Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic Second Book in a Must Read Trilogy!!!, November 17, 2006
"Dance of the Gods" continues the excellent Circle Trilogy. Since there are already many recaps of plot, I will skip over that. Although this book would be a fine read on its own, I think that these three novels should be treated as one long book issued in three installments, instead of a trilogy. There is so much character development in the first novel, that jumping straight into this book will have you missing out on a lot of the subtle nuances that make this book not just a good read, but a great story.
I loved the character of Blair. While there are bound to Buffy comparisons, I think that Nora Roberts did a good job of creating a demon hunter in her own vision of what one should be. Just because Buffy existed, doesn't mean that demon/vampire hunters aren't an interesting concept and Roberts' twist on this is just fantastic. Vampire/demon hunter stories existed long before Buffy did, and not all of them need to be compared to each other.
Blair is a great heroine. She is strong and heroic. She doesn't shy away from the darker aspects of her job or the hard decisions her job brings. Larkin is also a great character, although he did annoy me a couple of times in his over emotional reactions to the situations they were in. However, he annoyed me as a person would annoy me, which means he was very well drawn. Roberts does a marvelous job of creating a strong female character who is genuinely strong and not the typical "feisty but weak" you see in so many other books. Blair isn't weak, she's human. Larkin isn't so insecure in his masculinity that he needs her to be something she isn't. It is a great pairing.
I am glad that these three books were released so closely together. They are difficult to put down once you start reading them. Even with Blair and Larkin's story being wrapped up, the Circle Trilogy is far from over, and that has me eagerly anticipating reading the next book in the series.
Read these books in order. The first two were both fantastic and you really do have much more depth to the situation and the people involved if you have the complete picture instead of the summary in the beginning.
These books are going on my keep shelf, and I am certain that I will reread them often as they are simply fantastic!
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Moira and Cian please, but this one will do for now., October 4, 2006
I am definitely waiting with bated breath for the next book since Moira has a lot more than Glenna or Blair to overcome in her little romance. For some reason, I liked the first book in the trilogy better - maybe Glenna's just easier to relate to? This one's not bad, (and I did read it in the usual 24 hours), but it does move a little slower and there's not quite the same victorious feeling. In the first one, it was really fun seeing the circle of six get formed, get in shape to take on the vampyres, and kick some serious vampyre [...]. Moira especially has come such a long way from when we first see her. One other note - this is Nora's first real foray into a strictly fantasy book. She's incorporated elements of fantasy into previous books, but this is a bit of a new direction for her, and I'm looking forward to more in this vein. My die-hard Noraholic mom, however, didn't really like this strong of a fantasy element - prefers more of the romance. Depends on your sci-fi/fantasy tolerance. You will wish you knew a Larkin in real life either way :)!
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
MUCH better than the first book in the series!, October 4, 2006
I must admit that I bought this one because I love Ms. Roberts' writing, not because I loved the first book and couldn't wait for this one. Usually, the first books in her series get me all excited about the books to follow, but the first one didn't do that for me. It was okay, but not great. I liked the characters, generally speaking, but some of them (Blair, in particular) did not appeal to me. She felt like a slightly revamped (no pun intended, given the nature of one of the characters) version of Buffy. So when I saw this book on my local grocery store's shelf on Sunday (yes, before the scheduled release date), I picked it up, but not with any great anticipation.
I was pretty surprised to find that I came to like and respect Blair. This book in the series really develops her character, and she becomes far less stereotypical. I also liked Larkin more than I expected to.
In her usual fashion, Ms. Roberts develops part of the unique group of characters so that we're not focusing on too much character development at once, but she makes clear what's coming up in the series by how she develops the relationships between non-central characters. In this case, the upcoming book will likely be focused on the relationship between Moira and Cian. Honestly, that's the relationship I've been waiting to read about, and I knew halfway through book one that it would be the last to be explored. In one sense, I wish I already had THAT book in my hot little hands, but in another, I'm all for building the anticipation/suspense and getting people panting for the last book. It's just that. . .well. . .Cian is the only character I found truly enticing and thought-provoking all along, so I'm kind of REALLY wishing his story was being told. Heh. I lack patience.
One of the things I really love about Ms. Roberts' writing is that her characters are genuinely positive human beings. Not without flaws, but compassionate and loving at their cores. I really enjoy picking up a book that, at its end, will have left me with an overwhelmingly GOOD feeling about the way human beings can be, how much they can yearn for and succeed in establishing a connection between each other. This has been the case since that one trilogy of hers where I first saw a family dealing with a child who'd been abused, and an older brother who himself had been abused. I'm sorry that the series name escapes me, but I distinctly remember reading each of those books with a glad heart, not glad because of the subject matter, but glad because of the triumph of love over neglect and pain.
Each time I read a Nora Roberts novel, it seems, I find myself on the bus, book in hand, tears in eyes, joy in heart.
This book, Dance of the Gods, was no exception. I'm really looking forward to the last book in this series.
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