Blood Brothers by Nora Roberts

Picking this one up to read was a stretch for me. I am not one to read romance, which is what I thought Nora Roberts always wrote, however I was very pleasantly surprised. Story about three childhood friends who camp in the woods of their hometown of Hawkins Hollow on the eve of their tenth birthdays. They decide to spend the night at the Pagan Stone, a place that has long been forbidden to them by their parents. As midnight approaches they take an oath that they will always be friends, cutting their arms and joining their blood, to make them blood brothers, over the Pagan Stone. This blood joining releases an evil that has been trapped in the earth since the 1600's. They walk out of the woods with all small boyhood injuries healed, an immunity to future illnesses, and each with a gift. Every 7 years, all hell breaks loose in Hawkins Hollow on the week of their birthdays and they are left to clean up the mess, with each year things getting stronger. People go mad. There are rapes, murders, suicides and it all links back to what happened on the eve of the boys, now men's, tenth birthdays.

A reporter of the paranormal comes to town to do a story on the strange events during the 21st year of the occurrences. As soon as she comes to town, she starts having strange experiences also, experiences only the men have had until now. Also present is a woman who work at a boutique in New York, who upon having strange dreams about the Hollow, packs up and comes there, for no reason she can explain. She has never been to the Hollow nor heard of it, but finds her way with no help from directions. Also a friend of the author, who also starts to experience things upon her arrival.

What are the women's ties to the men, why are they experiencing this paranormal along with the men who were there that initial night, and what is to be said about all of the occurrences happening so far ahead of the 21st year, and the fact that they seem so much stronger?

Very engaging, I read it in one day, and I am looking forward to getting the next book in the series to see what happens next. I am very glad I went out of my reading "comfort zone" to pick this one up.

4 stars