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Circleborn
When destiny calls, you either bleed it dry or let evil consume your world. Ryan Faraway follows a single rule; keep the magic hidden. However, this becomes difficult after a mysterious group of teenagers contacts him. In his quest to cure the curse that threatens to turn him into a monster, Ryan reluctantly enlists the help of a cryptic coven but soon regrets it. This group brings with them a world of trouble; a world in which Ryan was meant to be King.In the explosion of magic and blood that follows, Ryan comes across a force so powerful he almost submits. But he has questions only this coven can answer, and he has people that he desperately needs to protect.This treacherous path leads Ryan to uncover the mysteries his father hid from him, the dreadful truths of the coven, and what it really means to be a Circleborn.There's no time to think. You either run, fight, or die.WHAT READERS ARE SAYING!"A secret. A curse. A great story." - Tom Manne ★★★★★"Very suspenseful! It was a page turner that I could not put down." - Kay Dee ★★★★★"Fast paced and thrilling, this is a must read for fans of dark fantasy!" - Love2Read ★★★★★"A very well written tale with a skillful blend of supernatural thrills and a gripping, entertaining dialogue that is sure to entice readers.." - Bookaddict ★★★★★"That was a gripping read, with great plot and rich character development. How will Ryan 'preform' as a savior? And whom he will choose to help? People he know, his circle's members or total strangers" - ZS ★★★★★Circleborn is a dark, young adult, urban fantasy for anybody who loves wizards, witches, sorcery, and mad, evil sorcerers. If you're looking for magic, secrets, and tragedy, take a peek within these pages.This is BOOK ONE in The Broken Circle series. Previously published under the pen name Lor Haase. Revamped and edited.
122 pages, Paperback
First published November 28, 2014
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77 people want to read
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December 7, 2018Circleborn
The Broken Circle, Book 1
Nicholas Stephenson
Jul 2015, 121 pages
YA fantasy, Magic
Purchased
✭✭✭⭑
The cover is unassuming and yet perfect for this book. A young man who looks perfectly normal against a background of an abstractly shattered circle. That about sums up the whole story.
Ryan Faraway looks perfectly normal but in fact, he is not a Normal. He has magic, Blood Magic. But his father has died and hadn’t trained him in his magic before he passed. So Ryan can’t use his magic, but he feels it and gets some of the side effects of it. When he accidentally nips his girlfriend, Cindy’s tongue while kissing and gets some of her blood in his mouth, he’s able to get away from her so that she doesn’t get hurt, but by the time his magic finally escapes him he has come close to a woman and her baby and they are caught in the backlash.
Stephanie’s mother sealed her magic away while she was a child. Now that she needs it, it’s accessible to her via her cat, Skittles-Damon. Stephanie is very drawn to Ryan and has been since she first met him as a child. But she is Cindy’s BFF. Ryan is also drawn to Stephanie, especially drawn to her blood. The rest of this new generation of the Circle, Alice, Florence, and Jase, are used to using their magic. They have been fighting Eliot, his right-hand man Grayson, and his zombie henchmen. Eliot is very strong in his magic. He has nightmares and paints them. Ryan’s father had contracted with The Order to protect Ryan from Eliot, and they are doing their job, whisking him away to safety.
The pace is steady as the author jumps us from one magic conundrum to another introducing this cast of characters. The characters are pretty well done. Some better than others as we have more time with them. Not much time is wasted on setting the scene or description of things. This book is mostly action or communication whether vocal or mind-to-mind. The tension is constant and not to be satisfied in this book. This is the type of series I dislike the most. This is not a story complete within itself but part of a series of stories with this book ending in a cliffhanger and a carrot. The magics seem new. Not sure where the world is and no idea where it is heading. It is suggested to be a darker HP. Possibly, but it’s not a series I will be reading in spite of its good reviews. Try it for yourself to make your own decision if you are interested because other reviewers have given this much higher ratings.
The Broken Circle, Book 1
Nicholas Stephenson
Jul 2015, 121 pages
YA fantasy, Magic
Purchased
✭✭✭⭑
The cover is unassuming and yet perfect for this book. A young man who looks perfectly normal against a background of an abstractly shattered circle. That about sums up the whole story.
