The Awakening

Author: Joy Nash
Published: July 2007 (Love Spell)
Category: Paranormal Romance
Series: Immortals #3
Rating: 8/10

It appears the four heroines of the series will be witches representing the four elements, as earth and fire were in the first two books, and Christine, the heroine in The Awakening, is a strong water witch, and her powers happened to be tied to her sensual side. Basically, she gets horny when she does magic, and that works well for our hero, Kalen, son of the goddess aspect Uni. He's an art dealer and an artist as well, but he's having artist's block, and has taken to sleeping with Leanna, a Sidhe muse. She's been with various writers, artists, and musicians, giving them inspiration while sucking life out of them and causing them to commit suicide (i.e. Cobain). However, Leanna's magic isn't working for Kalen, as each work he creates after sex with her is a piece of crap.

Christine, searching for Kalen after seeing him in her scrying bowl, interrupts Leanna's death magic spell during one of her sex tours in Scotland. Leanna takes tourists to a set of sacred stones and performs lewd acts and sucks life magic from them so she can maintain her youthful appearance, as she is half human. This isn't keeping her from aging though, so she makes a deal with a demon to conceive Kalen's Immortal baby and steal its soul so she will be immortal. Of course, Leanna wants to kill Christine after embarrassing her in front of her patrons, so Kalen teleports her to safety, back at his castle. And they do it, and it turns out Christine is a muse, and he is able to create beautiful art again.

Because of this, and his developing love for her, Kalen keeps her on the small island his castle sits upon, despite Christine's protests. That part might be disturbing to some readers, as he's keeping her against her will for sex. She keeps on trying to convince him to join the cause for life magic, but after much hemming and hawing, it turns out he's not allowed to kill anyways, or risk banishment by his mother, Uni. In the past, he failed his mother and the people he was supposed to protect, so he'd spent the last several centuries living in solitude and getting rich as a hoity toity art dealer.

I found the magic in The Awakening hugely interesting, what with the addition of Mac the Sidhe demigod and all the magical Celtic creatures. As Kalen won't use offensive magic and risk killing someone, non-attack magic is more prominent, with his defensive magic and teleporting magic.

This is my favorite book of the series so far! Now on to the last book right away...