Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Blood Brothers by Nora Roberts (2007)

I found a new way of reading. I had been listening to this book in my car, was almost done with it, just a couple of more chapters, but I needed to go away to a conference. So in my hour and a half layover in Detroit, I found this book was one of the few books in all the newsstands. I felt uncomfortable standing at any one of the newsstands reading for too long, and since every other store in the airport is a newsstand, I had plenty of places to stop. I walked from newsstand to newsstand found the book and read a few pages until I was done.

Another interesting phenomenon at the airport newsstand was that the books were "Rent to Read." That means you can return them to a participating airport newsstand for half off your next book. Good idea!

The book itself? This is the first in Roberts' latest trilogies. Another perfect matching of three best friends with three women (this does get old), brought together by mysterious phenomenon that occur in Hastings Hallow, MD every 7 years. I don't like the premise, but the characters are OK. Cal runs the local hangout - the bowling alley - in this small town. Fox was raised by hippie parents, but turned small town lawyer. Gage had a rough childhood, now he wanders the globe playing poker. Quinn is a writer that investigates unexplained phenomenon. Layla works in a boutique, and I'm not sure what Cybil does, but she might be an interesting character.

The setting is not that important this time, as is the mystical phenomenon. And that is what I enjoy the least. Again, I'm reading an interesting combination of books - listening to this and reading Historian - a fiction book about people looking into the "true" history of Dracula and vampires. Blood Brothers has an evil being that was confined hundreds of years ago by a good guy. The three friends released this evil energy, and it is wreaking havoc in the town. I have liked Roberts putting in whiffs of magic in her stories, but this is major evil that I don't like. I know there is evil energy in the world, I just don't think it manifests in these ways, so this reduced my enjoyment of this book.

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