This was a cute story about a young nobleman pretending to be a servant due to his controlling aunt's insistence that he lead a traditional life to get his inheritance. The story was fast-paced, but I wish the noble-turned-servant storyline was utilized more. Also, toward the end, the plot twists piled on a little thickly. Without giving any spoilers, this is the first time I've read a romance that ended the way it did with zero spice. Even the kissing was pretty minimal.

Overall it was a good story, although the MC is not yet 18, but engages in romantic relationships with adults which made me cringe just a bit. I enjoyed the audio narration very much!

David Ferraro's debut novel, The Alchemy of Moonlight, is a very gothic, very gay werewolf tale. I'll preface this by saying I generally don't read tons of horror, and this is the first gothic book I've read.

Ferraro creates such a vivid gothic world, filled with severed hands, taxidermied animals and a nope amount of spiders (that scene made my skin CRAWL). Emile is a marquis on the run and in hiding after being threatened with being sent to an asymlum if he does not "do his duty" and marry a woman to carry on the family name. In the household where he is posing as a servant, he quickly meets his two potential suitors, the count's nephew Henri, and the doctor's apprentice, Bram.

I do think one of the aspects Ferraro has done so spectacularly is mood. The book feels eerie and like something is wrong, I was constantly on edge while listening to it. The aristocratic components of the books seem jarring to modern ears but do seem appropriate given the setting of the book. Loved the love triangle, I think one of my biggest struggles was that most character arcs and changes seemed to happen off-screen. The language does sometimes feel particularly modern (especially as it comes to dialogue).

That being said, love a queer romance, Ferraro killed it with the vibe. Not exactly my genre, but enjoyed it!

This book wasn’t for me, I thought I would love this but for some reason it fell flat. I couldn’t connect to the story or any of the characters and I was not invested in finding out what happened next, this might be because it felt a bit ‘young’ instead of YA. Saying that I do think the writing is good and the gothic atmosphere is well written and comes across, there’s also great representation and supernatural aspects which I think a lot of people will love but just not me sadly.

My biggest problem with this book is in the synopsis on here it tells you he's a werewolf so the whole time I know, BUT it doesn't say anything of the sort until about 65-70% through. So I'm just waiting for the reveal. I see on Goodreads it doesn't say that tho so good.

Other than that I enjoyed the story. Even tho again the synopsis pretty much tells you everything about the story. And everything else is just filler.

I would have also liked just a little more about the ending and the mother because it just felt a little rushed just like 59 more pages.

3/5

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own. 

I looked forward to reading this book, but it didn't hold up to my expectations. This book has the stereotypical love triangle, however I was not a fan of either of the love interests. Henri was toxic and Bram felt underdeveloped. I did enjoy the fantasy elements within this book, but it did take awhile to appear.

Thank you NetGalley, Page Street Publishing and David Ferraro for providing me with an ARC of The Alchemy of Moonlight. I had the wonderful pleasure of being able to Hybrid-read this as an eARC and an Audio ARC.

3.75 rounded to 4. Available on 30 May 2023. Will share to socials closer to the publication date.

This cover is beautiful and the premise is wonderful. My eyes went wide when the author started describing the water fountain with the Greek mythology components and I was soooooooo keen. My Lord I was ready for some Moon Alchemy mythology realness. This key part of the lore was very interesting to me but unfortunately I felt that it wasn't explored to it's full potential. But that is probably just because I am a stan for Rick Riordan work.

Instead we get this wonderful love corner - meets love triangle - which is nicely streamy without spicy. I enjoyed it and I enjoyed the slow reveal of the natures of the relationships between each of them. Then Part Four! Honest to god this book turns into a horror story in Part Four! I am not much of horror person so maybe it was more of a Marvel Cinematic Universe Horror Story but still.

I think that the audio book acting is a very well done representation of the manner and tone of speech within the context of the story - Gothic, French, Bridgerton-esque. The issue for me though is that the this meant I was much more connected to the characters when I was reading as opposed to the fancy accents they all had on the audio. Again, this is exactly what the voice acting called for, and if you love queer period novels in that manner then you will enjoy this, but for me I was just put off by them.

