Speaking of vampires and time travel, I'm almost done reading the first of Nora Roberts' latest paperback trilogy, Morrigan's Cross (the second in the series comes out next Tuesday). It has a witch, a sorceror, a shape-shifter and his cousin (a potential queen, if she pulls an Arthur when she gets home and gets the sword out of the rock), and a vampire who fights his own kind (not because he has a soul, but more because he's bored) and the last addition to the group, a female slayer. Buffy gets name-checked, but as the slayer says, she's not the only one, it's a family gig. The first couple to hookup are the witch and the sorceror, and it looks like the second book will be the slayer and the shape-shifter, leaving the queen (whose mother was killed by a vampire) and the vampire for the final book.
Not bad--worth the $8 I paid when I saw the book at the grocery store last week. For those Roberts fans, like me, I'd rank it in the top third of her books, but mostly because of the vampire lore. NR is a big Buffy fan (she's had a character have sexy dreams about Spike and a vat of dark chocolate), and the Buffyverse's influence is very strong here.
It's only getting 3 1/2 stars at Amazon, and I can see why this may be for non-horror fans. This first book spends most of the time setting everything up, and the romance is a definite second thought.
That's exactly what book I was talking about.
Duh--here I was, thinking I'd missed a post from the Buffista Nora, and you're talking to the author!
I take it you didn't like it too much, hmm?
I take it you didn't like it too much, hmm?
I'm still reading and I am enjoying it more than I thought I would. She's done the supernatural/witch/ghost stuff before and I've liked it, but I get kind of skeptical when it comes to vampire romance. But, that said, I really do like it.
It definitely gets better as it progresses. I just assumed I had missed this one in the stores last spring (her books usually come out every six months or so, and I knew that book 2 is out next week), but after looking it up on Amazon today, it looks like all three books are coming out in a month or two span (the last book is streetdated for Halloween). That's probably why the quality isn't quite so high this time around, but I wasn't a huge fan of the last trilogy (the flower series), except for the relationship of the second book--I loved that she actually had a senior couple (well, almost-senior, since they were in their mid-50s) as the primary relationship.
I haven't even bothered with her last few standalone books--the last one of those I've read was Chesapeake Blue (technically not a standalone since it was a followup to one of her best trilogies), and it was pretty bad comparatively speaking.
Oh, I loved the flower series! Loved the ghost bride, and I *did* love the second book best -- the heroine was so strong, and so sure of herself, and yet wanted love so much.
I haven't picked up Morrigan's Cross yet, but I just finished the Born In series, which I adored, and had saved for a rainy day.
The Born In series and the Chesapeake series (leaving that last followup book out of it) are my two favorite of her trilogies. For her magical themed books, I liked the trilogy set on the Maine island with the three witches. My favorite of her Silhouette books (outside of the Macgregor books, which are on a different level IMO) is the McKade series, with the four brothers living in the little town near the Antietam battleground with the really well-written ghost story NR created for the books.
I loved the Chesapeake series, too, and did not read the final one. It was Seth all grown up, right?
Loved the Three Sisters Island trilogy, too. She did the whole witchcraft thing really well. I didn't love the Keys series -- I didn't make it through the second book, and I never got the third. I don't think I've ever read her Silhouette stuff, and I've only read a handful of her single titles. For whatever reason, her trilogies are usually it for me.
I love all of her trilogies. It's hard for me to rate them, I love them all so much.
My favoritest book of her is "Public Secrets".
