Book Review: Nocturne (Claire de Lune BK #2)

By: Christine Johnson

Published by: Simon & Schuster

To Be Released On: August 23rd, 2011

Source: ARC from publisher to review

4 stars- I Liked It

Purchase from: Simon & Schuster| Amazon| Barnes & Noble

Some secrets are too dangerous...

After the tragic events of the summer, Claire is looking forward to a new school year. All she wants to worry about is finding the most gorgeous dress to wear to the Autumn Ball with her perfect boyfriend.But as Claire knows all too well, the life of a werewolf is never that simple, or that sweet.When Claire’s human and wolf lives start to collide, her worst nightmares come true. She is hurting her best friend. She has been caught lying. And then the unthinkable happens: Someone discovers Claire’s secret.If Claire’s werewolf identity is exposed, everyone she knows will be put at risk. And the pack’s response comes at a cost higher than Claire can imagine. Claire will be forced to determine just how far she is willing to.

I like it when I sit down to read a sequel and it begins not long after the previous book, which is exactly how Nocturne starts. Nocturne continues with Claire's story, only this time it focuses more on her struggles with trying to find balance within both the human and wolf world, something that's becoming harder and harder for her to do.

As if being a teenager and dealing with high school wasn't complicated enough, keeping her wolf side a secret and living in the human world at the same time proves to be a tougher feat for Claire. She struggles with feelings of insecurity throughout the story, as she wants to be the perfect wolf and complete a task that if she fails will have her removed from the pack and she's also not as close to her best friend Emily anymore. She wants to remain close to her friends, yet she's constantly having to lie to them to keep her wolf side a secret. Claire is constantly waging a battle within herself on whether or not she should follow in her mother's footsteps and have as little contact as possible with humans or try an almost impossible feat and keep doing what she's doing.

With Nocturne I felt I was able to connect more with Claire on an emotional level than I did in Claire de Lune. I felt sympathetic towards her struggles and wanting to maintain some sort of normalcy in both worlds. I like Christine's writing with this series. The story line flows well, and the characters have become a little bit more in-depth. The only thing I felt was missing was some action. However, Christine did keep me invested with the story through Claire and the choices she makes. I also really like Christine's unique twists with her wolf mythology. I'm sure I said this before in my review of Claire de Lune, but I like that Christine's characters aren't typical werewolves. Her wolves are much like Andrea Cremer's and Maggie Stiefvater's, and I love that about her characters. They're humans who happen to turn into actual wolves. They have a similar wolf hierarchy, pack rules and they have the same mannerisms as wolves in the wild would have, when they become their wolf selves.

Nocturne for me was a nice book to sit back and relax with, and it's one I read in one sitting. I liked the flow of the story, and surprisingly it's a wolf story that reads well even without any action. It has a nice pace to it and after reading a few books with a lot of action in them, I enjoyed being able to and read a book that was really all about the main character and her struggles. If you enjoyed Claire de Lune than I'd recommend picking Nocturne up.