TL;DR - Little bit steamy, Queer, supernatural, period story for those that love a bit of conflicting romance with a side of evil villain.

I really liked the over all vibe of the book.
The audio version was good so no complaints there. I didn’t really feel any connections to the characters or their relationships. I wish the relationship development would have be focused on more. Through out the book I was getting love triangle vibes and then I got why choose which is great but again I felt it was underdeveloped.

*ARC review*

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape media for providing me a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I think this book did a decent job recreating the gothic novel vibe for a modern YA audience. There was creepiness and castles… basically all you need. Throw a persistent villain in there and you have an ok book.

As with other reviewers, am a little put off by Emile forgiving Henri so quickly. He seems like a toxic boyfriend, gaslighting and coercing Emile through the first half of the book at least. The whole forced proximity affection wasn’t as natural after the initial setup of the relationship. Henri apologized a lot, but so do a lot of abusers. Just not sold.

I’ll also say I appreciated another review that drew attention to their ages. A lot of this is age appropriate emotional challenges. Being swayed easily by a pretty face. Being uncertain or changeable. I think we sometimes expect too much from our teenage characters so I will be generous with my appraisal of Emile and Henri. Bram is a saint and deserves better.

This book was WONDERFUL, and will be loved by fans of classic horror. There are several references to horror classics, the mood is well established, and there was several times I was at the edge of my seat for the story's hero and his companions. I'm a sucker for a main character who is a self professed romantic, so Emile endeared himself to me immediately. Even though I saw the ending coming, it was still lovely and the journey made the expectation a good thing instead of a let down.

Beautiful writing, wonderful sense of place, fun characters....I would strongly recommend this book to any fans of classic horror.

Firstly, I don't feel this book fits the YA age category. It felt very adult to me. We have heads on pikes and spouse-swapping and domestic abuse and attempted manipulation for sexual favors. At no point did I think this was a book geared towards teens, so I'm surprised to now realize it's tagged that way.

Okay, that said, there were a lot of things I enjoyed about this book and a couple things I did not.

The audiobook narrator is amazing. He has a beautiful voice and the British accent was the cherry on top. He altered his tone for different characters, too, and his reading always displayed a lot of emotion. Absolutely loved him.

This book has incredible atmosphere. While listening to the story, I truly felt like I was going on horse and carriage rides, strolling along a bustling city street, taking in an opera, sitting before a roaring fire, having a super awkward dinner with unwelcome guests, and running for my life through the darkened hidden passages of a castle.

All the characters in the book easily elicit a reaction from the reader. I always enjoy a strong sibling relationship, and I strongly identify with familial tensions. The marriage-for-money plots were reminiscent of my Austen faves. I did feel that sometimes the servants were too familiar with the main character, Émile. But the servant characters themselves were some of my favorites, especially Annette. The villains were truly villainous, but it was interesting to see how Émile's aunt was not exactly as he described her to himself, and to see her views evolve over the course of the story. I did enjoy the way each character's individual story played out and wrapped up, but again, it felt far too mature for teens.

The main character's two love interests are as different as night and day and here's where we run into one thing I intensely disliked about the story, and that is Henri himself. He apologized for his behavior time and again, but his deeds were so reprehensible that at no point did I feel he had truly felt sorry or had genuinely earned forgiveness. He was quick to say sorry each time he did something spiteful, but even his apologies felt manipulative. Even at the end I could not see him as a trustworthy ally. Émile forgave and forgot so easily, it just didn't feel believable. I could not see any redeeming qualities to the man. Based on the pattern of his behavior, I have no doubt that he would manipulate Émile again in the future, regardless of his apologies and promises. I didn't feel like his atonement was believable. His behavior was too atrocious and selfish for me to ever be able to look past the way he acts when he's comfortable and not at immediate risk of losing the thing he manipulated his way to obtain. Every scene with him just frankly grossed me out and turned me off towards the story as a whole.

