, she'll come to her senses and return to him soon. She spends a few chapters making him suffer, not so much for raping her as for his privileged princely perspective in general. Still, I decided to give this story a chance--partially because I knew I was going to write something scathing and felt it was only fair to hear the full story first.
The full scathing review, which talks about rape scenes in romance and erotic in general, continues at my blog. But the most pertinent bit--the fact that I will give 1-star reviews to books which try to portray rape scenes as evidence of the hero's love in anotherwise vanilla-friendly romance--has been established, I think.
rosetyper9's review
4.0
I like the word Kathryne Kennedy created in this book above everything else. She wrote wonderful characters and gripping plot but the love and execution she put into Sea Forest. I think the intricacies of the different caste systems and the magical way the world is brought to life is the crowning jewel of this book.
The take Ms. Kennedy weaves keeps the readers entranced. I enjoyed both Korl and Mahri's characters and I enjoyed watching them get to know each other and fall in love, despite their immense differences. I think that this fantastic romance is simple, clean, and a nice light read for anyone who wants something different than the everyday paranormal romance.
The take Ms. Kennedy weaves keeps the readers entranced. I enjoyed both Korl and Mahri's characters and I enjoyed watching them get to know each other and fall in love, despite their immense differences. I think that this fantastic romance is simple, clean, and a nice light read for anyone who wants something different than the everyday paranormal romance.