Jeanette Battista

Prelim Review: This was an okay and moderately satisfying read. The pacing was erratic and the character development was spotty at best however. I'm not sure where Battista is taking the series as a whole and it reflected in the flow of events. The scenes with Mac and Kes were, while tense because of her fear, languid almost. Then there were chapters focusing on her brother and those were utterly disturbing pages. Then more languid courtship. Then more disturbing. I think the book would have benefited by having the confrontation between Kes and Sek (which I see what you did there in the names Battista) occur in the second book.… (mais)

I was given this book to read through the We Love YA Books ARR Group for an honest review, thank you.



First, I like the cover of this book. It’s in the same style as Leopard Moon and I liked that cover also. I’m curious as to what the next book’s cover will look like considering it seems to center around Rafe, the young hyena boy.

I think the book blurb needs to be fixed because it’s confusing:

Will Laila’s training and skills be enough to save the young werejackal and everything she’s worked for?

It’s more like Laila needs to prove that she can do what she’s been training all her life to do, or will she fail the Keepers and herself? That would be a more accurate and less confusing.

If you plan on reading Jaguar Moon; you’ll need to read Leopard Moon first. This is not a stand-alone book. There are many characters from the previous book that are in JM and too many references of what happened in LM are made so that a reader will probably get lost without the background info.

The story is told in third person through multiple POVs. The author did a good job of keeping the POVs separated by chapter and I didn’t have any trouble figuring out whose eyes I was viewing the story through.

I found that I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I did the first one and I’m pretty sure it was because of one of main characters, Laila. I’ll cover the other characters first before I get to her however. I liked seeing the return of Cormac and Kess and the other werewolf shifters in this book. I even liked the new evil character Samara. She was cruel and conniving and fit the story well. I liked the son Rafe and am looking forward to his story in Hyena Moon. I didn’t like Finn at the beginning of the book. He was an annoying, immature boy. Even in Miami he was that way for a while until he started to take his job of protecting Kess and Cormac more seriously. Although Finn had to have the carrot dangling on a stick before he got started. I’m talking about the carrot named, Laila. Finn did however grow throughout the book and I didn’t find him as annoying at the end. Oh and Bomani, can we say 'manipulative' much?

I didn’t like the werejackals, and that’s what ruined the story for me. Laila was arrogant, looked down on people, and was judgmental and childish. No one like that should ever have the power over life and death. The werejackals were no more than paid assassins no matter how they liked to justify what they did. Those kinds of groups and their fanatical belief in a religion, Anubis was their religion/God, and their ‘ideal’ are very, very dangerous. Yes, I realize that this is quite similar to trained people that are used by their governments to ‘take out’ crazed dictators or terrorists of other countries. I’m not going to mention what groups though. I suppose it depends on what POV one looks through. But someone like Laila is not emotionally stable enough to be a Keeper, maybe her brother is, but I wouldn’t trust him either. So the aspect of assassins, especially an unstable, impulsive assassin like Laila, really reduced my enjoyment of this story. In the end, Laila’s character did not grow, she continued to feel ‘hey, this is me, take it or leave it.’ She thought she respected Kess, but continued to pass judgment on Kess as if she were superior. I really, really disliked Laila. Mebis I disliked a bit less but I still dislike him. I’m curious if there will be some sort of contention in a future story between Cormac and Mebis, since Laila kept mentioning that Mebis seemed attracted to Kess and not in a business way.

There are a few instances in the first quarter of the book were the author repeated ‘scenes’ or ‘themes’ that she had written about previously only she reworded the scene differently. There was no need for the repetition. It actually felt like clobbering the readers over the head by pointing ‘Hey! Look at this! This is important!’ The sections I’m talking about are the following:

This first part was repeated three times regarding the scars cut into Laila’s face during her Marking Ceremony:

Page11- Her father drew the knife down her forehead in a vertical line above her left eye. Blood spilled out, dripping down her brow bone and into the cup he held against her face. (Similar to page 41)

Page 12- If her father’s scar was any indication, no one would be able to see it unless they knew where to look by the time she was his age. Her brother’s scar was still noticeable, although not glaringly so, but it too was fading with time. (Similar to page 37)

Page 37 – (Talking about her father) A very faint scar ran down the left side of his face, starting above his brow bone and running vertically down his cheek. Laila and Mebis sported similar scars, although hers was more noticeable since it was relatively recent. (Similar to page 12)

