Sweep Volume 1 (an omnibus containing Book of Shadows, The Coven and Blood Witch) by Cate Tiernan

"She's Here, and She Has Power..."

Ah, memories. I read Cate Tiernan's collection of witch-related books back in high-school, and spotting the new editions (which include three instalments to a single book between an exceptionally attractive cover), I picked them up for a trip down memory lane. They were pretty much as I remember them: told in first-person account by sixteen year old Morgan Rowlands, we follow her story as she discovers her heritage as a witch, becomes caught in a love triangle, and learns to control her newfound powers as dark forces close in on her.

Containing the first three books in the series (Book of Shadows, The Coven and Blood Wit... Read More

Night's Child by Cate Tiernan

After the colossal disappointment of the last book in the Sweep series Full Circle, I was both relieved and wary that another conclusion had been written. Night's Child is set several years after the events of Full Circle with Morgan and Hunter as twenty-something year olds. Proposing marriage, Hunter plans to settle down and run New Charter (the new alternative to the Council) from home. He has only one last journey to make, and it is here that disaster strikes. The ferry he is traveling on sinks, and no trace is found of Hunter, dead or alive.

The story picks up again fifteen years later: Morgan had married a man named Colm and they had a daughter named Moira. Unfortunately Colm was killed in a car accident and now Morgan and Moira live together in Ireland, m... Read More

Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan

Nastasya is a burned-out immortal who has spent hundreds of years trying to avoid any sort of real emotion. With her equally jaded friends, she spends all her time in endless, meaningless carousing. She’s not very likable at first, but that’s the whole point. When her friend Incy’s casual cruelty gives Nastasya a wake-up call about what her life has become, she doesn’t like herself much either.

Horrified with herself, afraid of Incy, Nastasya does the only thing she can think of. She turns to River, a woman who offered her help many decades ago. River runs River’s Edge, a halfway house for immortals that serves as part rehab, part magic school. Troubled immortals go there to relearn an appreciation for life and to study positive spellcraft. Nastasya doesn’t quite fit in at first but eventually comes to enjoy her stay at River’s Edge, though her attraction to standoffish “Viking god�... Read More

Darkness Falls by Cate Tiernan

Darkness Falls is the second in Cate Tiernan’s IMMORTAL BELOVED trilogy. In Immortal Beloved, the first book, we met Nastasya, a burned-out immortal seeking enlightenment and redemption at the pastoral River’s Edge community. Darkness Falls continues her story, and book three will be titled Immortal Light.

Darkness Falls has the polar opposite of middle-book syndrome. Nastasya has a fantastic character arc here. She went through a huge amount of growth in Immortal Beloved, but all of that is tested in this book. Nastasya and River’s Edge suffer a spate of ill luck, and she begins to think she is inherently, irredeemably evil and has unwittingly corrupted River’s Edge with her darkness.

Just when she’s feeling lowes... Read More