I’ve managed to catch a rather ugly cold and have accompanying fever and chills, so snuggling in bed with hot tea, plenty of Kleenex, my electric blanket turned up high and a couple of not-very-deep books are just the ticket for this weekends’ activities.

Of course, I won’t be able to get away with just that, but hubby is usually pretty good about letting me have plenty of bed rest when I feel like I need it. I am the one who  pushes herself to do things when she would be better off staying home and out of the weather.

Which our weather is cool and damp. Think that makes it even more important I stay out of it.

The books on tap are romances — one a period romance and the other is contemporary. I don’t know if either will be worthy of a review at this point or maybe I’m just not able to concentrate enough to review them…whatever. I do hope you are healthy and doing well this New Year!

I am a fan of Nora Roberts and have been for a goodly number of years. While I don’t profess to having read even a fraction of this prolific writers works, I’ve read a fair number of them in all genres she choses to write in.

I have especially enjoyed the ones where she includes bits of magic lore or “witchcraft”, so when the first of this trilogy came out “Blood Brothers” I read it with relish. She drew me into the town of Hawkins Hollow and the story of the three boys all born of different mothers on the same night at the same time and how, when they were 10 years old, they snuck out and performed a ritual that made them blood brothers. The ritual also unleashed a terror that had been held, contained for centuries. A terror waiting for the three boys to unleash it so that, in time, it could be vanquished forever.

Every seven years, on the seventh of July starting at midnight, many of the inhabitants go a little crazy and do things they wouldn’t normally do. They kill each other, burn and maim. As the years pass, each successive seven gets worse and more frightening. Then, the year of their 31st birthday, twenty-one years after they unwittingly unleashed the terror, three women come to town and the six people discover a bond.

It’s a bond of family; a bond of shared history. Together the six research, plot and plan to finally bring the horror to an end.

Nora Roberts is a skillful weaver of tales. Her characters are all very human in their needs, desires, strengths and weaknesses. While none of them need fat burners, they are otherwise pretty much like you and me. She writes compelling and erotic love scenes that make every hero a lover beyond compare and every heroine a sexy, desireable woman.  While the events they may find themselves caught up in are challenging they are well within the bounds of do-able.

I enjoyed very much Blood Brothers and The Hollow, but the third in the series, Pagan Stone which is the climax of the trilogy left me unsatisfied. It was too cookie-cutter like many of the –other trilogies she’s written in scope and scenes. Even the two main characters seem way too -familiar and it’s not because they were introduced and were part of the other two books.-

So, while the series is a good one, it’s not a great one. If you’re new to Nora Roberts, and you don’t mind a little dark arts in your stories, you’ll enjoy this trilogy a lot. It moves along at a good clip and never leaves you wanting to rush through it.

Blood Brothers, The Hollow, Pagan Stone by Nora Roberts
Published by Jove Books, 2008
ISBN 978-0-515-14466-6

Micki Jordan is publicist to the brightest stars in the sports world. She’s totally comfortable with the world of sports, men’s locker rooms and the media spotlight, she’s not so comfortable with her more feminine side.

But she’s taken a header for the playboy, man about town baseball star, Damian Fuller and in order to get his reciprocal attention, with the help of her sister and the machinations of her uncle, she’s revamping her look to become one hot number.

When Damian is hit with a paternity suit and her uncle is hospitalized with a broken hip, Micki’s world takes on a series of complications that pull her in multiple directions. She would LIKE to punch Damian’s lights out and do the same to her uncle who wouldn’t feel it thanks to his pain pump, but instead she grits her teeth and deals with Damien’s issue with the same clear-sighted and pragmatic approach she’s dealt with other sports figures’ faux pas.

By the time the paternity test Micki’s recommended comes back that Damian is not the father, he’s come to the realization that Micki is the girl he wants to settle down with, but she’s decided that it’s too risky to risk her heart again on him.

So how will Damian win Micki in the end?

Why the way any other star athlete does — he has his agent cut a deal

Hot Number by Carly Phillips
published by Harlequin Enterprises Ltd 2005
ISBN 0-373-77055-3