Iona Sheehan finally found the place where she belongs. She had to travel from America to Ireland to accomplish it, but she did it. And she finally found people, unlike her distant parents, that love her—her Irish cousins, Branna and Connor O'Dwyer and their three best friends, Boyle McGrath, Meara Quinn and Fin(bar) Burke.

There's a connection with her cousins that transcends family, forged in blood centuries ago, when their ancestor, the Dark Witch, Sorcha, shared her power with her three children to vanquish evil. That evil is back, strong as before, thirsty for the power Iona, Branna and Connor share, and it will take their combined magick, alongside bonds of love and friendship shared by the six, to banish the evil forever.


This is very similar (in theme) to the Sign of Seven trilogy, and in drama to Three Sisters Island trilogy (at least the promised showdown between star-crossed lovers Branna and Fin in the last book), but still, it holds its own weight, no matter the similarities.

In such trilogies, it always comes down to family and friends in Nora Roberts books, to the power of love that transcends the familial, to the power of blood bonds forged through life and hardship. True love and true friends are hard to find, and those who are lucky to have them, can achieve all...even fight and banish ancient evil.
That's the metaphor of this book and this series.

The feelings of love and friendships are immediately palpable, as soon as Iona lands on her cousins' doorstep, meets the three friends (even if one of those descends from the same evil they're trying to fight—drama, drama, drama). I loved the easy rapport between them, the camaraderie between friends, the love between the five people who knew each other since childhood, and quickly included the one that's been missing from their life so far.
The romance itself was nothing to write home about—a tad rushed, and quite desperate from the heroine's point of view—but the friendship and bonds of family were top notch.

The characters, once again, shone, with their layers, issues, little idiosyncrasies, their bonds (I know I'm repeating myself), their differences and similarities...And yes, there were those sprinklings of humor I so love with this author.

The paranormal elements didn't dominate the narrative, but what there was served as great augmenter for the suspense, the heightening of feelings of danger and peril the characters were in (and will be in the future). This was more of an appetizer, preparing our palate for the main course.

The same could be said about the entire story, really. A very good appetizer, that makes you really look forward to the main meal.

Dark Witch

by Nora Roberts
Book 1 of The Cousins O'Dwyer trilogy

I guess the thing that stood out to me the most was Iona's verbal diarrhea.  The moment she starts interacting with her long-unknown family, cousins Branna and Connor, she becomes a basket case of nerves and rambles until she stops making sense.  Then she apologizes for rambling and rambles some more.  Each new person she meets creates a new nervousness in her and she commences spewing whatever thoughts come to her mind.

Normally, this would be a very annoying trait--as I prefer a peaceful quietness, myself, much like Branna.  But for some reason, I found it kind of sweetly endearing from Iona.  And I don't know if it's just because of what she says, or how she says things... or just that it's a different type of personality than just being the clumsy, klutzy, sunshine girl-next-door.

Anyway...

Dark Witch is enjoyable.  I was certainly hooked.  The premise of this entire trilogy reads like a high fantasy at times, which was something I'd been kind of looking forward to.  But being that it's a contemporary setting, the language, the dialogue, and the sometimes overuse of flowery descriptors for just about everything made it a little hard to take the dangers of the O'Dwyer cousins' conflict seriously.  It was jarring, to say the least, and at times the narration felt rushed.

The characters are great, although they are also flawless in spite of their flaws... if that makes any sense.  Let's just say that, sometimes you come across a set of people who are so good and so noble that it kind of hurts your teeth.  It's not a bad thing, really.  But it also makes the presence of these people feel way too deliberate in each scene--it's as if the author wants you you know for sure that these people are all extremely special and significant, and even adds a bit more purple-y prose into their biographies for good measure.

Anyway, the story was good, but predictable.  And again, the premise is a great one.  All-in-all, Dark Witch is a great start to a trilogy.

If I had one big complaint--among others--it would be the unnecessary addition of the romantic angst.  I'm not entirely sure I understand what happened to make Boyle melt down about his relationship with Iona aside from the obligatory "Main hero with commitment issues" trope.  But it happened, it felt out of place, and Iona dealt with it nicely, I thought.


***

2016 Reading Challenges:
• Goodreads Reading Challenge
• BookLikes Reading Challenge
• Bookish Resolutions Challenge
• 2016 Halloween Bingo

...and the first month this year I managed more than three or four books!

There was a time that I would inhale absolutely every Nora Roberts book I could get my hands on. A couple of them I read so many times that the pages began to fall out of the books. I need to hunt those up and give them a reread...

Anyway, somewhere over the last several years, something began to change. I still enjoy reading her books, but I no longer have the urgency to buy them when they first come out.

I also have grown to prefer her paranormal-type trilogies over her stand alone contemporaries, though I think that's contrary to a lot of other people.

That last fact is what makes me sad that I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as I thought I would. I should have loved it. It has witches, legends, a group of three women and three men coming together to try to defeat a centuries old foe, and a central romance between two of six characters.

And I did like it. I liked it quite a bit, but just not as much as I was anticipating. For me, it felt like the author was just going through the motions as far as the romance goes. And in a Nora Roberts book, I expect to love the romance.

Our heroine, Iona, arrives from America in search of her family and her destiny. Iona, I liked. I liked that she babbled when she was nervous, and that she constantly apologized for things she didn't need to apologize for--something I do myself--but yet she was very direct. She didn't tap dance around her attraction to Boyle, our hero.

And I liked Boyle too. I actually liked all the characters, but the problem was, none of them had much depth. The potential was there, but it wasn't fully realized, in my opinion. Therefore, the romance fell flat for me, especially the love-at-first-sight aspects of it. I could buy that Iona and Boyle were attracted to each other, sure. But other than that...

I will read the entire trilogy, because for all it's issues, and like I've said, I did enjoy this one. I own the next one, it's Connor's book (Iona's cousin), and he was my favorite character in this one. Though that may be because my brain pictured him looking somewhat like Aidan Turner. Anyway, hopefully, I'll enjoy it a bit more than this one.