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FIRST IN THE GUARDIANS TRILOGY
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts comes a trilogy about three couples who join together to create their own family and solve an ancient mystery through the powers of timeless love…
Sasha Riggs is a reclusive artist, haunted by dreams and nightmares that she turns into extraordinary paintings. Her visions lead her to the Greek island of Corfu, where five others have been lured to seek the legendary fire star, part of an ancient prophecy. Sasha recognizes them, because she has drawn them: a magician, an archaeologist, a wanderer, a fighter, a loner. All on a quest. All with secrets.
Sasha is the one who holds them together—the seer. And in the magician, Bran Killian, she sees a man of immense power and compassion. As Sasha struggles with her rare ability, Bran is there to support her, challenge her, and believe in her.
When a dark threat looms, the six must use their combined powers—including trust, unity, and love—to find the fire star and keep the world on course.
Don't miss the other books in the Guardians Trilogy
Bay of Sighs
Island of Glass
- Sales Rank: #21859 in Books
- Brand: Nora Roberts
- Published on: 2015-11-03
- Released on: 2015-11-03
- Format: Deckle Edge
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.20" h x .70" w x 5.60" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 336 pages
Features
Review
“America’s favorite writer.”—The New Yorker
“Roberts’ superior storytelling skills as well as the book’s evocatively drawn setting are guaranteed to keep readers happily turning the pages.”—Booklist
“A terrific blend of danger, romance and mystery!”—RT Book Reviews
“Classic Nora Roberts, with a few interesting twists thrown in.”—Fresh Fiction
About the Author
Nora Roberts is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than 200 novels. She is also the author of the bestselling In Death series written under the pen name J. D. Robb. There are more than 500 million copies of her books in print.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One
Dreams plagued her, waking and sleeping. She understood dreams, visions, the knowing. They had been part of her all of her life, and for most of her life she’d learned to block it out, push it all away.
But these wouldn’t relent, no matter how she pitted her will against them. Dreams of blood and battle; of strange, moonstruck lands. In them, the faces and voices of people unknown but somehow vitally familiar lived with her. The woman with the fierce and canny eyes of a wolf, the man with the silver sword. They roamed her dreams with a woman who rose from the sea laughing, the man with the golden compass.
And through all of them, strongly, the dark-haired man who held lightning in his hands.
Who were they? How did she—or would she—know them? Why did she feel such a strong need for them, all of them?
With them walked death and pain—she knew—and yet with them came the chance for true joy, true self. True love.
She believed in true love—for others. She’d never sought it for herself, as love demanded so much, brought such chaos into a life. So much feeling.
She wanted, had always wanted, the quiet and settled, and believed she’d found it in her little house in the mountains of North Carolina.
There she had the solitude she’d sought. There she could spend her days painting, or in her garden without interference or interruption. Her needs were few; her work provided enough income to meet them.
Now her dreams were haunted by five people who called her by name. Why couldn’t she find theirs?
She sketched her dreams—the faces, the seas and hills and ruins. Caves and gardens, storms and sunsets. Over the long winter she filled her workboard with the sketches, and began to pin them to her walls.
She painted the man with lightning in his hands, spending days perfecting every detail, the exact shade and shape of his eyes—deep and dark and hooded—the thin white scar, like a lightning bolt, scoring his left eyebrow.
He stood on a cliff, high above a boiling sea. Wind streamed through his dark hair. She could all but feel it, like hot breath. And he was fearless in the face of the storm as death flew toward him.
Somehow she stood with him, just as fearless.
She couldn’t sleep until she’d finished it, wept when she did. She feared she’d lost her mind, and visions were all she had left. For days she left the painting on the easel while he watched her work or clean or sleep.
Or dream.
She told herself she’d pack it for shipping, send it to her agent for sale. And dipping her brush, she signed it at last.
Sasha Riggs—her name on the verge of the storm-wrecked sea.
But she didn’t pack it for shipping. She packed others instead, the work of the long winter, arranged for transport.
Exhausted, she gave in, curled on the couch in the attic she’d converted to her studio, and let the dreams take her.
