'Morrigan's Cross' by Nora Roberts

ISBN: 0515141658
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 352pp
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Price: $7.99

Morrigan’s Cross was released August 29, 2006 and is the first book in The Circle Trilogy. Book two, Dance of the Gods, and book three, The Valley of Silence, are already out as well. One of the reasons I finally decided to pick this book up, besides the vampires, was the fact that I wasn’t going to have to wait to get the whole story. The books all came out within weeks of each other — the last one was released at the end of October.

In this first book we meet six people. A sorcerer, a witch, a shape-shifter, a scholar, a warrior, and one who was lost. The sorcerer, Hoyt, is charged by the goddess Morrigan to travel to the future to bring these people together. They will form an army that must defeat evil in the form of Lilith. She is the ultimate vampire, working to destroy humanity and all the good and light in the world.

Hoyt travels through time, arriving in modern day New York to find two of the circle. The one who was lost is Hoyt’s brother Cain, who had been turned into a vampire by Lilith hundreds of years ago. The witch, Glenna, seeks him out after having a nasty run in with a vampire on the subway. The shape-shifter Larkin and scholar Moira come from another world, Geall the land of legends. The warrior Blair shows up almost at the end of the book but proves she deserves to be the one that completes their circle.

This first book is about the characters learning to put their pain behind them and become a team, a unit of good against the evil. There are a few close shaves while they are still at odds with each other but once they learn to work together they can finally work to defeat the enemy.

A thrilling start to a great series, Morrigan’s Cross is the kind of book you hate to put down but love to pick back up. The characters are great and you get involved at once with their personal stories, waiting with breath held as their lives finally start to intertwine. The action is evenly paced; you don’t feel overwhelmed by a bunch of blood-sucking and towards the end you get a look at things from Lilith’s point of view, which is pretty interesting.

I’ve never read a Nora Roberts or J.D. Robb (her pseudonym) novel before, so I can’t compare it to any of her others. But I enjoyed this one and have already picked up Dance of the Gods. Plus, how can you go wrong with a vampire book?