Morrigan's Cross by Nora Roberts

As a storm rages, the tale of a powerful vampire's lust for destruction-and of the circle of six charged by the goddess Morrigan to stop her-begins. One of the chosen is a medieval sorcerer whose quest will take him through time-and into the arms of a woman courageous enough to link her destiny to his own.

This book is Nora Robert's first foray into full-on paranormal romance, although there have been a few books that have had paranormal elements. In a way it would seem that she hedged her bets a little by having several different types of paranormal characters involved in this trilogy. There is a vampire, a witch, a wizard, a shapeshifter, a vampire hunter and a queen of a faraway realm.

Much of the first part of this book is spent in bringing five of the six central characters together, with the assistance of a god, Morrigan. Hoyt is the wizard. With the assistance of Morrigan, he is drawn to modern day New York in a search for his brother Cian who was turned into a vampire hundreds of years before. Cian is somewhat jaded as a vampire - no longer relying on human blood to survive, and having amassed quite a fortune over the years. Whilst in New York he meets Glenna, the witch. With there traditionally being a lot of distrust between witches and wizards, Hoyt and Glenna must find a way to work together, especially as their attraction grows stronger and stronger, as does their magic.

When the action moves to Ireland, the warriors who are gathered start training for the fight of their lives - against the queen vampire, Lilith, who coincidentally is the vamp who turned Cian. Lilith is the antithesis of all that is good - she wants to increase her own power by basically destroying the world. Joining them in Ireland are two more warriors who have been called to the battle by Morrigan who come from Geall, a realm that exists in a different world to our own.

As the six who are gathered start training and working together for the upcoming battles there is love and loss, new friendships to be built and several worlds to save.

As usual, what Nora does well is the developing relationships - between brothers, between new friends, between burgeoning lovers. I did feel as though there were parts that were a bit unevenly paced throughout this book - very dialogue heavy in parts where Hoyt needs to convince firstly Cian and then Glenna to accompany him and the magnitude of the task but in the end it is a satisfying read with well written characters.

Whilst I wouldn't say that this book is an exceptional read, it was certainly entertaining and I definitely will be following this series through to it's conclusion!

Rating 4/5