Brought to you by OBS reviewer Vanessa

Synopsis:

The cursed ones are back and this time they’re stronger than they’ve ever been, thanks to The Awakening, a prophecy believed to be legend. Kallisto Craven has lived many centuries, she just isn’t sure if any of it is real. She’s been plagued with dreams her whole life, of family and friends that have been with her throughout the centuries. After one particularly heart-wrenching dream, she finds out they’re all real. A witch, Serena, had killed them centuries ago and cursed their Celtic lines to fight for all eternity. The biological mother of Kallisto and her twin brother, Kalan, countered the curse, allowing them a way out by living and dying over and over again until they can break the curse. Kallisto and the other cursed members work to retrieve the last member, Talus-Kallisto’s one true love-and free him from Serena, who cast a spell on him. After many failed attempts, Kallisto loses heart and decides to go on alone. She fights to break the bond between all of them so the others can live full lives and no longer be forced to live and die with her. Talus and Kallisto come together in a chance encounter, locking the curse in place, but she runs away, still determined to break the bond. The others do everything they can to bring her back, even playing chicken with a train. When they finally get her back, she’s taken away once more by the now vengeful Serena, and they must race to save Kallisto before she becomes the witch’s sacrifice, ending the curse in such a way that could annihilate the cursed ones, and devastate the entire Irish and Scottish lines for all eternity. (Goodreads)

Review:

I will start off by saying that this is the second book in the Celtic Rose Series. I have yet to read the first book, however I did read the synopsis to get a better understanding of where this book was coming from. Initially things were a bit confusing, but I was slowly able to catch up and get the gist of things.

Kallisto is in search of her soul mate Talus with whom she and several others’ are all tied together to a terrible fate that they have repeated over and over again for centuries. In this book, they all have to ban together to help Kallisto win back Talus’ heart after Serena (or Sarah as he knows her) casts a spell on him. What I enjoyed is that this story had an interesting premise. One that I have seen before, but not often. Rebirth, curses and destiny all play a major part in this series and there is a fun sense of magic and mystery that we get to experience.

Unfortunately there was more that I didn’t like versus what I did like. The dialogue was a bit juvenile between the characters, making them seem much younger than they were at times. I also felt like the names were WAY overused, which kept me out of the action and left me feeling more like a bystander. I think Kallisto’s name was mentioned at least 40 times a page (I’m obviously exaggerating) But by ten pages in I was throughly sick of hearing her name, which was sad since it’s such a beautiful one. And the overuse isn’t exclusive to Kallisto, it occurred with practically every character that was “present” at that time in the story.

I also felt as though I was told much more than I was shown. I hate when I don’t get to experience things firsthand and that’s exactly what happened many times in this book. It really left me feeling like an outsider and made it difficult to connect fully with the characters and the story. There were also a lot of people to keep up with, which at times made things confusing.

I also honestly wasn’t very fond of Kallisto. She just seemed so naïve and childish for someone who had lived so many lifetimes, but that’s just my personal opinion. Many times she seemed to be to two different people, strong and then weak, all within a few pages. Perhaps if the story was longer and moved along a bit slower, we would get to experience things along with the characters.

Overall this book just wasn’t my cup of tea but perhaps if I had read the first book in the series, that would have led me to a different conclusion.