3.5 out of 5: Call Down the Moon by Mary Gillgannon

Call Down the Moon (Soulmates #1)

By Mary Gillgannon

Published: December 29, 2014

Book Blurb:

In the ninth-century, Irish warrior Connar fell hopelessly in love with Aisling, one of the Nine Sisters, a group of priestesses skilled in healing. When Aisling came to a tragic end, he used magic to travel to the future to reunite with her.

His beloved Aisling is now Allison Hunter, a free-lance writer in Denver. Although Allison doesn’t remember her past life, she is instantly attracted to Connar when she interviews him for an article. But someone has followed Connar from the past, and they are determined to keep Allison and Connar apart.

As Allison begins to have visions of a violent and terrifying confrontation, she struggles to separate the past from the present and trust in a love that transcends even death.

Reviewed by Phoenix Andrews, 3.5 out of 5

Call Down the Moon could have easily been 5 stars. I had a difficult time rating this book because the story was spectacular but there were editing, content and format issues I couldn't overlook. Honestly, I would give the author 5 stars for the story and the publisher 3 stars for editing. Maybe the final version of the book will be edited a bit more than the ARC, as the book doesn't actually release until the 29th of December. 

I received an ARC from ManicReaders for review and the copy I downloaded didn't display properly on my Kindle. After converting the file to .mobi it still had issues where the second half of the book's text was in italics. This was annoying and if the story had been so interesting it would have kept me from finishing the book. 

There were some content issues that should have been caught in the editing process, especially since this is not a self-published book. At a certain point in the book, for almost an entire chapter, the characters couldn't decide what day of the week it was. One would say it was Sunday, then the next would say it was Saturday and so on while the scenes were all taking place on the same day. There were quite a few continuity errors involving what day of the week it was or what time it was that caused a lot of confusion while I was reading and jerked me out of the story. 

Some partial scenes were repeated throughout the book with one or two sentences exactly the same as an earlier scene. It was like the author wrote two versions of a character's inner dialogue on a certain topic and then forgot to delete the superfluous scene. Some background info was duplicated throughout the book and there were instances when a character would tell another what had just happened in a previous scene word for word. These are all simple content and continuity issues that should have been remedied during the editing process. 

The characters were well developed and the storyline was intriguing enough to have me staying up late to finish the book despite the issues stated above. In fact, after finishing the book, I immediately got online and checked to see if the author had written other books and when the second book in this series will be available. Everything considered, I recommend readers buy Call Down the Moon and give it a chance. 

Reviewer, Phoenix Andrews