Where the Wild Things Bite (Half-Moon Hollow, #9)

by Molly Harper

In Molly Harper’s witty new paranormal romance, a rare-book expert is delivering a package to Half Moon Hollow when her plane goes down, and a sexy vampire comes to her rescue. He’s clearly got ulterior motives, but does he want to date her…or devour her?

Delivering a rare book to a valued customer is definitely part of mild-mannered archivist Anna Whitfield’s job description. You know what isn’t? Protecting her precious cargo from mid-flight theft by the very pilot who is flying her to Half-Moon Hollow…while trying to appear as unappetizing as possible to the only other passenger, a vampire. Undead bookstore owner Jane Jameson could be waiting a very long time for her book. Possibly forever.

Fortunately, Anna’s dashing fanged companion Finn Palmeroy helps her fend off the attack, but not before their plane crash lands in the forest hundreds of miles from civilization. Great, now she’s stranded with a priceless tome and a rakish vampire whose bedtime is fast approaching. Why does everyone want this book so badly, anyway? Anna just wants to get it to Jane before Finn decides to turn her into dinner—or sweep her off her feet. Okay, the second option is really tempting. But they’re not out of the woods yet…

• ISBN10: 1476794448
• ISBN13: 9781476794440
• Publish Date: 26 July 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Imprint: Pocket Books
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

Eh, they can't all be winners.

A rare-book expert is delivering a package to Half Moon Hollow when her plane goes down, and a sexy vampire comes to her rescue. He's clearly got ulterior motives, but does he want to date her–or devour her?

This one was always going to be iffy for me, because while I'm a fan of rare-book expert/librarian/archivist MCs, I'm not a fan of the whole deep woods survival/Predator premise.  Plus I had a bias against the love interest because he irritated the fool out of me in a previous book.

But even accounting for that, this one just doesn't work for me as well as Harper's other books.  Too much angst and not enough investment in her storyline.  Considering someone was willing to crash her plane to get what they wanted, Anne got out of those woods with a minimum of confrontation.  Plus, because it was only Anne and Finn, there wasn't nearly enough opportunity for the trademark snarky dialogue and awesome friendships I so love when Dick and Jane and Andrea are around.

The good news is the last 20% of the book, after they got out of the woods, was much better; funnier and more interesting.  Because yes, the gang's all here.  The ending also contained possibly the weakest, most half-hearted attempt at past relationship closure and karmic justice I've witnessed in a book in a long time.

It sound like I'm being generous with my rating, but it's still an entertaining read and it was easy to pick up and lose myself in it.  It's just that Harper has written so many incredibly funny books with such endearing characters and enviable friendships, that this one struggles in comparison.  Good, but far from her best.

[Melanie]

My review and an extended sample of the audiobook are posted at Hotlistens.com.

I always love when I get a new installment from Molly Harper. She is a favorite author of mine. Tie her with Amanda Ronconi as the narrator and I’m in heaven. They are a perfect pair to make me laugh.

This story is a bit different from previous books in the Half Moon Hollow series. While this is not the first time we’ve had characters who are not part of Jane Jamison’s gang, this is the first time we’ve had them outside of Half Moon Hollow. Jane and the gang do have appearances in this story, but not as much as what we normally see. That doesn’t make the story any less fun.

Anna Winthrop has a very rare and priceless book that she need to return to Jane. She had it to authenticate it was the real deal. Anna, who is a bit of an introvert and germaphobe, decides that this package is too important to just ship it back, so she is going to deliver it in person. She goes from using antibacterial wipes to clean the area around her on the plane, to trudging through the backwoods of Kentucky after her crazy pilot crashes the plane.

Finn Palmeroy is not a new character in the Half Moon Hollow series. He isn’t very well liked though. He is a bit of a conman. He was a conman in life and that didn’t change after he was turned into a vampire. It just gave him a new group of people to con. He is also not much of a woodsman. He is out to help Anna Winthrop through the backwoods of Kentucky and is going to help her deliver her package back to Jane. I’m not a big fan of the “men who change because of a woman” trope. I just don’t believe that it is a real thing for the most part, but then this is a book about vampires, so I can’t gripe too much about realism. I do think he cares about her, so maybe he will try to be a better person so as not to disappoint her. Who knows.

