#Cate Tiernan

[quotelr]

There is beauty and darkness in everything. Sorrow in joy, life in death, thorns on the rose.

Cate Tiernan, Awakening

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

JOMP BPC - August 18th - Won't Read Again

as much as I loved the Sweep series by Cate Tiernan, I don't think I could read a 15-volume series again 😅 too intimidating!

[shesamreads]

I read 14 books in January. How did I read 14 books in January?

I started listening to audiobooks at work, which is great because data entry can be a slog. I also cut into my crafting time because sometimes I just don't feel like pulling a project out.

My Goodreads goal is 48, which is 4 books a month. I can definitely do that! I can't say I'll keep January's energy up the whole year, though. I know we already have a busy February.

Still, a pretty good start.

[venusbloo]

2024 July Reading Wrap Up

**All links below are to the books’ respective StoryGraph pages for reference. I do not receive any compensation for clicking these links!! How is it already August? I feel like this year has flown by so far, and while I read a ton in July, I once again did not stick to my planned reading. I did read some of what I planned, but I let a few other books go in favor of deep diving into a young…

[20smthnreviews]

Immortal Be-loved this series

Ok so after like 8 years I finally got my hands on the last book in the Immortal Beloved series by Cate Tiernan. I read the first two as a teenager, over and over again, so this book series is kinda special to me and it makes me insane that twighlight got the reception it did & noone's ever even heard of Immortal Beloved.

Anyway.

As a normal person does when having just finished the last book in a series that is now a decade old, I went looking for fanfic. AND THERE IS NONE. screaming, crying, throwing up, etc. So I went onto goodreads, bc I had to make sure I wasn't the only person who read and loved this series - thankfully I am not. There's a lot of praise for this series (and well deserved praise at that!) but the ones that caught me off guard were the bad reviews. Most of them were complaining about how they didn't like the main character, or the books are too slow, or the fact that for a grounded fantasy book it has shockingly little in terms of big fight scenes or crazy magic shenanigans... Which just tells me that they missed the point.

This book series isn't really about magic or fights or anything like that. It's about reconciling who you used to be with who you are now, learning to make better choices for yourself and the people around you, learning to forgive yourself and be better, just in and of yourself, among other things. It's about learning who you are, and that there's no expiry date on anything, there's always time to do better.

Does it have magic? Yes. Does it have fights? Yes. A compelling story and frankly a super-hot love interest? Yes. Are these what makes the books good? Well they help, sure, but the heart of the books doesn't come from them.

Quite a few of the positive reviews talk about having a warm & fuzzy feeling after finishing these books and I so relate to that. These are the people who got the points the books make, the importance of slowing down and stopping yourself from just diving head-long into yet another distraction. The books are slow, yes, but they're intentionally that way, and if that's not your cup of tea then so be it - I don't know why you'd critise a book for that though.

My only gripes are that the last book 1) has an entirely different cover art style to the first two? and 2) the ending does feel a little rushed. It would have been lovely to have a couple more chapters to resolve the romance plot line (we get so little of it in the first place T-T) and a few loose ends - as is it does feel a little "and-they-all-got-happy-endings-and-everything's-great-The-End". That being said, no book is perfect and the reasons I love this series WAY outweigh the couple pernickity bits I have... If Tiernan were to write a flash-forward novella though, I'd be a very very happy gal. (We're going to avoid the fact that that is HIGHLY unlikely to happen. The last book came out in 2013.)

TLDR? Read these books, please. I need someone to talk to about them! If not for that, then come for the dry humour, spikey but loveable main character and the sneaking suspicion that the books might be teaching you something...

[seedsofwinter]

66 episodes across more than 5 and a half years. Talking about books by:

Annette Curtis Klause

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

LJ Smith

Cate Tiernan

Holly Black

Christopher Pike

RL Stine

Melissa Marr

And a few other little extras.

Listen to Backlist and Chill

On Spotify

On Apple Podcasts

On Podbean

And be sure to check out their Patreon for exclusives!

[ksiega-jesiennych-demonow2]

"Tak, to dlatego robiłam wszystko, żeby zagłuszyć emocje. Bo one bolą."

- Cate Tiernan, Ukochany nieśmiertelny

[carbon-cyanide]

☆ Wednesdays child is full of woe ☆

Tomorrow is the first day of classes & for the last 24 hours, I've been dealing with the worst craniofacial pain I've ever felt thanks to my EDS. After lots of meds, ice, and a trip to the PT for taping and massage, I'm somewhat feeling better & just hoping I can make it through the rest of the week 🫠

Tomorrow is archaeology core, then to the genetics lab to finish working on manuscript revisions. We have to submit those by next week, but we're almost finished, so I'm hoping to submit it by Friday. Then, we can celebrate getting our first paper published!