The storm raged. Wind whipping, the sea crashing, jagged spears of lighting hurled from the sky like flaming bolts from a bow. The rain swept in from the sea toward the cliff in a thick curtain.
But he stood, watching it. And held out his hand for hers.
“I’m waiting for you.”
“I don’t understand this, any of this.”
“Of course you do, you more than most.” When he brought her hand to his lips she felt love simply saturate her. “Who hides from themselves, Sasha, as you do?”
“I only want peace. I want the quiet. I don’t want storms, and battles. I don’t want you.”
“Lies.” His lips curved as he brought her hand to them again. “You know you’re lying to me, to yourself. How much longer will you refuse to live as you were meant to? To love as you were born to?”
He cupped her face in his hands, and the ground shook under her.
“I’m afraid.”
“Face it.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“See it. We can’t begin without you. We can’t end it until we begin. Find me, Sasha. Come find me.”
He pulled her in, took her lips with his. As he did, the storm broke over them with mad fury.
This time, she embraced it.
She woke, tired still, pushed herself up, pressed her fingers to her shadowed eyes.
“Find me,” she muttered. “Where? I wouldn’t know where to start looking if I wanted to.” Her fingers trailed down to her lips, and she swore she still felt the pressure of his.
“Enough. It’s all enough now.”
She rose quickly, began to pull the sketches from the walls, the board, letting them fall to the floor. She’d take them out, throw them out. Burn them. Get them out of her house, out of her head.
She’d get out herself, take a trip somewhere, anywhere. It had been years since she’d gone anywhere. Somewhere warm, she told herself as she frantically yanked down her dreams. A beach somewhere.
She could hear her own breath heaving, see her own fingers trembling. Near to breaking she lowered to the floor amid the sketches, a woman too thin with the weight the dreams had stolen, her long blond hair bundled up into its habitual messy bun. Shadows plagued her eyes of a clear and crystal blue.
She looked down at her hands. There was talent there. She always had been, always would be, grateful for that gift. But she carried other gifts, not so gratefully.
In the dream, he’d asked her to see. Nearly all her life she’d done all she could to block the sight she’d been born with.
Yes, to hide from herself, just as he’d said.
If she opened to it, accepted it, there would be pain and sorrow. And the knowledge of what might be.
She closed her eyes.
She’d clean up—give herself time. She’d pick up all the sketches and file them away. She wouldn’t burn them, of course she wouldn’t burn them. That had been fear talking.
She’d file them, and take a trip. Get away from home for a week or two, let herself think and decide.
On her hands and knees, she began to gather the sketches, organizing them in her way. The woman with the fierce eyes, the man with the sword, sketches of her dream people together.
Seascapes and landscapes, a palace shining on a hill, a circle of stones.
She laid one of the dozens of the man she’d just dreamed of on a pile, reached for another.
And knew.
She’d drawn the sickle-shaped island from various viewpoints, and this one showed its high cliffs, its undulating hills thick with trees. Showed it floating in the sea, washed with sunlight. Buildings jumbled together to form a city in the foreground, and the stretch of land, speared with mountains spread in the distance.
The pencil sketch took on color and life as she studied it. So much green, a thousand shades of it from dusky to emerald. So much blue, deep and rich or frothing with waves surrounding it. She saw boats sailing, figures diving off seawalls to swim and splash.
And she saw the promontory where she’d stood with him as the storm flew in.
“All right then, I’ll go.” Was she giving in, she wondered, or standing up? But she’d go, she’d look.
It would either end the dreams, or bring them to life as the sketch came to life in her hands.
She went over to her little desk, opened her laptop. And booked a flight to Corfu.
Giving herself only two days to pack, arrange details, close up the house meant she couldn’t change her mind. She slept on the plane, dreamlessly, grateful for the respite. And still the cab ride from the airport to the hotel she’d chosen near Old Town was a blur. Disoriented, she checked in, struggling to remember to smile, to exchange the expected small talk with the front desk, with the cheerful bellman with the cheerful eyes and thick accent as they rode the narrow elevator to her room.