I loved the plot. I liked Émile's initial plan and understood why he had to enact it. I was caught up in the way he became involved in the other family's drama and could not escape. And I liked the way all the characters fit into the story like puzzle pieces, how the whole thing would have unraveled if even one of those pieces was removed. My one main issue with the way the story unfolded was the pacing. The author would say something was going to happen in two weeks, then in the next breath those two weeks had passed with no explanation for what was done in the meantime. It didn't have to detail a pages-long account of every breath taken and every meal eaten, but it was jarring how it felt like there was absolutely no transition from event to event. We literally missed an entire wedding! It was just said on the next page that so-and-so's name had changed. I felt like there were missing pages with all the gaps in the story.

On the whole I enjoyed this story a lot. However, in its current form I would probably not read it again, because Henri was beyond despicable. I really felt icky whenever he said or did something and I was frustrated the main character fell immediately in love with him and naively looked past or forgave his every very obvious flaw. I was totally ready to wash my hands of Henri once he contacted Émile's aunt. And with the off-kilter pacing, I'm not even sure how he found out Émile's true identity to begin with. But I do feel like the story has amazing potential and I would absolutely read more from this author.

I loved the lore and overall vibes! I really fell into the gothic setting and my attention was kept the full way through by the lingering spooky romance. Definitely would recommend to any YA readers who enjoy a dark atmosphere.

* note on the audiobook : this is definitely one of those times that the audio really helped build that atmosphere. Would overall recommend the book, but would definitely recommend checking it out in audio form, if that's your thing!

To start, this was not the book for me, which is shocking because it fits comfortably into the genre and setting that I usually adore! (See: creepy rich family hiding secrets, haunted manors, dark historical landscapes.)
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The least offensive to me in terms of what just did not work was the writing itself. It felt very juvenile at times and this is not only in narration but also in dialogue and inner monologue of Emile. I know this is a YA, but even so the writing felt too contemporary to fit into the projected time period.
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The true struggle for me was our cast. For someone who thinks of love nearly incessantly, it’s frustrating to watch Emile have absolutely zero grasp of the fact that love goes beyond general physical attraction and very base level friendship (honestly, has this boy ever just had a friend?).

The characterization of Henri (one of our “love interests”, I say with disdain...) did an absolute disservice to this story. He is manipulative, vindictive, and apparently does not understand how consent works? I’m sorry, but if a character this garishly depicted is meant to be a love interest then he needs some redeeming qualities and I’m sorry, tricking Emile into forgiving his horrible treatment towards him over and over again is not a redeeming quality.

Bram was the highlight. He stole every scene he was in and deserved better than Emile and the grubby hands of arrogant and, honestly kinda problematic, Henri.
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As I am reviewing the audiobook version of this I want to take a moment to note that the narration of this is wonderful! The voice actor fit my picture of Emile perfectly, I could easily tell when we switched from narration to dialogue, and everything flowed very nicely!

Thank you to Negalley and Dreamscape for the audio arc in exchange for an honest review!

The audio for this is really well done, but I had some issues with the book itself. The pacing was all over the place, and the romance aspect of the book was a little underdeveloped. Plus the werewolf thing could and should have been introduced sooner, I'm just saying.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ebook arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I listened to the audiobook version of The Alchemy of Moonlight and it was a well performed and spoken novel I listened to most of it on double speed and there was no problem with understanding the speech which I’m very appreciative of.

My problem — and the reason this got 2 stars for me — is the fact that the characters didn’t make me feel anything for them. I wasn’t invested or curious, and quite often I was bored. The main character talks about all these secrets and then just seems to tell the truth to everyone who asks, which I didn’t really understand.

I also felt like the love interests were very Insta love which just isn’t my vibe, sadly.

Overall this book just wasn’t for me, but if you’re into Insta love and love triangles then this book is for you!