The Awakening
Jun. 3rd, 2022 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI haven't read any Nora Roberts in a long time, but The Awakening came highly recommended - and I wasn't disappointed.
It's the first in a trilogy, about a young woman named Breen. She has a gay best friend, and discovers a portal from Ireland to the land of the Fey, while on holiday. So far, so utterly cliched - but it's so much fun and so engaging that it doesn't matter!
I have to admit a terrible failing on my part, though - I do find books with a lot of Irish names and terms a bit wearing, because I keep tripping over the words in my mind as I read. So, I'm going to listen to the audiobook version of the second one, to avoid this issue!
I do love stories about found family - and Breen's closest friends, both in the US and in the Fey world, offer a wonderful array of characters to enjoy and grow attached to (and what happens right at the end of this instalment made me very happy about how things will progress in the second one). There's also an awesome dog.
There's no sense of any kind of peril until at least halfway through - and I would happily have read an entire book about Breen and her bestie, Marco, travelling around Ireland, without any fantastical elements! But it seems like the peril is going to ramp up in the second book - and I do hope Breen doesn't have to be rescued quite so often...
The viewpoint is a bit muddled in places - apparently, this really isn't an issue in books any more, though it still annoys me. And - I had no trouble at all with the portals, dragons, shapeshifters, dream visions and witches - but a young woman writing a single draft of a book and getting a three-book deal from the first publisher she sends it to??? Not believable!!
Ah well, even bestselling authors are allowed some wish fulfilment sometimes, I guess!
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and very much look forward to reading the next one - though I'm going to wait a bit, because the third one isn't out until November, so I'd like to spread them out.
It's the first in a trilogy, about a young woman named Breen. She has a gay best friend, and discovers a portal from Ireland to the land of the Fey, while on holiday. So far, so utterly cliched - but it's so much fun and so engaging that it doesn't matter!
I have to admit a terrible failing on my part, though - I do find books with a lot of Irish names and terms a bit wearing, because I keep tripping over the words in my mind as I read. So, I'm going to listen to the audiobook version of the second one, to avoid this issue!
I do love stories about found family - and Breen's closest friends, both in the US and in the Fey world, offer a wonderful array of characters to enjoy and grow attached to (and what happens right at the end of this instalment made me very happy about how things will progress in the second one). There's also an awesome dog.
There's no sense of any kind of peril until at least halfway through - and I would happily have read an entire book about Breen and her bestie, Marco, travelling around Ireland, without any fantastical elements! But it seems like the peril is going to ramp up in the second book - and I do hope Breen doesn't have to be rescued quite so often...
The viewpoint is a bit muddled in places - apparently, this really isn't an issue in books any more, though it still annoys me. And - I had no trouble at all with the portals, dragons, shapeshifters, dream visions and witches - but a young woman writing a single draft of a book and getting a three-book deal from the first publisher she sends it to??? Not believable!!
Ah well, even bestselling authors are allowed some wish fulfilment sometimes, I guess!
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and very much look forward to reading the next one - though I'm going to wait a bit, because the third one isn't out until November, so I'd like to spread them out.