She hadn’t asked for a particular floor or a view. It was enough she’d taken this step, wherever it would lead her. But she wasn’t surprised, not at all surprised, when steps into the room she barely noticed, she faced the windows, the blue sea, and the spread of the sand she knew so well.
She smiled away the bellman’s offer to fetch her ice, or anything she might wish. She only wanted solitude again. The airports, the plane, so many people. They crowded her still.
Alone, she walked to the window, opened it to cool spring air that smelled of the sea and flowers, and studied the scene she’d sketched weeks before, and carried with others in a portfolio in her suitcase.
She felt nothing, not now, but the fogginess of jet lag and travel fatigue. And some wonder that she’d actually traveled so far on impulse.
Turning away, she unpacked to give herself some sense of place and order. Then just lay down on the bed and dropped into sleep again.
Lightning and storms, the beat of the sun, the beat of the sea. Three stars so bright and brilliant her eyes stung. When they shot away from the curve of the moon, fell in streams of light, the world trembled from the strikes of power.
Blood and battle, fear and flight. Climbing high, diving deep.
Her dream lover taking her mouth, taking her body, making her ache with feelings. So much. Too much. Never enough. Her own laughter, barely recognized, sprung from joy. Tears shed, flooding from grief.
And in the darkness, a light burned through. In the darkness she held fire in her hand. As she held it up, for all to see, the earth quaked, rocks tumbled. What was fury flew at her with claws and teeth.
For God’s sake, Sasha, wake up! Get your ass moving.
“What?” She woke with a start, the voice still echoing inside her head, her heart still thumping with fear.
Just another dream, she told herself, just one more to add to her collection.
The light had softened, and lay now like silk over the water. She had no idea how long she’d slept, but the dream voice had something right. It was time to wake up.
She showered off the travel, changed into fresh clothes. Since she wasn’t working, she left her hair down. She ordered herself out of the room. She’d go down, sit on the terrace, have a drink. She’d come, given up her quiet and alone, and come.
Now something or someone needed to come to her.
She found her way out, strolled under a pergola thickly twined with wisteria already starting to bloom. Its scent followed her as she turned away from the pool, the canvas sling chairs lined up around its skirt toward a stone terrace. Clay pots gloriously crowded with flowers of hot reds and purples glowed as the sun wheeled west. The fronds of palm trees hung still.
Tables under shading umbrellas—all in bright white—scattered over the stone. She noted only a few were occupied, and was grateful. Not solitude perhaps, but quiet. She thought to take one a bit apart from the others, started to angle away.
The woman also sat a bit apart. Her short, sun-streaked brown hair had long bangs that swept down to the amber lenses of her sunglasses. She sat back, her bright orange Chucks propped on the other chair of her table for two as she sipped something frothy out of a champagne flute.
The light shimmered for a moment, and Sasha’s heart stuttered with it. She knew she stared, and couldn’t stop. And understood why when the woman tipped down her sunglasses, and stared back over them.
The eyes of a wolf, tawny and fierce.
Sasha fought back the urge to simply turn around, go back to her room where it was safe. Instead she mentally shoved herself forward and walked over while those golden eyes appraised her.
“I’m sorry,” she began.
“For what?”
“I . . . Do you know me?”
The woman raised her eyebrows under the long bangs. “Are you somebody I should know?”
I know your face, Sasha thought. I’ve seen it countless times.
“Could I sit down?”
The woman angled her head, continued her cool, unblinking study. Carelessly she slid her feet off the chair. “Sure, but if you’re thinking about hitting on me, except for a one-nighter in college, I stick with men.”
“No, it’s not that.” Sasha sat, tried to find her bearings. Before she could, a waiter in a white jacket stopped by the table.
“Kalispera. Could I bring you a drink, miss?”
“Yes, actually, yes. Ah, what are you drinking?”
The woman lifted her glass. “Peach Bellini.”
“That sounds just right. Would you like another? I’ll buy you a drink.”
Under her thick sweep of bangs, the woman’s eyebrows lifted. “Sure.”
