Blood Moon
Chroma Crossing Chronicles series
Author: S. Yurvati
Genre: Fantasy, Suspense, Paranormal Romance, Adventure
Synopsis:
Hunky
pheromone-laden-man meets pretty accident-prone female—it should have been a
love story with a happily ever after ending. However, when the bored deities
choose Candy and Thorne for an amusing game, the gods and goddesses put forth
sets of circumstances that can tear the couple apart and wound them deep within
their souls.
City
girl, Candy wanted to become a successful artist and maybe someday find a man
who would make her feel loved and valued, a feeling she’d never known while
growing up.
With
her father’s sudden demise, Candy finds she’s inherited funds and a carriage
house in beautiful historic Savannah. Not only can she now afford to go to the
Savannah College of Art and Design, her future as an artist looks promising.
But unfortunately, her step-mom and her disturbing son Todd reside in the main
house.
When
Candy gets her first commission for a life-sized portrait of a beautiful woman
from a rather unsettling man, she soon questions what had seemed coincidental.
Candy is a modest female who has always found solace in her artwork, whereas
her widowed step-mom, Cherry Ann, considers physical pleasure and money as her
measures of worth.
As
Candy pursues her art, Cherry Ann pursues a new lover who expands her world of
sexual gratifications far beyond past parameters. Cherry Ann finds her new
risqué sex life to be addictive and doesn’t recognize the danger of the man
she’s invited into her life.
After
surviving a couple of ‘accidents’, Candy realizes someone apparently wishes her
harm. When she’s chased (by the one thing she fears most) Candy accidentally,
or so it seems, crosses into a new dimension. She finds herself in an unknown
wilderness with a curious terrain that is void of color. The landscape looks
like an old sepia photograph, hardly the Savannah spring day she’d left behind. As Candy stumbles through the wild terrain,
an intriguing hunter comes upon her. His presence makes her girlie parts beg to
become ill behaved, and before she knows it, her hormones are arguing with her
strict moral compass.
Recommended
for readers ages 18+.
MY REVIEW
Call me
intrigued and invested! Blood Moon by S.
Yurvati is the first book in the Chroma Crossing Chronicles series. It ends on a small cliff-hanger and is told
in multiple POV. Although, for me, this
way of telling the story and the vast amount of embellishments about Savannah
(its ambiance, flowers, trees history etc), slowed down the pace of the story
and made it hard to connect with the main characters, I persisted. I was never so happy that I did!
After a while, the story became a little
simpler, with not so many POVs. I got to
learn more about Mark Kingslea and his marriage. I also had a chance to see and learn more
about Candy not to mention Thorne (sigh!).
These for me, were the best chapters of the book. It was simple and to the point and advanced
the plot the way the rest of the book did not.
I became obsessed by these pages and the
story. The story telling, for me,
finally came alive. Our main characters
are Candy, Mark and Thorne and I was able to get a better understanding of who
these characters really are and what motivates them. I devoured these pages and cannot wait to
read the next installment.
I do believe with so many secondary
characters, that a glossary of who’s who and what their relationship to our
heroine is would not be remiss.
Also, for me, some turn of phrases like
“Mr. Frisky” and “Got to bleep her” turned me off a bit and sometimes the
author weaved in and out of different POV without any indication and this
sometimes caused a little confusion.
Regardless of this, this was a wonderful
first installment and I’m excited to read the next book!
I received a free copy of this
book. All thoughts and opinions are my
own.
EXCERPT ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Chapter One
The plethora of majestic oaks, enrobed with Spanish moss, made this historic cemetery
one of Candy’s favorite spots in Savannah. In fact, the Bonaventure Cemetery
was considered one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the world and she could
well believe it. Azaleas were just
beginning to bloom with the early onset of spring, adding accenting bursts of
color to nature’s earthy canvas. Today should be a day to enjoy what nature
offered to the eyes. It wasn’t.
Unfortunately, both the occasion and the company of fellow
mourners spoiled this day. They were gathered ‘to put to rest’ her late father,
Lucas Cane. She never understood why people referred to the deceased as ‘late’
since they were definitely the first to arrive to the funeral. And ‘rest’?
Hardly. Her father wasn’t taking a nap.
Early in life Candy learned it was best to be a realist,
and Dad was just plain dead. She wiped a tear from her cheek knowing Dad would
not want his only child to cry. His philosophy about death was that it offered
a new beginning, or so he had told her when she was a child. Additionally he’d always taught her to look for the
positive. Right now Candy was positively certain she would never see her father
again.
As was befitting of such a morose occasion, lots of
emotional sobs and hysteria were heard, almost exclusively from Cherry Ann—also
known as Candy’s father’s third wife, aka stepmom-two. The sobbing Cherry Ann
was clinging tighter than Saran Wrap to her grown and ever present son, Todd.
‘Hysteria’ should have been Cherry Ann’s middle name, if it hadn’t already been
‘Greed’. Or she could have been named ‘Dramatique’. . . come to think of it,
that name would be equally fitting of her personality and carried a nice ring
to it. Cherry Ann would consider herself French.
Dang! How could anyone cry so prettily? Cherry Ann
certainly had her nerve looking so attractive at Lucas’ funeral. Wasn’t the
bereaved widow supposed to look . . . well, bereaving? Probably crocodile tears
anyway, because Candy had serious doubts about any matrimonial grief seeping
from Cherry Ann’s spa-cleansed-pores.
It hardly seemed fair.
When Candy cried her entire face turned red, and her nose could give
Rudolf a real run for the Christmas eve gig. Then of course her eyes would
swell, and regrettably Candy had to admit she resembled a tortured possum. A
good reason to avoid crying every opportunity she got. No sense humiliating
herself or frightening the populace. So when she cried it was in solitude.