Page41 – It had been a family ritual, one of their few high rituals, performed when the moon was at its fullest. She had been fourteen and her father had taken her into the temple room and explained the role of the Keepers of the Order, of their place in the cosmic balance. (Similar to page 10-11)

He had drawn the knife down her face, whispering that she should close her eye…. The blood spilled over her eye, dimming her vision, making the world swim and she felt sick. (Similar to page 11)

All of the above excerpts reference to the same event but repeated over and over and over again in a different phrase. Rehashing the same event was excessive. The event would have had more impact if it was mentioned once in very graphic detail. As it was, repeating the same scene over and over only caused annoyance as if the author thought the readers might be too stupid to remember the scars or the Marking Ceremony. I wanted to yell “OK! I get it! She had a Marking Ceremony and she has scars and so do her father and brother! Can we get on with the story now?”

The second scene was where Samara thought about needing more territory:

Page82 – Her pack needed the new territory, but more importantly, Samara deserved it….
Instead because of what she was, she was forced to live on the fringes, living off scraps of the carcass.

Page 110 – They’d grown too quickly and now they strained and surpassed the local natural resources. She’d been hungering after a true city for decades, tired of making do with the fringes.

Again, we are subjected to a repeat of thought patterns, this time by Samara, that isn’t necessary. The readers don’t need to have something pointed out to them again and again.

The pace of the story stayed at a good clip. The only time I didn’t like the pace was when the chapters with Laila happened and especially when she was training with her martial arts teacher. But that’s because I didn’t like Laila and wasn’t interested in her character.

I’m curious as to how the werewolves will accept Cormac staying in Miami with Kess, especially if Kess plans on taking over the group there? She won’t be able to govern the wereleopards long distance permanently and Cormac is destined to become Alpha. It wouldn’t matter too much if Finn stayed in Miami since he really doesn’t have a ‘position’ in the were pack.

In the end, the pace of this story was good. I liked most of the characters, even Samara, but I really disliked Laila’s personality and what she stood for. To a lesser extent I disliked Mebis but also disliked what he stood for. I liked the reappearance of characters from the first book. The repetition of scenes only in different wording was very annoying. I ended up enjoying Leopard Moon much more and I look forward to the next book in the series. In the end I can only give Jackal Moon 3 stars.










… (mais)

I received this book through the We Love YA Books ARR Group for an honest review, thank you.



First off, I love the cover. I love the color, the moon and the girl. The only thing is I wish I could see the girl’s face. I noticed that some people commented that the image of the girl was the same for another book, but since I didn’t read that other book, it doesn’t bother me, lol.

This book is told in third person through the eyes of Kess a wereleopard, her brother Sekmet or Sek, also a wereleopard, and Cormac, a werewolf. The author did a good job of keeping the POVs separate so I didn’t have any trouble knowing which person’s eyes I was viewing through.

All the characters went through character growth, either good or bad. Kess grew stronger as she and Cormac grew closer and she had a reason to stand her ground and protect her new life. Sekmet is a sick individual and only seemed to get crazier as the story went along. I won’t give any more detail because that would ruin the story. Alaric, the Alpha of the pack even went through growth in his acceptance of Kess.

I liked how the author showed the differences of the two families of wereleopard and werewolf and their methods of keeping family close. In Kess’ case, she was sequestered with home schooling and a tight rein was kept on her of where she went, and who she associated with. In the end, a twisted family situation drove her from home to the point she never wanted to return. Compare that to Cormac’s family. Cormac wished for more independence and to even move away. His family helped build a cabin near their home so he could have his own personal space. Cormac will probably eventually leave his family, but he has a good relationship with them in the meantime. Two families, two totally different responses at a child’s growing independence.

The pacing of the story was good. It wasn’t as fast paced as an action story and may in fact be slow for some people, but I liked it. The relationship between Kess and Cormac was a nice gradual growth of attraction, interest, caring and then finally love. The author didn’t have to revert to the annoying method of ‘instant love’ that I dislike so much.

I had some disorientation at the beginning of the story for a couple chapters. It felt like I was thrown into the middle of a series and I wasn’t sure if I started with the correct book in the series. I had to look the book up on Goodreads to make sure I was actually on book one.

The formatting is very good and the editing is good with only a few incorrect word usages.

I’m giving this story, four stars because of the confusion I felt at the beginning of the book for the first chapter or two regarding if I was reading the first book in the series or not.


… (mais)