I enjoyed this first entry into Roberts' Dragon Heart series. Breen is such a relatable character in the beginning, and it's fun to enter the world of magic as she does and through her eyes. I'm already all in on her relationship with Keegan and it's only just begun.

Four solid stars.

*I received a review copy from the publisher/author via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.*

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to review this book.

In my eyes, Nora Roberts can do no wrong! I absolutely love everything she writes, this book included!
Totally loved it!

Always a wonderful plot, well thought out characters and a beautiful story line.
Well done!!

I love everything Nora Roberts writes and this was no exception. Imaginative world building and great characters. Looking forward to part 2!

Another amazing book by Nora Roberts. She is such an amazing writer that she can just do wonders with any genre it seems. This one really captivated me and I'm really sorry that I didn't read it before now. Super excited that there is a second installment coming out soon! I have it pre-ordered and can't wait to get it!

Has a book ever broken you, not because it was so amazing but because it was so freaking disappointing? I have dreaded writing the review of this book since I started reading it and this dread, I believe now, is what caused my longest reading slump to date. Nora Roberts is one of my favorite authors and her stories have always given me strength to deal with my own life so it really hurts when one of her books leave me feeling so slumped and disappointed.

The Awakening started out so well, with such promise. I was first lured by that fantastic cover. I enjoyed the overall plot of it and I loved Breen. I empathized with her and understood what she went through and the strength it took to become who she wanted to be.

I loved Marco. He and Sally were my favorite characters. Breen’s friendship with Marco, that deep connection—Nora Roberts did a great job here because I could feel that depth of feeling.

I’ve always loved Nora Roberts’ books because of the values in them, the connection between people, the consideration and understanding between the main characters, that depth of feeling between them, the freedom of will—I hate that these were missing from the book.

When you’ve been pushed into a certain mold, and it takes Herculean strength to hammer and build yourself up, it sucks when the people who should understand that, who are supposed to be your friends are the ones who get mad when you don’t let yourself be pushed around. Breen didn’t deserve that. This and the lack of depth of feeling between the main characters (except for Breen and Marco) were a big disappointment for me.

I know The Awakening is just the first book in a trilogy but even as a first book, the rich story-telling that is Nora Roberts’ signature would have made this story absolutely gripping to me. It’s a shame because this book did have all the potential of an epic story but it saddens me that not even the cliffhanger moved me.

This book was awesome!!! I could not put it down! Nora Roberts is an amazing author. Her books never disappoint! Can not wait for the next one!

Oooh, I love, love, love this book! The Awakening is the first installment in The Dragon Heart Legacy series and I wish I could read the second in the series today.

I am torn between giving this 3 and 4 stars. I like the potential of the story and the dog. I read Nora Roberts for the romance, and I did not feel there was enough in this book. [Keegan and Breen fell into bed together much too quickly. I thought their romance would not start until the next book. I didn't like that he went from another woman's bed to hers in such a short amount of time. I needed more development of the love story.

There was a lot of world building and establishing the overall conflict. I do plan on reading the next book in the series.

I will read every single thing that Nora Roberts writes. Her contemporary fantasy novels are excellent. Her trilogies are legendary. *The Awakening* stands up to the name and the genre. This book was unputdownable! I loved it.

Nora Roberts has an extensive fan club, of which I am a member. Her books span many genres. You could pick any genre and I'm pretty sure you'd find a Nora Roberts that fits that category. Her writing is excellent. She can tell a story that will keep you spellbound....another one of her titles....and keep you coming back for the next book.

The Awakening is the first book in a planned series, and I have to admit, I didn't like it. It is a blend of several different genres with her writing style mixing the stories into a confused plot and stalling out at each new chapter. If all you want to know is what color the grass is in Ireland....it's green. This seems to fascinate the main character as she repeats what color the grass and flowers are every step of the way. The historical/ fantasy parts of the book are better, but it seems as if the first part of the book is stretched to meet a page goal. I'm sorry, but I just really cannot believe there is a Nora Roberts' book that I did not like.

