Review, Interview & Contest ~ Low Red Moon ~ Ivy Devlin

Low Red Moon
Bloomsbury USA
September 14, 2010
256 pages
Buy @ Amazon

Avery wakes up in the woods, covered in blood and and surrounded by her parents destroyed bodies but unable to remember how she--or they got that way. With her safe, secluded life with her parents deep in the woods now but a memory, Avery is forced to live in town with the grandmother she hasn't spoken to in years.

Avery works at going back to school--where she meets the mysterious new boy Ben who seems to have silver eyes--and remembering something, anything that can help the police find who killed her parents. All she can seem to remember is a flash of silver moving inhumanly fast . . . which she knows makes no sense.

As Avery deals with reconnecting with Renee (her grandmother), developers wanting to buy her family's valuable land in the woods, the stories the town has about mysterious wolves in the woods, and Ben, she has to try, too, to figure out what happened to her parents and why she was unharmed.


Low Red Moon reminded me of an almost reverse Little Red Riding Hood (the girl lived in the woods, the parents were killed, she went to live with the grandma, there were possible wolves, etc).

Told in a slightly disjointed style--one thought will be started, then stopped, sometimes finished and sometimes not--that actually fits the plot really well, Low Red Moon grabbed me from the first page. I think a smooth, orderly telling of Avery's tale would not have fit the storyline as well as the way it was told because Avery's own thinking and memory is fragmented.

Another thing I really loved about Low Red Moon was that the paranormal aspect of the story was not the entire story, if that makes sense. In this sense, it reminded me of Blood and Chocolate --at least the parts of it between Vivian and Aidan. The paranormal aspects of the story didn't overrun everything, they were a part of the story, but not the whole story. (I apologise for not being able to explain this better.)

9/10


Author Interview:
And now for my interview with Ivy Devlin, her answers are the ones in italics.

Do you have plans to write more YA paranormal books?
I'd like to! (Well, I can tell you [thanks to, Kate, the awesome Bloomsbury publicist who's helped me have all these great tour stop review/giveaway/interviews here] that in early 2012, there's going to be a Low Red Moon sequel!)

What is your writing strategy (do you plot/plan things out?)
I'm a plotter. And a hard-core rewriter--I like to take everything out that doesn't need to be there.

Personal advice to aspiring authors?
Read!

What is one random thing about you?
I've never read Twilight or Shiver ( I know I should, but they're so long!)

For those enter the book giveaway: what is something you'd like them to answer?
What's the one word EVERYONE uses in reviews but is never actually used in Low Red Moon?

Contest Time:
thanks to aforementioned lovely person at Bloomsbury I have a copy of Low Red Moon to give away.
Rules: US addresses only; no PO Boxes. Ends October 13, 2010.
For one entry fill out the form with your name/alias & email.
Extra entries: 3 for old followers +1 for new followers; +3 for following me on Twitter @TheBookSpot--I'll follow you back; +1 entry each for sharing on Twitter, Facebook, Blog, etc (up to +3 total--give links, please); + +1 for answering Ivy Devlin's question in the comments :)

Fill out the form below or by opening in a new window/tab

(oh I hope I did my math correctly!)