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Hunting the Moon Tribe by David Agranoff
Publisher: Little Otik Books

David Agranoff’s Hunting the Moon Tribe is an interesting and well-thought out coming of age story that spans the globe. It starts us out in China with a soon-to-be-former Red Guard, Yuen, and his wife, Elsa, at the time of the birth of their son. Without much warning, they are attacked and this sets up the story of a centuries-old war that will eventually lead to California and the life of a young man that is about to awaken to his destiny.

Vampires of a different sort, martial arts, dreams and difficult choices take center stage. Enrich is a bullied American high school student. He decides to learn martial arts to combat the daily attacks, but what he doesn’t know is that he is training for the biggest battle of his life.

Hunting the Moon Tribe reads, in some aspects, more like a YA novel. It has the feel of the movie, THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM, starring Jet Li and Jackie Chan. But there’s some language and situations that make it likely that it wouldn’t necessarily be categorized as YA. Either way, it’s a pretty enjoyable read and not bad for the author’s first novel (he’s published other works before this, but Moon Tribe was the first novel he wrote).

The battle scenes have a nice flare, are fast-paced, and the romantic interests — particularly between Enrich and “the woman of his dreams”, Azeya — are well-done. The differences in time periods and cultures are also dealt with in an even way, lending the story a sense of balance so it never feels like it’s about commandeering another culture for the purpose of telling a stereotypical Americanized tale.

Overall, a very good read.

Review by Nancy O. Greene