The Awakening and Dragon Heart Legacy series by Nora Roberts
Published by St. Martin's Press, 2020, 2021, and 2022
Genre: Beach Read
Format: I audiobooked these via Libby.
It's hard to believe Nora Roberts can produce stories at the rate she does. It's the classic story of the mother of young children who looks for adventure while her children nap and creates a decades-long writing career. The woman publishes about five books a year--five books a year! She reports writing a novel in about 45 days. This begs the question: is it Nora who writes these books, or is there a Nora "team" working on her projects? Reported to earn around 60-million a year, Roberts can afford a little help.
At 71, Roberts works to represent a variety of lifestyles in her books. Dragon Heart blends her Irish-American heritage with "magick" and a few modern spins.
Breen is a teacher who is popping in on her mom's house while Mom is off on a spa weekend when she encounters some bank paperwork indicating she, Breen, has a mind-boggling trust fund. What? I thought Dad left us. Why hadn't her mother told her of this money? Breen calls the number on the documents, meets with the financial adviser, and re-orders her life--including resigning from her job.
With her roommate, Marco, along for the ride, Breen visits Ireland, hoping to locate her long-absent father. While there, she falls through a space-warp into an alternate realm of fairies and discovers ***SPOILER*** that she is last in a powerful lineage.
Critics of the series think it doesn't match Roberts' typical writing style and that characters like Marco, Breen's gay roommate, and Sally, her drag-loving, bar-running mentor are underdeveloped and cliché. I can't say whether or not this fits the author's typical style, but I concur with the "lazy" notes.
For example, Breen adopts a dog while she's in the fairy realm and names him "Bollocks." Then, she explores her dream of being a writer--which she can do now that she's quit that mundane teaching job--and writes a children's book about the adventures of her dog, Bollocks. Did anyone else choke on their matcha? A children's book about a dog named British-slang-for-balls. Is this part of the book Nora's writing assistant's way of punking her? Don't leave your bollocks out in the cold.
In the early 80s, Roberts hit the scene during a time she says there were mainly British and British-style Harlequin romance novels coming out serial-style, so she offered a fresh, US-er approach. After forty years, the climate for romance novels has changed, and the wider audience has higher expectations--even of a beach read.
If you want the equivalent of a Hallmark special, this series is harmless. If you want to dream that maybe a stray paper will fly your way, and you'll discover a trust fund you never realized and a deep, world-saving purpose, the fantasy will cost you the price of a couple of lottery tickets.
LOVELY BIT
“If the worlds were as we wish, the light would be only for joy and beauty, for healing and help. But the worlds are not what we wish. So we use the light to protect and shield, to fight the dark, even kill.”
RATING
I may or may not finish the series.
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