Moonshine by Rob Thurman

I have a little sister. We are 2.5 years apart. I actively made her life miserable for 16 years of her life. She was spared my sisterly dislike when I went away to college. The joke was on me because I joined a sorority and had to learn to be sisterly. She definitely benefited from that experience. I must declare that I am a great sister now. 

I used to tell people that I had not been properly prepared for her birth. She had a rough life being born 4 days after a major holiday. I was born in the summer. So family members thinking themselves clever would give her gifts on MY BIRTHDAY. I resented her for that. I didn't care that she didn't get a buttload of gifts in December. 

My mom delighted in dressing us alike. I think it was just lazy on her part to find two separate outfits. I hated it. 

Fortunately, I am an adult now. I have my life she has hers. We get a long great!
When I picked up this tale about two brothers, I did not anticipate that it would make me nostalgic. Unlike my sister and I, the brothers, Nik and Cal Leandros have been close since birth. Where as, I placed pins in the floor at age 6 in the hopes that my sister would step on it resulting in a bloody sock on my own foot; Nik has protected his little brother from monsters since he was eight. My sister went unscathed by the way.

Nik and Cal share a gypsy mother. Unlike Nik, Cal knows who is father was. He killed him. Nik began as four years older than Cal but now they are two years apart. To understand that you will need to read the first book Nightlife.

In Nightlife, we learn that the monsters are the auphe or elves. Monsters that other monsters fear. At the top of the food chain for eons, they found themselves outbred by the descendants of cave dwellers. Cal as a halfling is both the auphe heir and the cause of their extinction. Nik is a one man killing machine who wears a coat of many arms. With each page, I never knew what would come out of Nik's coat, a bat'leth, a witchblade, or elven rope. The possibilities had no limits.  My sister was a cheerleader and played softball. I ran track, generally competing for last and second to last place at all the meets. But I was smart and she was popular. I won!

My sister and I would play practical jokes on one another. Mom was annoyed. Nik and Cal like to spar in their second floor apartment. Neighbors be damned!

In Moonshine, the brothers have started a private detective/body guarding business. With Cal's level of laziness completely outlined in the first book, I wondered how the author could convince me that this whole entrepreneurial venture would work. Rob Thurman, added a third and sometimes fourth partner in vampire Promise Nottinger and the pansexual puck, Robin Goodfellow. The foursome make a fierce team, despite the awkward love triangle between the human, puck and vampire. Cal's love life is simple. He avoids it. He avoids fantasizing about the psychic George, with her red curls, dark skin and scent of sunlight.

I'd smelled her coming. Honey and oatmeal soap, the orange and clove shampoo, and underneath it all was the scent of Georgina. Sunlight. Don't ask  me how someone can smell like sunlight. I don't know. It was corny and trite and simple truth. Luckily for me she also smelled of shockingly mundane toothpaste, minty and completely ordinary it let me keep at least one foot on solid ground -- at least that's what I stubbornly told myself.

That is, until she goes missing. From that point on the group focus all their efforts on returning George. Cal would have us believe it was to return her home to her family. After which he would extricate himself from her life completely to keep her safe.
I believed that like I believed my sister would pay on my Fashion Bug bill that she ran up buying school clothing... . Mom had to get involved with that one.

In this book we meet werewolves. I like the undervalued character of the albino wolf, Flay. I hope that you will as well. I especially liked imagining him wearing a tank top and flip flops with gnarled toes and a soft white pelt of fur covering his body.

Rob Thurman throws in a fantastic road trip. I loved it. 

Cal considers himself to be a monster because of his father's heritage. Nik wants to save Cal from his own dark thoughts. That is a true brother. Nik will always have Cal's back. Cal will always lean on it.

My sister has two daughters 15 years apart. I think I will call her and ask her how the potty training and college visits are going. That is how I am a good sister.

My score A for awesome!