The Awakening by Nora Roberts is a captivating novel. I was immediately drawn into this tale and I did not want to put it down. The Awakening is the first installment in The Dragon Heart Legacy series. I thought it was well-written with developed characters and a complex plot. Breen Kelly learns her mother has hidden a vast sum of money from her. Breen is surprised to learn that her father who disappeared many years ago has been sending her money. This money will allow Breen to make changes to her life such as quitting her teaching position. Her roommate and best friend, Marco Olsen suggests she do something that she has always dreamed of doing. Breen has always wanted to visit Ireland. She rents a cottage for the summer in Connemara where she begins to dream of a magical place with red dragons. Breen is in for the adventure of her life. The Awakening is a magical tale. I like that the author took the time to establish the characters, storyline, and setting. Her vivid word imagery brought the scenery alive for me. We get to meet Keegan and Breen’s loving grandmother along with a cast of enchanting folks and creatures. There is good versus evil and a bad woman who is intent on causing conflict. I liked seeing Breen come out of her shell and blossom. Of course, The Awakening ends with a cliffhanger. We must now wait a year for the next tale in The Dragon Heart Legacy series. If you have never wanted to visit Ireland before, you will after reading this book. You can tell that the author did her research. I enjoyed the whimsy and humor in the story. Marco is a delight and I frequently laughed after reading his dialogue. My favorite phrase from The Awakening is, “Girl, take it from an old queen. Be who you are and the heck (I changed this word) with the rest.” The Awakening is a magical tale that will keep you riveted until the very last word.

Welllllll.... Crazy internet lady is right, that's a hell of a cliffhanger!!!

Jokes aside, I loved how much this was different from the typical Nora Roberts, while still so very Nora Roberts. I am anxiously waiting for the next book, that's for sure!

A promising beginning turned into predictable mush and the main character is a whiny brat. This is probably more like 1.5 stars. But I'd like to know what happens to Marco.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

3.8 stars

In The Awakening Nora Roberts starts a new trilogy set half in our world and half in a magical realm which is reached from Ireland. Breen is a young woman in a rut. She finds out her missing father left her a lot of money and she and her best friend travel to Ireland. There she is introduced to the land Talamh, her grandmother and the fact that she has magic and powers.

This book does a lot to set up Talamh and the fight of good vs. evil. I liked the book but didn’t love it. I will most likely read the next book in the series to see what happens.

Being as nice as possible, this was, quite bluntly the worst Nora Roberts book I've ever read. I am normally a huge fan of her works, especially those with a supernatural bent. The Key Trilogy, The Circle Trilogy, etc. They're all fantastic. I even like her work as J.D. Robb. But......not this.

Main issues:

1. Same-same. Yes, I know she loves Ireland, and loves making her male protagonists Irish, but after a while they allllllllllllllll start to blend together. As a result, the characters fail to stand out in your mind and become just another recycled character with a different name.
2. Given the access that Roberts has to a huge editorial team, I found some of the decisions made in the book really weird. Like reintroducing the male character's looks at ~95%. Was the one guy seeing him for the first time? Yes. Did we need a detailed description of him through that character's eyes? No.
3. I loved that she included characters who were not Straight White Men, but I would have dearly loved to see them play more of a role. They were more interesting to me than the main characters were.
4. Way too long for what it is. This story seemed to drag on, like she was trying to get it to proper fantasy doorstopper size. A tighter read would have been far more enjoyable.

There is no doubt that Nora Roberts can write a good book. I’ve had a few excellent adventures with Nora’s stories. I was pretty excited when I saw that she was starting a new fantasy series.

The Awakening looked like it would tick off all of my boxes: fantastical realms, sword-wielding warriors, a down on her luck hero, dragons. Roberts’ new series has all of that and more. The story was enjoyable and well done; it was just missing a certain something.

From my personal point of view Star Wars: A New Hope is the yardstick by which all other series are measured. It’s a pretty high bar to cross. It must be able to stand on its own two feet, it must have characters that I connect with immediately, a villain that personifies evil and an Oh! My! God! moment. This is the winning formula that will make me come clamoring back for more. I found these elements lacking in The Awakening.

As I was reading through The Awakening, I felt that Nora was ticking off a checklist of the elements required in a fantasy book, doing what the readers expect from the genre. Don’t get me wrong, she did a good job of that; it just felt too formulaic to me. While the scenario was good, the characters interesting and the writing spot on, I wanted more: more creativity, a more sinister villain, a more shocking moment. The Awakening did not leave me with desire to keep going with The Dragon Heart Legacy Series. Would I read more Nora Roberts? Hell yeah! But not more of this series.

*4 Stars

Every reader has an author who is his or her go-to author, the one whose books always break reading ennui. The author's stories provide comfort in an anxious world, and a reader will always buy the author's latest book without even reading the synopsis. For me, that author is Nora Roberts. It doesn't matter if her novel is a romantic thriller or fantasy or pure romance, Ms. Roberts' stories always make me feel hopeful no matter how crappy my world is. In other words, I really, really love Nora Roberts. So, for me to say that I believe her latest novel, The Awakening, is probably one of her strongest, if not her best, novel to date, I base my assessment on all of her previous novels, of which there are many.

