When Taite Gibson realizes that not only is she being stalked by a mysterious person but that a werewolf is also trying to attack her, she
knows she's in deep trouble. Her friend Declan O'Connell thinks he can at least help with the werewolf side of the problem - his old friend Ryder Merrick, a reclusive British horror writer, is reputed to know all about them. Taite and Declan decide to visit Ryder on his small island, part of the Scilly Isles off the coast of Cornwall in England.
What Taite and Declan don't know is that Ryder is himself a werewolf and guards his privacy on purpose - to protect people from his wolf form.
When the werewolf chasing Taite arrives on the island, it seems impossible that Ryder can keep his secret. Not only that, he finds it impossible to keep his hands off Taite,
even knowing that when she finds out he's a werewolf, she is sure to reject him. What future is there for them?
If fairly light on plot, Daring the Moon is a pleasant enough read. The fight scenes between the werewolves
end fairly quickly; most of the narrative focuses on the relationship between Ryder and Taite.
Accuracy suffers occasionally in terms of the English setting: at one point someone jokes that the Scilly Isles must be 'somewhere silly', "deliberately mispronouncing the name," except that 'Scilly'
is pronounced 'silly' normally. It's also a bit odd that Ryder informs Taite that the British use kilometres as measurement (we don't, we still use miles) and referrs to the cost of something in dollars, rather than
in pounds or possibly euros. Cccasional lapses of dialogue have the British Ryder speaking with an American voice.
Although we follow events from Taite's point of view much the time, fairly
thin characterization means that we don't really feel like we know her. There
are more insights into Ryder's nature, but not enough to be entirely convincing. Declan
plays rather a spare part in the story; I imagine he will be the focus of another book by this author.
In short, Daring the Moon is run-of-the-mill fare in a werewolf story. The central premise, that Taite and Declan would travel all the way to England to talk to Ryder rather than phone him up
seems unlikely, but if one suspends that disbelief, then reading this passes the time well enough.