A review by donna
Once in a Blue Moon by Simon R. Green

3.0

This book was such a disappointment to me. Simon Green wrote some of the first fantasy books I read as a teenager, books I would still list as favourites, but this was just badly written. I'm being generous giving it 3 stars, because I did enjoy the story, but I really struggled to get through it. I don't know who edited it, but they did a very poor job. It was full of sentence fragments (a personal bugbear) and plot holes, and it's such a shame that this is now Rupert and Julia's send off. Quite frankly, I wish Green had stopped at Beyond the Blue Moon!

As I said above, the story isn't bad, but it does drag any time we're with the new characters. I just wanted to spend more time with hawk and Fisher, because let's face it, they're why I'm reading it. The royal families come across as either spoiled brats or idiots (or both), and I felt very little connection with them as characters. Thankfully, Hawk and Fisher are their old selves, although Hawk should maybe be a little more discreet if he wants to keep his identity a secret.

So overall, I can't really say the book was any more than OK. I'm sure people who are completeists like me won't be able to resist reading it anyway, but if you don't want your memories of his other books tarnished, I'd stay away!