I enjoyed these stories a lot. ( )

My favorite of the three I think since Mia is just such an interesting person. ( )

Are you one of those people who think of witches as ugly, old creatures? If you said yes to that, you must meet the new age witches of the book, ‘Face the fire’ who are beautiful, young women leading normal lives.

Nora Roberts is the bestselling author of contemporary fiction with more than a million copies of her books in print.

The ‘Three Sisters island’ trilogy is a very interesting series of books by Nora Roberts. The previous two books in the trilogy were “Heaven and Earth” and “Dance upon the Air” . The third book in the series is “Face the fire” which is Mia’s story and the last book in the trilogy of the story of the three sisters.

In this particular book she weaves an absorbing tale of magic, suspense and love. It discusses the crafts of witches and dispels quite a few of the stereotypical notions associated with witches. The story goes something like this.

Mia Devlin is an attractive, young lady living a reclusive life on the ‘Three Sisters Island’. Having loved and lost once, she keeps her emotions highly guarded and leads an austere life. Her painful past is shared by her onetime love, Sam Logan. Circumstances had forced him to leave Mia and the island to go away to the city for good.

A heartbroken Mia somehow picks up the broken pieces of her life and proceeds to invest all her energies into gardening and her book store-Café Book. She also shares a secret with two more friends of hers, of their true identity of being witches, protecting the island from a centuries-old dreaded curse.

As abruptly as Sam had left, he returns back to the island with a dual mission. He wants to relaunch the only hotel on the island (Magick Inn-owned by him) and also win back Mia. But a lot of water has flown below the bridge since his departure. On his return he is faced by a cold, detached Mia who (on the surface) seems to have forgotten him and the love they once shared.

If this impediment was not enough, he also has to face the ire of Mia’s witch friends, who are extremely protective about Mia and won’t let Sam disturb her again. As he slowly tries to win back Mia’s affections, the deadline looms large of a centuries old curse on the ‘Three Sisters Island’.

Mia’s element is Fire while her other friends, Nell and Ripley are Air and Earth respectively. The trio of witches constitutes ‘the three sisters’ whose lives are interlinked with the island’s doomed fortunes.

The previous books explain the history of the curse on the island. As the persecutions against the witches began, the three elements (Air, Fire and Earth) created an island called ‘The Three Sisters Island’. Here the witches can live safely without any fears but there is a catch. At the turn of the century, darkness will push the island into the sea unless it’s defeated. Now the fate of the island lies in the defeat of darkness by the combination of the powers of all the three sisters and Sam Logan.

• Does Mia let Sam back into her life?
• Has Sam come back to the island with the right intentions?
• Will the island be saved in time from the doom and destruction fated for it?
These are the questions that can only be answered by the book “Face the Fire” a totally engaging read by Nora Roberts.

You can read this book without having read the previous two books and still be entertained. If you are one of those people who have not read about witches, potions and other related mumbo jumbo then this is a good place to start. All said and done this ‘fiery’ book is a perfect read on a cold, wintry evening. ( )

Can't remember the details of this trilogy, but I remember reading them years ago. We have them in Dutch in our library. ( )

I had trouble finishing this book. I enjoyed the first in the trilogy. I thought the second wasn't quite as good as the first. I looked forward to this one because Mia was such a strong character. With the first two I was always drawn to continue reading. With this one I had none of the pull to keep going to see what happens. I found the story and her development much less interesting than that of Nell. I know that the idea was that we would see more of the inner workings of Mia in this book, but from the beginning she seemed almost like a different character than we saw in the earlier books. I agree with an Amazon reviewer who said her relationship with Sam was "hackneyed". I thought that much more could have been done with both of their characters. And I found the ending a let down. It was almost like Nora Roberts was thinking what I was thinking - Let's just get this over with. ( )