Ryan Faraway looks perfectly normal but in fact, he is not a Normal. He has magic, Blood Magic. But his father has died and hadn’t trained him in his magic before he passed. So Ryan can’t use his magic, but he feels it and gets some of the side effects of it. When he accidentally nips his girlfriend, Cindy’s tongue while kissing and gets some of her blood in his mouth, he’s able to get away from her so that she doesn’t get hurt, but by the time his magic finally escapes him he has come close to a woman and her baby and they are caught in the backlash.
Stephanie’s mother sealed her magic away while she was a child. Now that she needs it, it’s accessible to her via her cat, Skittles-Damon. Stephanie is very drawn to Ryan and has been since she first met him as a child. But she is Cindy’s BFF. Ryan is also drawn to Stephanie, especially drawn to her blood. The rest of this new generation of the Circle, Alice, Florence, and Jase, are used to using their magic. They have been fighting Eliot, his right-hand man Grayson, and his zombie henchmen. Eliot is very strong in his magic. He has nightmares and paints them. Ryan’s father had contracted with The Order to protect Ryan from Eliot, and they are doing their job, whisking him away to safety.
The pace is steady as the author jumps us from one magic conundrum to another introducing this cast of characters. The characters are pretty well done. Some better than others as we have more time with them. Not much time is wasted on setting the scene or description of things. This book is mostly action or communication whether vocal or mind-to-mind. The tension is constant and not to be satisfied in this book. This is the type of series I dislike the most. This is not a story complete within itself but part of a series of stories with this book ending in a cliffhanger and a carrot. The magics seem new. Not sure where the world is and no idea where it is heading. It is suggested to be a darker HP. Possibly, but it’s not a series I will be reading in spite of its good reviews. Try it for yourself to make your own decision if you are interested because other reviewers have given this much higher ratings.
October 5, 2018
The world is different than the one we've come to know. There are people here on Earth from all over our universe, and some of them have powers that we could never imagine. Ryan is one such young man, and his power is Blood, though he knows nothing of how to control his powers, nor what exactly he can do. He only knows it's a big inconvenience in his life. When he's kidnapped by some teenagers who are claiming to be part of Solomon's Circle, he's inclined to believe them. Especially because Eliot, the man his father had always warned them about, is after all of them. Now they must work together to not only survive but to defeat him.
Once the author was able to lay the groundwork for the story it really picked up. The chapters were laid out uniquely going back and forth between key characters of the story. When it came to the action, it was intense and page turning. There was a great twist at the end that I am sure will be explored in the next book and I am looking forward to that. If I had one gripe about the story, it would be the excessive use of such terms as "the girl" or "the man" as often it would be written 3 or 4 times in a paragraph. I think with editing, it would make it a near 5-star book and was nicely done.
Once the author was able to lay the groundwork for the story it really picked up. The chapters were laid out uniquely going back and forth between key characters of the story. When it came to the action, it was intense and page turning. There was a great twist at the end that I am sure will be explored in the next book and I am looking forward to that. If I had one gripe about the story, it would be the excessive use of such terms as "the girl" or "the man" as often it would be written 3 or 4 times in a paragraph. I think with editing, it would make it a near 5-star book and was nicely done.
August 25, 2018
Very dark
This was very dark. It ended with really no hope or plan in sight. I didn't really connect with the characters. The plot was interesting but i just didn't connect with them.
This was very dark. It ended with really no hope or plan in sight. I didn't really connect with the characters. The plot was interesting but i just didn't connect with them.
January 18, 2019
Not enough world building
Without some world and character building I didn’t care about the story. There were several pieces that had potential but it ended up being a story I had to force myself through.
Without some world and character building I didn’t care about the story. There were several pieces that had potential but it ended up being a story I had to force myself through.
January 1, 2020
Review to come.
April 10, 2015
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
At first glance, Lor Haase's "Circleborn" - the first book in his "Soloman's Circle" trilogy - may sound a bit reminiscent of the "Secret Circle" series (at least the TV version - I've not read the books) in that it features a group of families bound together by magic and the magic is passed from one generation to the next. That's where the similarity ends, however.
In Hasse's story, each family wields a different type of magic, and types gain their power from different sources. The circle is structured in an intricate hierarchy based on how much power a certain type of magic has and the order in which power can be shared between circle members.
I found the book to be quite enjoyable. He sets up the main conflict nicely, and the characters are likable. The book is fairly short and makes for a quick read, but it's full of action, making it a lot of fun. It's a dark story, though - a couple passages left me pleasantly creeped-out.
