The Beginning - Book I - The Four Series by Margaret A. Millmore

3 stars

Genres: Fantasy, romance, vampires, werewolves

Format: ebook

190 pages

Published by World Castle Publishing

Published in August 5th 2012

ISBN: 1938961099

ISBN13: 9781938961090

Where to Buy: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

View on Goodreads

Note: I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from Goodreads:

They do exist and they always have. They live, love, and work amongst us and they are part of us. But they are different too, they are stronger and they live longer. They are the topic of many books, movies and myths, but their existence remains a secret, not everyone would accept them. And like us, they have those that are simply evil. Keeping these evil ones under control is the price they must pay to continue the lives they love. They must protect their human brethren from the Dark Ones, those that would rather kill than preserve.

Century after century the good battled the Dark Ones, always prevailing and preserving the lives of their beloved humans. In the 17th century, two powerful Dark leaders emerged, they organized their forces and a bitter war ensued. It was a fight to the death and the good thought they’d won. Four warriors led the battle, four warriors whose strength was beyond anything they knew, four warriors whose legacy had to be protected…

The good formed a consortium and with the help of a powerful sorcerer, a spell was cast; a spell that would follow the warriors’ lineage in case their power was needed again. The warriors are long dead, but their heirs are not, and now they must fight. The Dark Ones have re-emerged, they are more powerful, more resourceful and they want to control mankind and the world.

My Review:
The world overall was set up pretty well.  I did not like the time shift parts in the beginning of the story it just seemed like one chapter jumped into the next.  The couple of chapters from Sam’s point of view also seemed weird when everything else was from Clare's perspective.  

Although Charlie did say that the vampires and werewolves were confused about the spell and why Kate was involved going throughout the whole book we did not find even a slight answer to that.  I know there are going to be sequels and this book set everything up nicely but didn't really explain a lot except just the basics.  

The character development was a little flat too; in actuality the reader did not learn that much about the characters themselves.  They were kind of just there.  I really liked Charlie and all the mystery surrounding him, he was also the most well explained and developed character out of everyone.  The reader can get the sense that he was flawed but also had redeeming qualities to his personality and I hope there are a lot more interactions with him and Clare.  I'm interested to see how this story is going to progress.

About the Author:

A native Californian, currently residing with her husband in San Francisco; she is the grandniece of Irish author Benedict Kiely and the second cousin of Irish author Sharon Owens. Current published works are: Doppelganger Experiment (World Castle Publishing, September 2011) and The Beginning - Book I - The Four Series(World Castle Publishing, August 2012); The Change - Book II - The Four Series (World Castle Publishing, October 2012) - release dates for books III and IV are expected in December 2012 through February 2013.

Author webpage: http://www.margaretmillmore.com