Book Review of Visions of Skyfire by Regan Hastings

Title: Visions of Skyfire

Author: Regan Hastings

Release Date: October 4th, 2011

Genre: Adult Paranormal Romance

Teresa Santiago has awakened her abilities to summon lightning but is unable to control her power-or her attraction to Rune, her Eternal protector and destined partner. Now, Teresa and Rune must locate a missing artifact of unimaginable power before it unleashes the forces of darkness on the world. But with enemies both mortal and magical on their trail, Teresa and Rune discover that only through sacrifice will love conquer all…

Summary from Goodreads.com

My Review: I fell in love with this world in the first book, Visions of Magic (review here), and was so excited to dive back in with Visions of Skyfire. The first book was amazing! The characters were fantastic and the rich storyline sucked me right in, but Regan has somehow managed to make this book even better than the first. I was worried because the second book in a series do not always live up to the first, but Visions of Skyfire exceeded all my expectations. With each new witch awakening and discovering her destiny, we get a new piece of the puzzle and discover what has happened to all of them over the past eight hundred years. That is an exceptionally long time for your soul to regenerate and learn from previous mistakes. As these witches slowly remember the sins of their past, they fight harder for a future filled with hope and love.

I think the main reason I enjoyed this book more was because of its main character, Teresa. She always knew she was going to come into her powers and be a part of the Awakening. This made the transition into this lifestyle much smoother than it was in the previous book. She is so headstrong and stubborn; her feisty attitude kept her Eternal, Rune on his toes constantly. I always prefer seeing strong women take the lead in books and I admired her for her courage. I appreciated Regan letting Teresa be that for this book. Teresa does struggle as the story moves forward, but she remains determined and never gives up. Her strong will endeared me to her and won Rune over as well.

Poor Rune, his story is tragic. When the witches originally got into this mess eight hundred years ago, they never fully let their Eternals in. Rune’s world came crashing down the night Teresa betrayed him for the power her coven sought, and he has never fully trusted her since then. It hasn’t helped that in ever reincarnation since then she has betrayed him. He finds it hard to trust someone who always lets him down. He has changed over the years and does not know how he is going to let Teresa into his heart again. Therefore, these two have many obstacles to overcome in this novel; most of them being internal struggles. Teresa has been burned by love before and does not want to open her heart again and Rune fears she will betray him when he needs her the most.

The overall quest is also coming into focus as each witch finds her calling and her Eternal. We learned in the first book that another awakened witch, Kellyn, has turned to dark magic and is trying to bring the others down with her. She claims to have sent her Eternal to a place where no one can find him and is now searching for the awakened witches to bring them to the dark side with her. She does appear in this book sporadically, but another enemy has surfaced. He seems to possess all the powers of an Eternal, which just adds to the suspense in discovering his true identity. I loved this added mystery element that Regan gave us and was eager to discover who this man was, and what his presence means now for the remaining witches waiting to be awakened.

While Teresa and Rune remain the main focus of the novel we also get an interesting subplot laced throughout with Cora Sterling and her daughter Deidre. Deidre is fighting for the rights of witches and finds the fact that they are hunted down to extinction revolting. She is on the front lines of advocating for witches rights and comes up against opposition at every turn. The brief glimpses we do get into her world were very interesting I look forward to her and Torin’s story in the next book.

Overall, Regan has given us another amazing story of powerful witches and the resilient men destined to love and protect them. Visions of Skyfire is a stunning second addition to an awesome series. After reading quite a few mediocre books lately, I was grateful to find a book that can “wow” me again. I cannot wait for the next book, Visions of Chains due out next year.

FTC: Thank you to the publisher for sending me this book to review.