There are a couple things that bothered me a bit, which is why I gave it 3 stars. The first is that there are quite a number of typos throughout the book, and while they're not so serious as to make any part of the book difficult to understand, they did slow down the flow of reading and had a tendency to pull me out of the story for a moment.
The other is that for much of the first half of the book, Hasse has the characters drop a lot of hints and clues about different story elements by having their thoughts and conversations referencing an unspoken common context without letting the reader know exactly what that context is. This is a tactic many books use to build suspense - and it's very effective in doing so - but usually it doesn't seem to take quite as long for the author to reveal the secret to the audience, and it usually only involves a couple characters. Here, Hasse suspends information from at least 5 different characters, and there were times I found myself flipping back a few pages to refresh my memory on what I'd learned so far.
That said, I do recommend "Circleborn" for lovers of urban fantasy. There are a lot of surprises in the book, and Hasse has some interesting ideas in play. I found the power-sharing idea intriguing, and really liked the power-learning technique he devised for one character, among many other things, and I'm really looking forward to reading the next installment.
At first glance, Lor Haase's "Circleborn" - the first book in his "Soloman's Circle" trilogy - may sound a bit reminiscent of the "Secret Circle" series (at least the TV version - I've not read the books) in that it features a group of families bound together by magic and the magic is passed from one generation to the next. That's where the similarity ends, however.
In Hasse's story, each family wields a different type of magic, and types gain their power from different sources. The circle is structured in an intricate hierarchy based on how much power a certain type of magic has and the order in which power can be shared between circle members.
I found the book to be quite enjoyable. He sets up the main conflict nicely, and the characters are likable. The book is fairly short and makes for a quick read, but it's full of action, making it a lot of fun. It's a dark story, though - a couple passages left me pleasantly creeped-out.
There are a couple things that bothered me a bit, which is why I gave it 3 stars. The first is that there are quite a number of typos throughout the book, and while they're not so serious as to make any part of the book difficult to understand, they did slow down the flow of reading and had a tendency to pull me out of the story for a moment.
The other is that for much of the first half of the book, Hasse has the characters drop a lot of hints and clues about different story elements by having their thoughts and conversations referencing an unspoken common context without letting the reader know exactly what that context is. This is a tactic many books use to build suspense - and it's very effective in doing so - but usually it doesn't seem to take quite as long for the author to reveal the secret to the audience, and it usually only involves a couple characters. Here, Hasse suspends information from at least 5 different characters, and there were times I found myself flipping back a few pages to refresh my memory on what I'd learned so far.
That said, I do recommend "Circleborn" for lovers of urban fantasy. There are a lot of surprises in the book, and Hasse has some interesting ideas in play. I found the power-sharing idea intriguing, and really liked the power-learning technique he devised for one character, among many other things, and I'm really looking forward to reading the next installment.
November 26, 2015
I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Well, buckle up, because I'm about to open the floodgates. What an unmitigated piece of shit. Make no mistake guys, this is amateur hour stuff all the way. Barring the fact that this "novel" (I don't know how an 89 page story can be considered a novel) is riddled with spelling errors, grammatical errors, and formatting errors, the story contained within is just as anemic as the writing itself. Every tired old YA trope is here: mysterious "chosen one" with undiscovered powers, secret societies of magic users, lame love triangles, twists you can see coming from a nautical mile, ridiculous attempts at wit and cleverness, eye-rolling moments of "badass" power usage, dumb and insipid dialogue, and the list goes on. Not to mention completely mind boggling turns of phrase like: "A smile leaked into his face." This is literally the perfect example of everything you shouldn't do when writing a novel, and the fact that it is published and for sale for real money on Amazon is a travesty. This book isn't worth it even if you can get it for free. There is nothing in here that is redeemable, absolutely nothing worth the e-ink that it is printed on. Lor Haase: I admire your attempt at creative expression, but I highly recommend that you seriously work on improving your skills as a writer before attempting to publish again.
February 13, 2015
I was literally kept guessing throughout much of the book. I was pleased that the novel didn’t fall into the predictable range. As a YA+ book it can be intense (such as with the scenes of the cannibals) but it was the anguish of the lonely Ryan with his horrible secret curse that served as the emotional core. He is literally addicted to ‘blood’ and whenever it appears, all hell breaks loose. It is up to his newfound ‘friends’ in a sorcerers group called Solomon’s Circle to repair their broken circle with his ‘gift’. I love the twists and turns and recommend this to all readers age 14+.
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