“Two then, thanks. I’m Sasha,” she said when he left to fill the order. “Sasha Riggs.”
“Riley Gwin.”
“Riley.” A name, she thought, to go with the face. “I know how this is going to sound, but . . . I’ve dreamed about you.”
Riley took another sip, smiled. “It sounds like you’re hitting on me. And you’re really pretty, Sasha, but—”
“No, no, I mean literally. I recognized you because I’ve dreamed about you, for months now.”
“Okay. What was I doing?”
“I can’t expect you to believe me. But the dreams are why I’m here, in Corfu. I don’t— Wait.” The sketches, she thought, and pushed to her feet.
A picture was worth a thousand, after all.
“I want to show you something. Will you wait until I come back?”
Riley only shrugged, lifted her glass. “I’ve got another drink coming, so I’ll be here for a while yet.”
“Five minutes,” Sasha promised, and hurried away.
Sipping her drink, Riley considered. She knew all about dreams, and wouldn’t discount them out of hand. She’d seen and experienced far too much in her life to discount anything out of hand.
And this Sasha Riggs struck her as sincere. Nervy, wound tight, but sincere. Still, she had her own reasons for being in Corfu, and they didn’t include starring in someone else’s dreams.
The waiter came back with a tray, set the drinks, a bowl of fat olives, another of fancy nuts on the table. “The other lady?” he asked.
“She forgot something. She’ll be right back.” Riley handed him her empty glass. “Efkharisto.”
She tried an almond, went back to contemplating the sea, glanced back again when she heard the hurried footsteps—wedged sandals on stone.
Sasha sat again, holding a leather portfolio. “I’m an artist,” she began.
"Congratulations.”
“I’ve had these dreams all winter. They started right after the first of the year. Every night.” Waking dreams, too, but she wasn’t ready to share that much. “I sketched the people, the places in them, the ones that kept reoccurring.”
She opened the portfolio, chose the sketch that had brought her to where she sat. “I drew this weeks ago.”
Riley took the sketch, lips pursing as she studied it. “You’re good, and yeah, this is Corfu.”
“And this is you.”
Sasha laid down a sketch, full body, of Riley. She wore cargo pants, hiking boots, a battered leather jacket, a wide-brimmed hat. Her hand rested on the butt of the knife sheathed at her belt.
As Riley lifted the sketch, Sasha set down another. “So is this.” A head-and-shoulders sketch this time, of Riley looking straight ahead with a curled-lip smile.
“What is this?” Riley muttered.
“I don’t know, and need to find out. I thought I was losing my mind. But you’re real, and you’re here. Like me. I don’t know about the others.”
“What others?”
“There are six of us, including me.” Sasha dug into the portfolio again. “Working together, traveling together.”
“I work alone.”
“So do I.” She felt giddy now, both vindicated and a little crazed. “I don’t know any of them.” She held out another sketch. “I have individual sketches of all of them, and others with some of us together, more with all of us, like this one. I don’t know them.”
The sketch showed Riley, dressed much as she’d been in the other, and Sasha, in boots, pants, a snap-brimmed hat rather than the sandals and flowy dress she wore now. Another woman with hair tumbling to her waist, and three men. Three hot men, Riley thought, all standing together on a trail, forested hills around them, grouped together as if posing for a photograph.
“You— Sasha, right?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m Sasha.”
“Well, Sasha, you sure know how to dream men. They’re all smoking.”
“I’ve never seen any of them before, outside of the dreams. But I feel . . . I know them, know everyone here. And this one.”
Unable to resist, Sasha touched a finger to the figure standing beside her, standing hipshot, his thumb hooked in the front pocket of worn jeans. Sharp cheekbones, dark hair—she knew it to be a deep, rich brown—carelessly curling past the neckline of his T-shirt. His smile spoke of confidence, and of charm—and a little mystery.
"What about this one?” Riley prompted.
“He holds lightning. I don’t know if that’s a symbol or what it means. And I dream we—that we . . .”