On this day of public hysterical grieving, Cherry Ann was
dressed for the part in a smart looking black St. John designer suit, a proper
black hat complete with widow’s netting, opaque black stockings, and finished
with black (no doubt designer) stiletto heels. She even had her nails done in
black nail polish. Really? Was she Elvira Mistress of the Dark?
As stepmom-two neared, the cloying scent of high-dollar
perfume enveloped her as closely as Todd did. Cherry Ann used expensive perfume
to forecast her presence a full fifteen seconds before she sashayed into a
room. Her generous bosom arrived next and five seconds later the rest of her
body followed.
Since all strong scents assaulted Candy’s nose and caused
sneezing it hardly mattered which one it was. Cherry Ann knew Candy was
sensitive to perfumes, but that never deterred her use of them. Already Candy’s
nose was twitching. Candy would hold off as long as possible stifling sneezing
for two reasons. Firstly, Todd would hand her a tissue with that “you owe me”
freaky glint in his eyes. Secondly, Cherry Ann would do that little shoulder
shimmy thing that said she’d gotten her way. Again.
Admittedly, that woman could make a red carpet worthy
entrance. But unlike every other person in Savannah, Cherry Ann seemed
oblivious regarding last night’s rainy weather. Those five-inch spiked heels
she wore kept sinking into the ground. Every time Cherry Ann tried to move
another earthy protest pulled against the couture heel. Designer or not, no
heel could sustain much more abuse. Secretly Candy was rooting for the soggy
earth to claim victory.
If ‘fashionista’ Cherry Ann broke a heel off her exclusive
designer shoes that would be catastrophic and give stepmom-two something to
genuinely cry about. Who wore stilettos to a cemetery anyway? Wasn’t the death
of a loved one painful enough to endure without purposely inflicting more pain?
Okay, it was unkind to think such thoughts, but it was just
so tempting when it came to stepmom-two. Certainly there was no love lost
between the two of them.
Sighing, Candy again thought about how her father had
experienced too many bad marriages and too little love in his short life. Dad
had deserved better and now it was too late for him. Candy hadn’t thought he
had a heart problem, just high blood pressure, which he took his meds and
exercised to control. His weight was always good as well. In fact, Lucas always
kept himself fit. A fatal heart attack seemed difficult for Candy to accept.
The sullen ceremony proceeded and the words were
spoken. Finally it was time for the
friends and family to depart so the ‘Rent a Coffin’ could be lowered. The small
crowd was slowly wandering to their cars when it happened.
A creaking, shifting sound—then something heavy sliding,
followed by an ominous cracking—the sound of wood splitting.
Crash!
Everyone turned to look back as they realized the simple
wood coffin, which Cherry Ann had chosen, had slipped off the lift, out from
under the ornate faux-coffin overlay.
Totally ironic considering Candy’s father had never wanted
what he referred to as a “barbaric funeral”. He preferred the biblical “ashes
to ashes, dust to dust” of cremation. Recycling at its finest. Dad had been
very ‘green’ minded and a big advocate in repurposing with his restoration projects.
However, when Candy had told Cherry Ann about his avid preference the widow had
vehemently balked at the idea.
But it was when the kindly and overly informative funeral
director told Cherry Ann how cremation was irreversible that the widow totally lost
it. What had she expected? Dad wasn’t coming back. Period. Not as a zombie, a
ghost or even with the addition of water to rehydrate his ashes.
Thus they turned the page to burial option B, as stipulated
in her father’s Will. Obviously Lucas had known Cherry Ann was not going to
stand for his preferences that his body be cremated. After all, why would his
wife ever want to fulfill his burial request when it was all about Cherry Ann?
The widow’s level of hysteria rose (a difficult task to
fathom) as the group rushed back to the gravesite. When it came to tear ducts,
Cherry Ann’s were as profuse as her boobs.
As the attendees spotted the broken coffin they looked
uncomfortable and confused, as if they should offer assistance in some manner.
Candy spotted one gentleman as he removed his sports jacket and readied himself
to jump into the grave to retrieve Dad. Except what the man saw seemed to
abruptly change his mind.
Others gasped.
And there it was, the cheap wooden coffin broken open with
dear-old-Dad lying stark naked, a white sheet rumpled to the side of him, and
with an alarming erection, courtesy of his penile implant. Oh glory! No wonder
that well-meaning gentleman balked. Imagine reaching forward and accidently
grabbing hold of that! The result would
likely require years of therapy for the traumatized man and tons of porn before
he got his ‘hetero-man card’ replaced.
Not only had Cherry Ann’s secret budget funeral become
public, so had her husband’s private parts. Surely the angels above were
getting a titillating eyeful, as were all the guests.
Dad looked proud in his death, but then it was a generous
implant.
Through her sobbing and horror Cherry Ann choked out, “No,
no, no. How could he do this to me? I’m going to sue the funeral home for
compensation.” Sob, sob, sob and more sobbing.
Always remaining true to her nature, in the end it was always about
money and Cherry Ann. Not necessarily in that order, but always together.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
S.
Yurvati has always loved reading and writing. She began putting her thoughts
and imaginings on paper during her childhood and continued through college
years. She began writing Blood Moon back in her college days, but after
graduating from CSUN with a Master’s Degree, she had to work on earning a
living and had to put her writing on hold… After three decades of working in
the medical world, her husband convinced her to retire and take the time to
write. That led to the beginning of Chroma Crossing Chronicles and her first
book: Blood Moon. The series includes: Blood Moon (Part 1 and Part 2), followed
by Book 3 Dragon Tear, and Book 4 Infinity Link. S. Yurvati is currently
working on the fifth and final installment of the Chroma Crossing Chronicles
series.
