Morrigan's Cross by Nora Roberts

Hoyt MacCionaoith has lost his brother, his twin, Cian, to the Vampire Lilith, who turned her into one of her own. Hoyt attacks her, but she is too powerful for him. He's only able to drive her away with his magician's arts, but knows he has lost the battle to kill her.

That night, however, he knows he can defeat Lilith- if he turns away from white magic and instead embraces black magic, which feeds on blood, death and pain. But even though he'd do anything to defeat Lilith and save his brother, he can't do this thing, and he collapses into an exhausted sleep. In his dreams, the Goddess Morrigan comes to him and sets him a task: to destroy Lilith. But to do so, he must travel to the future and enlist the aid of only five other warriors- and one of them is Cian.

Fearing for the safety of his family should he leave, Hoyt recieves from the goddess several cross medallions, which he gives to his family before he travels to the future via a portal in the stone circle known as "The Dance of the Gods". But on his way to his home, injured, he is attacked by wolves which are actually vampires. As he takes shelter in a stone circle, he is healed and comforted by a vision of a woman- a woman who is a witch.

When Hoyt travels to the future, he lands in New York City, where his brother Cian, now an old and established vampire, is living. Cian no longer drinks the blood of humans, and he certainly doesn't like Lilith- but it takes Hoyt a great deal of convincing to get him to go against Lilith. Not out of fear, but because Cian doesn't believe that any humans could take on Lilith and her coterie and live.

With Cian comes his friend and manager of his club, King, an ex-military man who Cian saved and rescued when Larkin was but a child. It's also here in the future that Hoyt meets the woman who saved him in the forest. Her name is Glenna, and she's a hereditary witch who is also an artist. While Hoyt doesn't necessarily trust witches, she did save his life, and she is convinced that she is one of the warriors called by Morrigan.

From New York, they travel to Ireland, where Lilith resides, and take refuge in Cian and Hoyt's old homestead, which Cian has bought and restored, but with updated lighting and plumbing. There, they begin to train, even though none of them can touch Cian when it comes to speed, they must train to have any chance at all of succeeding in their quest.

Soon, they are joined by Larkin and Moira, warriors from another world called Geall, where the final confrontation with Lilith will take place. Larkin is a shapeshifter, and Moira is a mere human, but she is also ruler of Geall. With the final two warriors in place, their victory seems assured- until King is abducted and turned by Lilith's vampires, and the assembled warriors are forced to kill him.

Confirmation that King was not the sixth warrior comes with the arrival of Brenna Murphy, a demon hunter who takes on three vampires by herself, and wins easily. But much to Hoyt and Cian's shock, she bears a cross given by Morrigan herself, passed down in her family. She is the descendant of their younger sister Nola, and the sixth warrior.

But even as they fight together and grow closer, a special bond is forming between Hoyt and Glenna, a bond of love and caring that will draw them closer together than the others. But can two people so separated by time find a binding and everlasting love?

I don't normally read or enjoy contemporary romance- I really prefer historical romance, or, as Nora Roberts herself writes under her pen name J.D. Robb, futuristic romance. But even though this series is about vampires, and has a sympathetic vampire in it (Cian), I just didn't enjoy it. Oh, I'm sure it was a fine romance, but I found it rather boring and tedious, and after I struggled to finish it, I had absolutely no desire to read the other two books in the series. No desire at all, and that's unusual for me.

Part of it was probably the modern setting- not really my favorite, but I felt no real connection to the characters, so even as Hoyt and Brenna fell deeply in love, my only reaction was a sort of "that's nice". Part of the problem also is that there is no real resolution in the book- not even some kind of physical confrontation and/or battle that makes me feel like the characters were gaining headway in their battle against Lilith. Oh, sure, there was a little confrontation before the wedding that pretty much ends the book, but it felt like the story just petered out rather than drawing to any kind of meaningful conclusion.

I found myself not being able to get into this book and this story. Yes, above all else it's a love story, but I wasn't even able to get excited by that, much less the larger story of confrontation with Lilith and her vampires. I'll be passing these books on (because I made sure I had all three in the trilogy before I started reading), but I honestly can't recommend them, or this one. Sorry, Ms. Roberts!