“Sex dreams?” Amused, Riley took a closer look at him. “You could do a hell of a lot worse.”
“If I’m going to have sex dreams with a man, I’d like to have dinner first.”
Riley let out a bark of laughter. “Hell, a girl can eat anytime. Are you a dream-walker, Sasha?”
“Dream-walker?”
“Some cultures use that term. Do you have prophetic dreams? Why hold back now?” Riley said when Sasha hesitated. “You’re already telling me you have sex with strange men, and you haven’t even had your drink yet.”
“I don’t have to be asleep to dream.” Yes, Sasha thought, why hold back now? “And yes, they’re usually prophetic. I knew my father would leave before he walked out the door when I was twelve. He couldn’t handle what I am. I don’t control it, can’t demand to see, can’t demand not to.”
Sasha picked up her glass and drank, and waited for the wariness or the derision.
“Have you ever worked with anyone on that?”
“What?”
“Have you ever worked with another dream-walker, explored learning how to block it or open it?”
“No.”
“You look smarter than that.” Riley shrugged. “Is it just visions, or do you read minds?”
She might have asked if she painted in oil or acrylics. Emotion clogged Sasha’s throat so thickly she could barely speak. “You believe me.”
“Why wouldn’t I? The proof’s all over the table. Can you read minds, and can you control that?”
“I don’t read minds. I read feelings, and they speak just as loud. I can control it, unless the feelings are so intense they push through.”
“What am I feeling? Go ahead.” Riley spread her arms when Sasha hesitated. “I’m an open book, so read it.”
Sasha took a moment, focused in. “You feel some sympathy for and curiosity about me. You’re relaxed, but on guard. You tend to stay on guard. You feel a need for something that’s always been out of your reach. It’s frustrating, especially because you like to win. You feel a little sexually deprived just not because you haven’t taken the time . . . felt you had the time to fill that need. The work fulfills you, the risks, the adventure, the demands of it. You’ve earned your self-reliance, and you’re not afraid of much. If there’s fear it’s more for the emotional than the physical.
“You have a secret,” Sasha murmured. “Closed up tight.” Sasha jerked back, frowned. “You asked me to look, all but insisted, so don’t get angry when I do.”
“Fair enough. And that’s enough.”
“I believe in privacy.” She’d never read anyone that openly, that purposefully. It left her flushed, and mildly embarrassed. “I don’t dig into people’s secrets.”
“I believe in privacy.” Riley raised her glass again. “But I freaking love to dig.”
“Your work brings you a lot of pride and satisfaction. What is it?”
“That depends. At the base? I’m an archaeologist. I like looking for things no one else can find.”
“And when you find it? What do you do with it?”
“That depends, too.”
“You find things.” Sasha nodded, nearly relaxed. “That must be one of the reasons.”
“For what?”
“For our being here.”
“I’ve got a reason to be here.”
“But at this time, in this place?” Sasha gestured to the sketches again. “I know we need to look, we need to find . . .”
“If you want my attention you have to spit things out.”
Rather than speak, Sasha pulled out another sketch. A beach, a calm sea, a palace on a hill, all under a full white moon.
And curved under the moon shone three stars.
“I don’t know where this is, but I do know these three stars, the ones near the moon, they don’t exist. I’m not an astronomer, but I know they’re not there. I only know they were, somehow they were. And I know they fell. See this one.” She laid out another sketch. “All three falling at the same time, leaving those cometlike trails. We’re supposed to find them.”
Sasha looked up, saw Riley’s eyes stare into hers, feral and cold.
“What do you know about the stars?” Riley demanded.
“I’m telling you what I know.”
In a fast move, Riley reached out, gripped Sasha’s arm at the wrist. “What do you know about the Stars of Fortune? Who the hell are you?”
Though her stomach trembled, Sasha made herself keep her eyes level with the fierce ones, ordered her voice not to shake.
“I’ve told you who I am. I’m telling you what I know. You know more about them. You know what they are. You’re already looking for them—that’s why you’re here. And you’re hurting my arm.”
“If I find out you’re bullshitting me, I’ll hurt more than your arm.” But she let it go.
