Books in Series

Novel Series—Speculative Fiction

Nora Roberts is one of my favorite writers simply for her versatility. She writes romances, thrillers, murder mysteries set in the future, paranormal books set in the present and fantasy novels not of this world. Her work ethic is impressive, too. Though I’ve no doubt she has ghost writers to help, she nevertheless publishes three or four times the number of books per year than the average bestselling author.

I like her speculative fiction better than her mainstream books. The O’Dwyer Cousins Trilogy, written a number of years ago, is for sale again. I’ve read the first one, Dark Witch, about three cousins, a brother and sister in Ireland and their American cousin who comes to Ireland for a new start and to explore her roots. They are all witches with varying gifts who must combine them to defeat an enemy, more an evil force than a person, who killed their ancestor several generations ago and seeks their power to supplement his.

Sounds a little out there but the story is set in the present, which grounds it to a more realistic bent, and includes three more friends (one also a witch) who own or work at a stable and provide work, friendship, and love interests for the cousins. The female Irish cousin has a darker, brooding nature. Her American cousin has few filters and blurts out her feelings but is filled with bright good will—very engaging. This story ends with a battle with their enemy where he is hurt but not destroyed. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.

Vampires

For the most part, I think vampires and werewolves have been overdone. I was given a couple of Christine Feehan’s books from her Carpathian Series and liked them much better than her other books. In her more recent novels, I’ve found her characters and plots to be pretty much one story with different names and not even much difference in physical characteristics between characters. This series, however, is very inventive.

The Carpathians are an inhuman species with great strength and various powers—immortality, telepathy, the ability to fly, etc.—and the need to sustain themselves on human blood. They don’t physically harm or mentally traumatize their victims (where the telepathy comes in handy), but they have a darkness inside that if not relieved by finding their life mate can lead to them becoming full-fledged, evil vampires and killing machines.

I’ve read only two in the series so far, Dark Slayer and Dark Promises, and all the evil vampires have been male. I don’t know yet if the females can turn or what happens to them if they don’t find their life mate. I have to see if I can find the earlier novels, which should give the details. Even though an ongoing series, each story plot was complete by itself. Dark Slayer was about a couple who had been horrendously abused by Carpathian enemies and had to learn to trust each other to survive.

Dark Promises is more recent in the series and states that the species is going extinct but has found that human females with paranormal abilities can be turned Carpathian. This story centers on one human woman’s struggle to accept the change and her mate. Stole a few elements from Fifty Shades of Grey and listed toward the repetitive characteristics of her other novels, but I still want to read the earlier novels.