Listening to: Fiona Apple - extraordinary machine 🎧

Reading: Spellbound by Cate Tiernan 🍁 (an old favorite that I like to re-read every fall)

[maddiviner]

I remember these books! Me and some of my (online) witch-y friends read them back when I was a teenager in the early 2000s. I haven't thought about them in years but I remember them being really cozy and charming for the most part. Morgan was a great character, and I wonder what it would've been like as a television series.

I know the series plays fast and loose with terms and history (to put it mildly), as was common in the late 1990s, but a lot of young witches from back then remember this fondly. The same author wrote a similar series called Balefire several years later, but I haven't read it.

[moonlightreal]

Circle of Three and Sweep

2001 was a good year for books.

In fact I think I picked up the first few Circle of Three and the first few Sweep on the same bookstore visit. They have the same basic plot: “Girl is drawn into witchcraft” but they approach it in different ways. Both of the series have interesting backstories, they were written for different reasons but have a lot of similarities, including similar issues.

If you liked The Secret Circle, both series will be right up your alley.

Circle of Three was written by author Isobel Bird to present real Wicca to teenage readers who have plenty of more fantasy-based books but nothing to show them what they might experience if they start studying Wicca. The story follows sporty Kate, studious Annie and rebel Cooper as they become friends and follow a year-and-a-day Wiccan study program they find at a local metaphysical shop. Each book focuses on an aspect of Wicca: tarot cards, psychic dreams, healing, dealing with Wicca's dodgy public image, and celebrating the Wheel of the Year. The series also focuses a lot on the community aspect of Wicca as the girls make friends with adult Wiccans, ask for guidance, and help others.

Sweep was written by author Cate Tiernan to sell a book series. The story follows Morgan as she falls for the hot new boy at school, finds out he’s Wicca, then finds out there aren’t just Wiccans there are also Blood Witches and she’s one too. Morgan deals with warring covens each led by a hot boy who may or may not be Morgan’s soulmate, discovering that she’s adopted since Blood Witches can’t have children with humans, and facing the evil that destroyed her birth parents. Most of the characters are teens, but Morgan also deals with the Council of Witches and a Seeker, empowered to judge witches who misuse their powers.

So they are very different series. In only one of them does someone get stabbed by an athame and fall off a cliff.

But they are also very similar series. Both describe rituals and magical tools, both have spells, both have plenty of boy-crazy from the lead characters, Kate and Morgan. Both are good. Both also tend to wobble annoyingly between magical realism and fantasy.

Sweep starts out with quite reality-based information about Wicca but veers off into Blood Witches by the end of the first book. Circle of Three starts similarly and even has one character refer to another as a “Buffy witch, they think Wicca is all about making supernatural things happen”… and then in the next book Cooper uses her psychic visions to lead the police to the body of a murder victim.

Which is… interesting. Isobel Bird meant the series to reflect her experiences in Wicca so is this the kind of thing that happened in her coven? Psychics offering help to detectives certainly happens, but whether any case has been solved based purely on their input is still very he-said she-said. Psychics claim to have done it but they might lie for fame and money, police departments generally say not but they might lie to keep their dignity or for obscure legal reasons. But psychics helping cops is definitely not a normal thing that will happen to any teenage Wiccan. And that’s only Circle of Three’s first voyage away from normality. The girls meet real fae and ghosts. Did Isobel Bird have a truly wild Wiccan life? Did she think the series would be better if she stretched things a bit? Or did the editor pressure her to spice things up? Who can say, but it does make the series read a bit strange as it tries to pick a lane between fantasy and magical realism.

And both series were written under pen names. Looking at the authors behind the names explains why the two series went the way they did.

Sweep was written by Gabrielle Charbonnet, who has written quite a lot under her own name. according to wiki, Charbonnet “participated in the editing of” the Secret Circle trilogy, which explains a lot—or would, but Tiernan credits Ann Bradshares of Traveling Pants fame for coming up with the idea for Sweep. I get the impression that a publisher thought a witch series would do well and several people contributed to ‘Cate Tiernan.’

Circle of Three was written by Michael Thomas Ford, a gay Wiccan man who mostly writes about gay topics. That’s why the pen name; the publisher didn’t think an authors name that leads to a whole lotta gay stuff would be good for selling a series for teenage girls.

Both series are 15 books long, and both were meant to be longer but had their plugs pulled when sales sank. Both series suffer from “some parts are definitely better than other parts”, as we all might expect from such long series! They also both have a certain amount of boy drama and general silliness, but they’re both great fun. Highly recommended!