“Don’t threaten me.” Temper, hot and surprised, leaped up and out. “I’ve had enough. I didn’t ask for this, I don’t want this. All I wanted was to live in peace, to paint, to be left alone to work. Then you and these others are crowding my dreams, you and these damn stars I don’t understand. One of them’s here, I know it, just as I know finding it won’t be peaceful. I don’t know how to fight, and I’ll have to. Blood and battle, dreams full of blood and battle and pain.”
“Now it’s getting interesting.”
“It’s terrifying, and I want to walk away from all of it. I don’t think I can. I held one in my hand.”
Riley leaned forward. “You held one of the stars?”
“In a dream.” Sasha turned her palm up, stared at it. “I held it, held the fire. And it was so beautiful it blinded. Then it came.”
“What came?”
“The dark, the hungry, the brutal.”
Suddenly she felt queasy, light-headed. Though she struggled, what moved through her won.
“She who is darkness covets. To have what she desires consumes her. What the three moons created out of love, loyalty, and hope, she would corrupt. She has burned her gifts and all bright edges of her power away, and what remains is a madness. She will kill to possess them, fire, ice, water. Possessing them, she will destroy worlds, destroy all so she lives.”
Sasha lifted both hands to her head. “Headache.”
“Does that happen often?”
“I do everything I can to stop it.”
“And that’s probably why you have a headache. You can’t fight your own nature, trust me. You have to learn to control it, and to adapt.” Riley caught the waiter’s eyes, circled a finger in the air. “I’m getting us another round.”
“I don’t think I should—”
“Eat some nuts.” Brisk now, Riley shoved the bowl closer. “No way you’re faking this—nobody’s that good. And I’ve got a sense about people—not empathic, but a reliable sense. So we’ll have another drink, talk this through some more, then figure out where we go from there.”
“You’re going to help me.”
“The way I look at it, we’re going to help each other. My research indicates the Fire Star is in or around Corfu—and your dreams corroborate that. You could come in handy. Now—”
She broke off, flicked a hand at her bangs as she looked over Sasha’s head. “Well, well, it just keeps getting more and more interesting.”
“What is it?”
“Dream date.” Riley aimed a deliberately flirty smile, crooked a finger in the air.
Swiveling in her chair, Sasha saw him. The man who held the lightning. The one who’d taken her body.
His eyes, so dark, flicked away from Riley, met hers. Held them. And holding them, crossed to their table.
“Ladies. Spectacular view, isn’t it?”
His voice, Irish and easy, brought a shiver to Sasha’s skin. She felt trapped, as if a shining silver cage had dropped around her.
And when he smiled, she yearned.
“Where you from, Irish?” Riley asked.
“Sligo, a little village you wouldn’t have heard of.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Cloonacool.”
“I know it. Sits at the foot of the Ox Mountains.”
“So it does, yes. Well then.” He waved his hand, and offered Riley the little clutch of shamrocks that appeared in it. “A token from home, faraway.”
“Nice.”
“Americans?” He looked back at Sasha. “Both of you?”
“Looks that way.” Riley watched his gaze shift, land on the sketches. She said nothing when he reached down, lifted the one of six people.
Not shocked, she thought. Intrigued.
“Isn’t this a fascination. You’d be the artist?” he said to Sasha. “You’ve a clever hand, and eye. I’ve been told I have the same.” He smiled. “Mind if I join you?”
Without waiting for assent, he got a chair from a neighboring table, pulled it up. Sat.
“I’d say we’ve a lot to talk about. I’d be Bran. Bran Killian. Why don’t I buy you ladies a drink, and we’ll talk about the moon and the stars?”
Most helpful customer reviews
325 of 338 people found the following review helpful.
