Chroma Crossing Chronicles: Blood Moon Part 1
by S. Yurvati
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(Disclaimer: I was sent this book for an honest review. All thoughts and comments are mine and mine alone.)

Synopsis
Hunky pheromone-laden-man meets pretty accident-prone female—it should have been a love story with a happy ever after ending.

However, when the bored deities choose Candy and Thorne for an amusing game, the gods/goddesses put forth sets of circumstances that can tear the couple apart and wound them deep within their human 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. However, with a name like ‘Candy Cane’, males never failed to remind her with a wink and snicker, how it sounded like she was a ‘professional’. And ‘professional’ held so many connotations, none of which she had in mind regarding relationships with men.
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 SCAD, her future as an artist looks promising. Unfortunately, her step-mom (and her disturbing son Todd) resides 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. And 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, land or whatever. She finds herself in an unknown wilderness without resources, let alone a map, or GPS, plus she left her cell phone at home—again. Looking around she sees a curious terrain that is void of color, thus leaving the landscape looking like an old sepia photograph, hardly the Savannah spring day she’d left behind.

The artist in her wants to understand how primary colors could disappear to leave a land so colorless . . . so entirely beige-ish. How could such a phenomenal occurrence come about? A land without modern conveniences—almost as though she’d stepped into a time past, yet that wasn’t quite accurate either.

As Candy literally 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.

What I thought
First I want to say thank you to the author for sending me this book to review. I really do appreciate it; however, this has no bearing on my thoughts and opinions in this review.

I really do not know how I feel about this book.  I started this review then waited a few days to see if that made any difference, and well I am still on the fence about what I read. So I think its best if I break down my thoughts here. Yes, this is going to look different otherwise it all is very rambly.

The Prologue:
This was a very interesting way to set up the book. However, after reading the book I think it was a set up for the series and it does not make sense with this book alone. But hey I still liked what it set up and makes me want to read on to see where in the series it comes into play.

Cast of Characters:
There is a good size cast of characters and you see chapters from most of their points of view. So are reading from 8 points of view.  This sounds worse than what it is.  She writes each character very differently so you do not feel lost in these switches.

There were characters that I really liked reading from Candy, Liam, Joe, Thorne and Coco. Coco is Candy’s kitten those chapters are really cute.

I would have been happy to never have read anything from the point of view of Mark Kingsley, Cherry Ann or Todd. I know that these characters are supposed to be unlikeable but they toe a lot of lines, and Mark’s chapters blow those lines to bits and if I am being honest they made me very uncomfortable.

There are some chapters that are not labeled with a character and they start with dead pirates talking to each other about what is going on.  I still have not figured this out yet.

The Story:
I enjoyed the first 57 pages of this book and I had no doubts about it to this point.  I liked Candy and Liam and I was really interested in where this story was going. Then for the next 200 and some pages, I really did not like the book you see more of the story from Mark/Cherry Ann’s perspectives and I get most of this is probably a set up for them for the rest of the series but I could have done without them. Now, why did I keep reading because this is supposed to be a portal fantasy and I kept thinking that once I get to that point they would no longer matter. It took until page 291 for the fantasy aspect to happen. Did I enjoy the rest of the book once she crossed realms? YES!

I have to say this is the most conflicted I have been about a book in a while.  I already have Part 2 so I will begin that book and see if it continues with Candy and Thorn.  I know I am not getting rid of Mark that easily but we will have to see how big of a part he plays in the other books.  Mark is just one huge warning label, everything he does is just repulsive/abusive/demeaning and so on.

Since I am so conflicted I am giving this book a middle of the road rating the parts I liked I really liked and the parts I didn’t like well I have strong feelings both ways.  Its now been days since I finished this book and I am still just so conflicted.

If anyone else had read this book I would love to hear your thoughts.

My Rating: /5

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