After enjoying these two so much I keep my eyes open for similar series. There have been a few. Blue is for Nightmares and sequels were all right. The Daughters of the Moon series is great. Nonfiction author Silver Ravenwolf wrote a series about teenage witches and it was terrrrrible. There’s also a very obscure series called “The Circle” by Melaina Faranda, which could have been really good but the writing never quite got there and the series vanished into the mist after three maybe four volumes. Nothing ever quite matched the glorious series of 2001.

[capinejghafa]

BOOKS

tagged by @saritasoyyo thank you!

Rules: in a text post, list ten books that have stayed with you in some way. don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you.

ok, so i’ve read a lot crap... and sometimes i question my taste in books. so, don't think of this as recommendations. what so ever. Also, I don't tend to read solo books, and 9 out 10 times I accidentally pick up a series.

ASOIAF by grrm. I have a tattoo of the House Martell sigil enough said.

Six of Crows by leigh Bardugo. I first listened to this on audible and I know shocking... but if you've never experienced the audio version, it's such a good listen to. But also it's good on it's own too! I read/listened to this after reading a miserable series and it helped me out my depression. So say what you want about audiobooks lol

Wallflower verse by Lisa Kleypas. Did the series age well? No. But did this insp my love of historical romance? Yes. Also, I have read all of this series... there's a lot. I'm unashamed.

Scarlet Scars Series by J.M. Darhower. Tbh this is a spinoff of a pretty awful series and none of this should work for me... but there's something about reading this when you're in a depression or self-destructive mood that put things in an interesting pov.

Sweep series by Cate Tiernan. I read this when I was 14 going on 15. And oof reading it now it tough but I did love it as a kid and have three complete editions of this specific series.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. This list doesn't have to be good lol I have the longest history with this series and it's just part of me... whether or not I like it.

Charley Davidson series by Darynda Jones. Such a promising start that left me hate reading by book 8. but did i finish the series? yes.

Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray. I debated on adding this because I don’t know if it stuck with me for the right reasons, but i think about it sometimes and I even did a reread a few months ago.

The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot. I read this as an adult™ and the entire time I was like Meg definitely didn’t know how to write a character with depression respectfully and it shows. But I think for what it’s worth, as I’m not the targeted audience, it’s a fast and somewhat charming read. And the reason why I can never watch PD2 again lol

Beautiful Creatures Series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. This is another one that i was not the targeted demo, but it stayed with me in a way that some of the books I was reading around this time didn’t *coughs in romance novels*. I love the potential of the world and what it could have been. And I think about that potential a lot.

did you all need an explanation? no. but i was in a mood to talk about my weird book choices lol i did not follow the rules *looks away*

tagging (no pressure): @totchipanda @linearao3 @whatanybodygets @genuineformality and anyone who wants to talk about books

[skyeventide]

Hey. Is your username by any chance a reference to the character from Cate Tiernan's Sweep series? 👀

oh my god it IS

a series I read as a teenager and I don't think I finished it even, but I liked the sound of this character's name so much that I stole it. that was before I read that the character in question was a lesbian, even. it was fate.

[10-dutchies-12-bicycles]

cant listen to the oh hellos bc my brain processing is too slow so all songs sound like 115% too fast. cant listen to maneskin bc if a song is the tiniest bit too repetitive i will do violence. finished atla and pantheon rewatches so Now What..... nothing interesting on youtube. no executive function for new experiences or productive tasks. its going to take too long for me to find a 70k ao3 bookmark that i will absolutely definitely not get frustrated with for a tiny inconsequential typo OR thats too complex.... so theres only one thing left

save me books on my bookshelf that ive already read 30 times since i was 12.......

worst sleep quality in Months i cant believe i lived like this for 24 yrs wtf

constantly on the verge of throwing shit, hitting shit, crying OR panicking. or several at once ig. if i see that stupid ad with the cow again ill bite my phone in half. have a pop song stuck in my head which wouldn't be a problem the past few months but today it makes me feel like im in one of those hydraulic press tiktoks. adhd symptoms are back at like half strength? also i have a headache AND some kinda psychosomatic stomachache

[foxcassius]

writing projects ive always wanted to do but havent had decent inspiration for:

some kind of horrible emo ya book re: fallen or smth like that

some kind of witchcraft-heavy ya book with too many hot boys with unnatural eye colors (re: cate tiernan's sweep series)

vaguely medieval fantasy gay book set in a snowy place

the interactive fiction idea that i've never gotten around to really solidifying into anything meaningful that's a cross between fred chappell and tove jansson

[backlistbacklog]

[taylorfennersbookishworld]

Time Travel Thursday: February 2014-2024

Time Travel Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Budget Tales Book Blog where readers take a look back at what they were reading this time last year (or the year before or the year before that…) and compare it to what you are reading now. This week I’m traveling back to February 2014 for a fun coincidence! Ten years ago this month I was reading the Sweep series by Cate Tiernan for the first time…