Constructive criticism
By Amazon Customer
I really wanted to love this. I started off adoring Sasha, but that changed quickly. I feel like I am having a hard time with all of her books lately.... The characters are similar, the formula the same. Most of the characters are poorly developed. And even the parts that are very "Nora", which I love, are becoming overdone, like the meals and group planning over a pot of stew. I just read a blog by her showing anger over criticism (specifically on her Facebook page...which I get...that's rude). But she states the reader is not her employer....my wallet and I would beg to differ. Arrogance is a dangerous thing. When people complain here it is because we love Nora and want her work to be as wonderful as we know it can be.
283 of 299 people found the following review helpful.
I thought this was going to be the return of old Nora, but I guess not... ***SPOILERS***
By Reader
*****SPOILERS***PLEASE DON'T READ AHEAD IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS, I'M NOT HOLDING BACK*****
I couldn't decide if I wanted to give this book 3 or 4 stars. I want to say 4 because I am a longtime fan of Nora Roberts and I was really excited for this book. I think I'm going to end up giving it a 3 though because it just didn't live up. NR's last few books have been incredibly disappointing but, when I read the excerpt of this one, I really thought she'd gotten some of her magic back. She didn't write in those weird, short, choppy sentences she seems to love these days, the characters were a delight, the premise was interesting, and, once again, a great setting. I don't mind, at all, her habit of writing 3 men, 3 women, 3 books. It's just something she prefers and I kind of like it. The predictability of the ending and the events don't bother me one bit. I know that the good guys are always going to win and three couples are going to fall in love. I did speak too soon, however, about the magic coming back because most of the things I was looking forward to were the things that killed it.
Setting: The setting was absolutely gorgeous, but, in the past, Nora has described a setting so beautifully with about a 1/4 of the words she used here. I get it, Villa is beautiful and Greece is beautiful and food is delicious. Say it and move on. I really didn't want sooo much of it. She spent more time developing the setting than she did the characters and I had to skim most of it. Now, in the next 2 books, there are going to be 2 new settings and we're going to have to endure brand new descriptions of them all over again. You're writing a book, Nora, not a travel brochure.
Language: NR characters usually have beautiful and poetic language, especially her Irish characters. Throughout this whole novel, however, the thought that "nobody ever even talks like this", kept circling my mind. It was just too much. Every sentence was something along the lines of "to heart, to mind, to love, we will conquer all", "meals and family and love." I'm not expecting 100% realism when I pick up an NR book, but I'd like it to be A LITTLE realistic. I don't need, "Hey, dude, look at the villa. Awesome!" But, I don't want them to speak like poets ALL the time.
Characters: I pick up an NR book for the relationships. Let's be real, the setting and the whatever-storyline are great, but the relationships are my favorite part of these books. I looked and looked and just couldn't find it. Nobody connected at all for me or for each other. In her Circle trilogy, I was instantly and madly in love with the characters and, at their losses, I was heartbroken and, at their triumphs, I was joyful. I can honestly say that I don't care what happens to any of these characters. They also didn’t click very well with each other. There were no little things to make me think that these people truly care about each other. When Doyle takes that death blow for Riley in the end, I couldn’t imagine it was because he cared about her at all, only that he knows he can’t die and she can.
Riley: She was just one of Nora's previous characters supercharged. It felt like she was trying to mash many of her characters into one, the archaeologist, the fighter, the supernatural, the know-it-all. She was all these and more, it felt like she was trying way too hard. No one person could possibly have all those personalities smashed into one.
Sawyer: Such an interesting character and the one thing we know about him above all else is that he's got the hots for Annika. So many more things I would have liked to learn about him.
Annika: Different. Different personality and different supernatural creature than usual. Very sweet and innocent and I wish she just wasn't so innocent though. The sweetness was lovely but she was too trusting for my liking. Like even in her world, way under the sea, there must be some untrustworthy mer-people. Going to a new world and making friends with others of a completely different species, she has to have some sort of caution otherwise she's just an idiot. I like that it was something new but dial it back. That random comment about her only having 3 months until she loses her legs after she tells someone what she is? I don't know if I understood that right but it just seems to be a problem for the sake of having a problem and really doesn't make any sense at all.
Doyle: No time at all was spent on him. By the time we found out his secret and his story, I didn't have any sort of emotional connection to him and couldn't find it in me to care.
