Sweep by Cate Tiernan

My first official review! Well, official according to me. Anyway, I just finished book 8 of Cate Tiernan's Sweep  series, Changeling. I read book 1 last year in February and have been slowly acquiring the books over the year. I have 9 and 15, now I just need to get the ones in between so I can finish. :)

I love this series. It revolves around Morgan Rowlands, a high school junior who discovers she is a blood witch, a witch with true magick. Of course, it is a handsome, charismatic blood witch, Cal, who introduces her to the world of Wicca. The series follows Morgan's struggles as she discovers how powerful she is and that not everything is strictly good or evil, Wicca included.

I really enjoy books about witches and Wicca, beginning with L.J. Smith's The Secret Circle trilogy I read in the early 90s. I put off beginning the Sweep series for awhile because, honestly, the cover of book 1 did not look very exciting. :) I am so glad I finally read it. The books are fairly short and and easy to read, yet the plot pulls you in and you get caught up in the lives of the characters. I don't always like Morgan, she has an irritating trait to be stubborn in her thoughts and not always find out the information from all sides. She is also a little naive, which I suppose is part of her growth.

I can't help but feel in The Changeling that there is more to the story that Morgan is not taking the time to discover. I don't want to talk too much about the plot, because it will give away spoilers from early books if you haven't read this series, yet. This series has everything- magick, friendships, complex familial relationships, romance, frustrated romance, betrayal, even shape-shifting.

I know these books have been published for awhile, and I wish I had found them sooner. They are now being re-published in threes as omnibuses, but I am working on getting the individual books, I'm not a big fan of omnibuses. That being said, I did just get the Balefire Omnibus, also by Cate Tiernan, which has all 4 books from that series in it. I enjoy Cate Tiernan's writing, and while the subjects are YA, she writes in a way that I, as an adult, can enjoy and get into. The reader becomes fully invested in the lives of the characters and I can't wait to start the next book! If I had a star rating, I'd give the series 4 out of 5 stars, because, really- sometimes Morgan has me rolling my eyes in exasperation, dangit! She's supposed to do things the way I want her to. LOL

I'm one of those readers who flips through the book to see what is going to happen, and sometimes, I even read parts of the end before I finish. :) I don't mind spoilers and actually go looking for them! I like to know what's going to happen, it keeps me reading. I found a timeline of the events of this series on a website somewhere, so I kind of knew the major events and plot reveals that were going to occur throughout the series, but I still enjoyed seeing how they unfurled. 

Cate Tiernan's website: http://catetiernan.org/
and you can follow her on Twitter! @CateTiernan

the books in the Sweep series:
1. Book of Shadows
2. The Coven
3. Blood Witch
4. Dark Magick
5. Awakening
6. Spellbound
7. The Calling
8. Changeling
9. Strife
10. Seeker
11. Origins
12. Eclipse
13. Reckoning
14. Full Circle
15. Night's Child - which is told from Morgan's daughter's POV


If you know of any other great series with witches in them, let me know! I love Rachel Morgan, of course! And I mentioned L.J. Smith's witches.

I am new to this, so if you have any suggestions, I would gladly appreciate them. :)