Binding: Audio CD
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781423337904
Edition: Abridged
Format: Abridged
ISBN: 1423337905
Label: Brilliance Audio on CD
Languages: Array
Manufacturer: Brilliance Audio on CD
Number Of Items: 5
Publication Date: 2008-11-25
Publisher: Brilliance Audio on CD
Release Date: 2008-11-25
Studio: Brilliance Audio on CD

Years ago, after their blood brother ritual, Gage, Fox, and Caleb emerged from the woods, each with a piece of bloodstone. Now, it will become their weapon in the final fight against the demon they awakened. Winner take all...

Shared nightmares, visions of blood and fire, and random violence begin to plague the longtime friends and Quinn, Layla, and Cybil, the women bound to them by fate. None of them can ignore the fact that, this year, the demon has grown stronger feeding off of the terror it creates. But now, the three pieces of the bloodstone have been fused back together. If only they could figure out how to use it.

A gambling man like Gage has no trouble betting on his crew to find a way. And though he and Cybil share the gift of seeing the future, that s all they share. Were they to take their flirtation to the next level, it would be on their own terms, not because fate decreed it. But Gage knows that a woman like Cybil with her brains and strength and devastating beauty can only bring him luck. Good or bad has yet to be determined and could mean the difference between absolute destruction or an end to the nightmare for Hawkins Hollow.

Customer Rating:
Summary: It was just okay...
Comment: I'm going to give this book and the series in general 3 stars. I liked parts of it but as another reviewer said I caught myself skimming through portions of it. I wouldn't tell someone not to read it but it wasn't one of my favorites.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: By far one of her best
Comment: Of course we all love her stuff, It just seeps into us I think. I don't know how but it get's you right where you need it to. PS. Support the ladies, Tao Cycle Therapy: Natural Happiness via Self Directed Cure for Chronic Anxiety & Depression [Updated 2008 3nd Edition]

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Customer Rating:
Summary: good, not great.
Comment: I am a Nora Roberts fan. I read all her books including all the ones she writes under "J.D. Robb." I know how the basic story is going to go as it's usually the same in every book she writes. I enjoy them just the same. Some of her trilogies are amazing, while others have a great premise, but don't quite follow through. That is how I would categorize this latest trilogy. The idea was great, but I'm not so sure it needed to be three books long. I'm pretty sure this story would have been better executed in one longer book, like The Three Fates. This last book, The Pagan Stone, dragged at parts and was repetitive in others. The end was anti-climatic after three books of build up. Had this been one book the ending would have probably felt more satisfying.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, a great read and perfect ending!
Comment: Loved this series, I was hooked with Blood Brothers and it only got better as the series continued. The characters stayed true to form through out the three books and I believe Nora Roberts does a fantastic job developing their stories so well that you feel the same emotions as it goes and her visions are so vivid in my head as I'm reading along. Great read!!!!!!!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but not Roberts' best (some spoilers follow)
Comment:
I really enjoy most Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb novels. I particularly loved Valley of Silence, another Roberts trilogy-ending supernatural/fantasy-thriller/romance novel, one filled with imagination, emotion and passion, and wonderful characterizations. I had hoped The Pagan Stone would be as good. It's entertaining, sometimes pretty scary, but simply not of the same caliber.

The Pagan Stone takes a very long time to get started. I lost interest and put it down several times before it finally got going. While trilogy-enders must of course do some plot recapping, I thought the amount was excessive in this novel. So many of the episodes were similar, and the characters, unlike the deftly-drawn Cian McKenna or Eve Dallas, were not very deeply developed. Some interesting episodes were cut short, disappointing the reader, while others seemed to drag on, take place off-stage, or be a rehash of similar earlier ones.

Some of the best and most interesting writing in the novel takes place when characters interact with other human beings rather than with the rather tedious demon. For instance, the heroes' encounters with town bully Derrick Napper were chilling and written with tension, giving the reader satisfaction when he's finally defeated. On the other hand, Bill Turner's sacrifice would have been more gripping (and less cliched) had he actually survived it, as his changing relationship with his son was one of the most interesting conflicts in the book. As most of the mystery of the Hollow had been revealed by the second book in the series, there wasn't a whole lot left for the characters to discover in The Pagan Stone, other than figuring out the logistics of surviving the Big Battle with the demon.

I thought the setting and scope of this trilogy was too limited to effectively sustain the plot and relationships without a lot of repetition. Lacking the insightful and well-developed characterizations of the Chesapeake (Quinn Brothers) books and Valley of Silence, the story of Hawkins Hollow occupied a very small stage. Compared to the town of St. Chris (in the Chesapeake series), the Hollow seemed hardly populated. Perhaps the Sign of Seven would have been better as a stand-alone book. For example, even though Stephen King's It (a novel with a somewhat similar plot to The Pagan Stone) was made into a miniseries, it was wisely written as a single novel.

However, as I said, there are some very entertaining, emotional, and scary parts of The Pagan Stone, and overall I enjoyed it once I got past the first 100 pages and the plot began to move. The characters, while not particularly deep or unique, were entirely likable, believable, and sometimes quite interesting and touching. Some scenes, such as the "blow-up" between the three couples, sprang to life and all but jumped off the page. When she's at her best, Roberts is a master of dialog and characterization. She has a great sense of humor and irony. The Sign of Seven trilogy was entertaining, but not among her best work.

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