Sasha: I tried so hard to like her but I just couldn't. Such a bore and no personality whatsoever. Hypocritical and did nothing throughout the entire book that was her own will. She was led by her "power" to all the answers and didn't really put forth any effort to actually get to the answers herself. She kept saying how much she wants to get stronger and stop being the weak link in the circle and, every time something happens, she proves that she still is the weak link. I also really wish she had done something more in the “final fight” than hug Bran to give him her love while he defeated Nerezza pretty much on his own. She was also a hypocrite in the biggest way. She’s spent her entire life in isolation, she was even described as a “recluse” in the book flaps, but, when someone wants to do something by themselves, she gets all pissy about them not being a “family.” There was a line about something that Doyle was doing, setting that target up “alone, Sasha thought, resentfully". You’ve known these people for a week and Doyle for all of 2 days… relax. She also stepped over her own words a lot. I remember her speaking to Riley about everybody having secrets and them revealing them in their own time, yet every time she found out someone’s secret, she got angry at them. Bran didn’t reveal his secret within the first minute of knowing her. Big deal.
Bran: A typical Irish, magick, Nora character. Nothing new about him in abilities or personality. At all.
Romance: Boring. It all happened very quickly and there was none of the usual feeling I get when I read an NR romance. The s*x scenes were too long and words were basically copied and pasted from some other NR books. Nothing new there. When I read some of Nora’s books from 20 years ago and I come across a female character who is a virgin, it’s not weird but, in this day and age, when she revealed she was a virgin at 28, all I could do was roll my eyes and think “why does nobody else think this is weird?” Maybe I’m being judgmental but it just added an extra layer of my un-believability of Sasha. Bran basically carried Sasha. She hid behind him at every opportunity and the entire romance just wasn’t a very fun read at all.
Villain: Nerezza is nowhere near the villain that I’ve read in some of Nora’s other books. The Circle trilogy has one of my favorite villains of all time in Lilith and comparing this one to that, I can definitely see that they were supposed to be similar but Lilith was just better in every way. Nora has gotten into this habit of telling and not showing so, every time Nerezza was described as “evil”, it was like NR was begging us to believe it. Nerezza had madness and evil in her eyes. Lilith murdered an entire family so she could turn a little boy into a vampire to have as a son and lover. Nerezza says that love is for mortals. Lilith takes one of the group’s good friends and turns him into a vampire to use as bait. There’s just no comparison.
Writing: Everything was so repetitive. The line "Sasha contemplated what to make for dinner" was probably in there at least once every other chapter. Food was mentioned in every single chapter. Sandwiches, eggs, pasta. "I'll get a bottle of wine" or "opened a bottle of wine" was also in there every minute or so. Sasha painted, Sasha packed her sketch book and pencils, Sasha grabbed her tote with her sketch book and pencils, Sasha grabbed her bag with her sketch book and pencils, Sasha itched to sketch this scene, Sasha wanted to remember this scene so she could paint it later, Sasha sat down to sketch.
I can beg and hope and pray that the next two are going to be written by 20 years ago Nora, but they probably won’t be. I love her and she will always be my favorite author (20 years ago Nora, that is), but I’m starting to get real sick and tired of shelling out so much money for recycled storylines and characters. Why should I put the effort in if she’s not going to?
112 of 120 people found the following review helpful.
Well, Annika was a nice touch...
By S. Yeager
I really want to like this book but I just don't. Dare I say it's deathly boring in parts and strangely repetitive in others -- for example, we get it, Sasha was weak but now she's not. The plot and characters feel like a hodgepodge of all the other plots/ characters in previous novels. I was unamused by the character development of Riley. Really?! All I'll say is that a basic tenet of these books is that the cards are on the table from the beginning. It's difficult to suspend belief when information just comes out of nowhere in the middle of the book. I did like Annika but am just not sure I'm going to be able to get there when all is revealed. Sigh, I still haven't finished the book but I will just as I'll buy book two of the trilogy because I am at heart a Nora fan looking for some of the magic from the Irish trilogy.
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