This book was fully of the sarcasm and shenanigans that I expect with any Molly Harper story. This series is one that never ceases to put me in a good mood. It is a little bit of action, some romance and full of chuckle worthy humor. I always love my time with the gang from Half Moon Hollow.

I was trapped in the bluegrass version of Deliverance. With a vampire.
Worst. Case. Scenario.

Narration
This is one of my favorite audiobook teams. I don’t read any of Molly Harper’s books, I must listen because Amanda Ronconi does such an amazing job with the narration. She really brings out the snark in Molly Harper’s stories. If you haven’t tried Molly Harper’s stories on audio, I can’t recommend it enough. Amanda Ronconi is perfect for this series.

**I like to thank the publisher for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

[EBookObsessed]

Molly Harper reminds me exactly why I hate the outdoors so much. You will be changing your vacation plans after reading this book.

Anna Whitfield is a bibliographer who was hired to appraise the value and, more importantly, the validity of an ancient tome on the history of shapeshifters. Anna determines that it is in fact a valuable and rare antique and contains many secrets about shifters, who unlike the vampires, were still unknown to humans. Because of the rarity and the value of this treasure, Anna Whitfield is determined to hand it personally back to its owner, Jane Jamison-Nightengale, in the little town of Half-Moon Hollow, Kentucky.

That is what led Anna to be standing in front of the world’s tiniest plane since the only airport near Half-Moon Hollow is a minuscule one-gate hub. Fear of flying is not on the very top of Anna’s list of phobias, but it is high enough to make itself quite known. Anna might not have taken enough anti-anxiety medication after all.

As if the trip couldn’t be any worse, the only other passenger on the flight is a hot, sexy and incredible cocky vampire. Anna is socially awkward enough to hate talking to strangers, especially hot, too full of themselves, very strange vampires who don’t seem to be able to the hint that she doesn’t want to engage in chatty small talk. Little did she know that hot, chatty vampires won’t be the worse thing to happen to her today.

The flight was going well until the pilot decided it was time to rob his passengers, or at least Anna. When he pulls a knife and tries to take Jane’s book. Anna fends him off, but he still continues with Step 2 of his plan, kill the passengers in a fiery crash. Now is the perfect time to panic, but it is Anna’s vampire traveling companion who comes up with the perfect solution. Jump out of the falling plane. What?? Anna is so against that plan, but he jumps out taking Anna with him.

Well, he might have saved them from a fiery death, but now they are lost in the forest about 300 miles away from Half-Moon Hollow with no idea which way to go and a murderous pilot wandering the woods with them along with a pack of shifters who paid the pilot to kill Anna for that book.

No food. No water. No proper footwear. But plenty of dirt, bugs and a vampire who might at any time determine Anna makes a better snack than a travel companion.

If Anna can survive this ordeal, maybe she was stronger than she thought or maybe next time she would trust FedEx.

THOUGHTS:
Ah, this story reminded me exactly why I hate camping. Bleh!

I will point out that the vampire-hero in this story, Finn Palmeroy, was introduced in the last novel, The Single Undead Mom’s Club. He was the vampire that turned Libby. It was very distracting when I started the story because I recognized the name but couldn’t remember where we met him before. I searched the prior books until I found him. It was making my crazy. I saved you. You’re welcome.

Anna was definitely a fish-out-of-water here. She is a city girl and anxiety ridden. She is a closet survivalist, as long as she was surviving in her closet, in her apartment. She reads plenty of How to Survive guides but usually doesn’t leave her apartment or the library where she does her researching. So crash landing in a forest, miles from anywhere, put her out of her element and led to a lot of laughs, including an obsessive need not to eat a can of Spam that she and Finn come across.

We know that something is fishy about Finn but he is funny and charming and eventually even the priggish, Ms. Whitfield gives in to his charms. Well, after he saves her a few times.

As always, Molly Harper gives us paranormal romance and makes it fun. I always look forward to new adventures in Half-Moon Hollow.

See more at EBookObsessed.com