Dragon’s Eye

by James A. Hetley

Ace Books, $14.00, 355 pages

The Morgans and the Pratts are two ancient Maine families; really ancient – their history started before the Pilgrims even landed. Their lineage is…complicated. They’ve been feuding for centuries but the Pratts have changed the rules, they brought in an outsider to upset the balance of power. When the Morgan goes to investigate, he’s captured and his brother and teenaged son have to get him back. But the brother doesn’t have the family link to the Dragon that sleeps in the ocean beneath their house and the boy is too young to have gone through the trial yet. But he has to or they have no way to contact the Morgan.

The land houses more than two ancient families and centuries of their secrets – even longer ago than when the Pratts and Morgans appeared, a house was built over a special spring to guard it. The caretakers have always been women. Their role in life is to protect the spring, the Haskell house and any woman within its walls. So when the battle between the Morgans and the Pratts, with their outsider, an Incan brujo, starts to claim female lives and threaten the safety of two little innocent girls, the latest Haskell Witch gets involved. And nobody is safe.

The story also explores several interpersonal relationships. The Morgan family relations between the head of the family, Daniel Morgan, his brother Ben who is officially dead to the outside world but still works for the family and young Gary, only seventeen years old with the fate of his whole family resting on his ability to claim his genetic inheritance. And then there’s Alice Haskell, her love for the local Constable, Kate Rowley, a blond throwback to the Vikings’ last visit, and Kate’s troublesome daughter whose choice of friends threatens her mother’s life. And, then there’s Caroline Haskell, the next Witch, who has deeper ties to the Morgans than she even knows.

James scored big with me on his first two books but I feel conflicted about this third effort. The story is wonderful; I loved it. But I had problems with the characters and the pacing. The pacing was uneven and I didn’t slip through the story effortlessly, it was more like the jerking pace of a city bus. And then the characters… the story started and ended with the weakest character; there was a certain symmetry but it weakened the effect of the story. Interestingly enough, the main focus of the story was with the women. James did a fairly credible job trying to speak through his women but I knew the difference. To his credit, I think a man would enjoy this story immensely; I don’t believe any of them would be able to tell the difference and may actually come away with a deeper appreciation for women’s strength. The characters were too shallow for my taste. By that, I mean that I didn’t feel I really knew them. James gave them plenty of action and choices but I never felt I understood their motivations. The men were almost completely ignored, all we know of them is what the women saw. The evil one was more of a walk-on character when he should have been the main point of conflict. Instead, the conflict between the characters took center stage. And we never even met the Pratts who instigated the entire event. But I will say this: I enjoyed the story and found myself thinking about it when I wasn’t reading. – Catherine Book