Ms. Roberts can paint a picture with words. Her worlds, whether fantasy or real, are always gorgeous in their life-like descriptions. Yet, I think her depiction of her fantasy realm of Talamh exceeds anything she has ever written. Her descriptions of Talamh are so vivid that it is almost impossible to believe that it is an imaginary location. You can all but smell the horses in the pasture, feel the breeze off the lake, and hear the wind rustling through the crops. Moreover, even though the realm's entrance is in Ireland, Talamh feels like home. It makes no difference whether you are city- or country-born, northern or southern, or have ever stepped foot in Ireland, there is something about Talamh which is familiar and comforting.

As if that were not enough, the characters in The Awakening are among her strongest portrayals. There is serious character development occurring, even though it is the first book in a trilogy, and not just among the main characters. Breen shows the most obvious growth, but we also see it in her best friend Marco, in Keegan, in Marg, and in other secondary characters. In particular, Breen's issues with her mother hit really hard for anyone with difficult family relations.

Plus, The Awakening appears to break away from Ms. Roberts' usual story structure. The romance, while there, is a slow build. So is the story itself. There is no major clash between the Big Bad and our heroes to signal the end of the first act. Instead, Ms. Roberts takes the time to allow Breen to struggle with her new knowledge and power and to make decisions about her life in Philadelphia as well as in Talamh. This makes for a much richer, more fulfilling novel.

There was no doubt that I would adore The Awakening given my feelings towards all of Ms. Roberts' novels. What did surprise me was the richness and exquisite detail of the story. While expecting something that entertained me, I did not expect such depth of character and setting nor such a well-plotted story that did not rush. While I am always excited at the thought of a new Nora Roberts novel, I am particularly excited and anxious for the next story in the Dragon Heart Legacy series and can only hope she maintains the magic of The Awakening.

The following is a review clipped from a full Christmas book review list found at: https://www.wataugademocrat.com/mountaintimes/columns/in-print-for-the-holidays-16-titles-for-your-christmas-book-giving/article_4a7cd0e8-e064-5b9f-8533-d00322223382.html


Under her own name, Nora Roberts has written hundreds — 225 to be precise — of romance novels, and this output is in addition to her works written as J.D. Robb, Jill March and Sarah Hardesty and in the additional genres of suspense and fantasy.

With this history, it’s no surprise that Roberts was the first author to be inducted in the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame, but a surprise for her most recent novel, “The Awakening,” is that she incorporates romance, suspense and no small amount of fantasy into one work that not only crosses literary boundaries, but also the tastes of readers who might not have plucked a Roberts’s title were it more pigeonholed.

In this series starter, Breen Kelly is a young woman struggling: to pay her student loans, in her relationship with her mother and with the dreams that mysteriously involve a dragon and the magical stories once told to her by a father who disappeared long ago. When Breen learns that she is the owner of an unexpected endowment worth millions, her day job tending bar is traded for a writing career and a journey to Ireland to discover the secrets of her youth. It is there that Breen learns magic is real and that there is more to her than she ever suspected.

In this novel, Roberts weaves some magic of her own in creating a compelling cast of friends and challenges for Breen that craft the beginning of a world readers will only reluctantly want to leave.

It says something about the power of Roberts’s storytelling that it could be argued that the romance and struggles of the real world are even more enchanting than the fantasyland she crafts across the ocean, but then again, this is what the author does best — and here she does it as well as anything she has offered us before.

With illustrated endpapers, and an embossed cover and jacket, St. Martin’s Press’s (https://us.macmillan.com/smp/) design competes evenly with the content in a distinctive volume.

An excellent intro to a new Nora Trilogy. While it sucks that it'll be another year before the next one is out, I ended up buying a copy of this for my mother in law's stocking.

I'll admit, I'm not into the whole time portal genre of story; but when it is as well done as La Nora's one cannot help but be sucked into the story. Nicely done, looking forward to the next one.

The Awakening by Nora Roberts is the beginning of a new series called the Dragon Heart Legacy and what a beginning! It has all of the elements that readers have come to expect from a Robert’s novel. Love, mystery, and the supernatural are just a few of the elements of this story.
We meet the main character, who is so downtrodden and broke (money wise) to boot. Breen feels like a loser and her mom doesn’t help the situation at all. And who is that guy that keeps popping up unexpectedly? Suddenly she discovers that mommy dearest has been hiding a fortune that is hers, sent to her by her dad who left many years ago. OMG! So what does she do? Promptly quits her job and plans a trip to Ireland to search for the father that left her behind. Will she find him? Will she learn why he left? Will she learn of her legacy? Ah, the only way to find out is to read this excellent book and begin the journey to discover all that Ms. Roberts offers in her tale of discovery.
Thanks to netgalley and publisher for an advanced copy of this book for an honest opinion.