4.7.2025 | Monday

The Awakening

Item: The Awakening
Rating: 5
Author: Kim

category: Book Reviews
tag(s): adult
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title: The Awakening
author: Nora Roberts
series: The Dragon Heart Legacy #1
published: 11.24.2020
publisher: St. Martin's Press
genre(s): fantasy
pages: 435
source: bought
format: eBook
buy/shelve it: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | BookBub | BookHype | StoryGraph | Goodreads

rating:

| series rating:

the blurb

#1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts begins a new trilogy of adventure, romance, and magick in The Awakening.
In the realm of Talamh, a teenage warrior named Keegan emerges from a lake holding a sword—representing both power and the terrifying responsibility to protect the Fey. In another realm known as Philadelphia, a young woman has just discovered she possesses a treasure of her own…
When Breen Kelly was a girl, her father would tell her stories of magical places. Now she’s an anxious twentysomething mired in student debt and working a job she hates. But one day she stumbles upon a shocking secret: her mother has been hiding an investment account in her name. It has been funded by her long-lost father—and it’s worth nearly four million dollars.
This newfound fortune would be life-changing for anyone. But little does Breen know that when she uses some of the money to journey to Ireland, it will unlock mysteries she couldn’t have imagined. Here, she will begin to understand why she kept seeing that silver-haired, elusive man, why she imagined his voice in her head saying "Come home, Breen Siobhan. It’s time you came home." Why she dreamed of dragons. And where her true destiny lies—through a portal in Galway that takes her to a land of faeries and mermaids, to a man named Keegan, and to the courage in her own heart that will guide her through a powerful, dangerous destiny…

a few notes

POV: 3rd person; multi
setting: Ireland, Talamh
keywords/phrases: family, dysfunction, discovery, magic
tropes: high stakes, hero’s journey, medieval-adjacent, evil villain, mentor, magical creatures, training sequence
spice: 2/5🔥🔥
language: 1/5🤬

public reading: safe
cover notes: a little meh
mood reading: in the mood for sweeping Celtic fantasy
bonus points: romance not the sole focus, woman finding her strength, friendship

my review

This is not a typical Nora Roberts romance, although there is a romantic element. Instead, at its heart, the story is Breen’s. It’s her journey to herself, and the way she finally found the life she was always meant to have. The Breen we meet at the beginning of the book is not the Breen of the end, even as her new life is still something she’s settling into. It was empowering to watch her grow from the subservient mousy girl-woman her mother had molded her into to a strong, capable women who’s embraced her autonomy. There were so many moments that I wanted to reach into the book, grab her mother, and shake her silly!

One of the things I loved most, beyond Breen’s growth, was the support system she had…in our world and in the Fey world. Her best friend, Marco, is the kind of best friend we all need. He loves her fiercely, believes in her, pushes her just the right amount to get her to live her truth and see the best in herself. He’s 100% in her corner, always. And Sally, local drag queen and bar owner… she embraced Breen as her own becoming Breen’s “mother of her heart.” She and Derrick, her husband, along with Marco, were the loving family Breen didn’t have with her own biological mother, and that kind of love was truly beautiful.

But the Fey world… the family and friends Breen had known and forgotten so long ago. They embraced her as one of their own, as if the absence had not been so long. The setting was so beautiful and enchanting, the perfect place for Breen to come into her own once again.

I loved this book so much. The magical and lush setting, the quirky and diverse cast of characters, the sweeping epic feel of the story… all of it was utterly engrossing!

About Nora Roberts

Nora Roberts was born in Silver Spring, Maryland, the youngest of five children. After a school career that included some time in Catholic school and the discipline of nuns, she married young and settled in Keedysville, Maryland.
She worked briefly as a legal secretary. “I could type fast but couldn’t spell, I was the worst legal secretary ever,” she says now. After her sons were born she stayed home and tried every craft that came along. A blizzard in February 1979 forced her hand to try another creative outlet. She was snowed in with a three and six year old with no kindergarten respite in sight and a dwindling supply of chocolate.
Born into a family of readers, Nora had never known a time that she wasn’t reading or making up stories. During the now-famous blizzard, she pulled out a pencil and notebook and began to write down one of those stories. It was there that a career was born. Several manuscripts and rejections later, her first book, Irish Thoroughbred, was published by Silhouette in 1981.
Nora met her second husband, Bruce Wilder, when she hired him to build bookshelves. They were married in July 1985. Since that time, they’ve expanded their home, traveled the world and opened a bookstore together.
Through the years, Nora has always been surrounded by men. Not only was she the youngest in her family, but she was also the only girl. She has raised two sons. Having spent her life surrounded by men, Ms. Roberts has a fairly good view of the workings of the male mind, which is a constant delight to her readers. It was, she’s been quoted as saying, a choice between figuring men out or running away screaming.
Nora is a member of several writers groups and has won countless awards from her colleagues and the publishing industry. Recently The New Yorker called her “America’s favorite novelist.”