Rating: 
Summary: A helluva good read!
Review: I love all of Katherine Neville's books, but this one is my favorite. Somebody wrote that it was a real tour de force, and I would sort of agree with that. But to be honest, I would just call it a helluva good read!
Rating:
Summary: A Native American hero!
Review: Katherine Neville really knows her history. She sure didn't seem to pull any punches in Magic Circle on what the Old World (White Europeans) did to the other cultures they conquered. I read that she's doing a book on Spain and the New World next. I hope it's as good at expose and revelationas this one. I loved it, finally having a Native American hero!
Rating:
Summary: Starting on a second read!
Review: What a read! The history comes alive on every page. You get to feel you really know the Roman emperors (ugh) as well as the Druids, the Apostles, and all the others. I've read the book once through and I'm starting on a second read. I do that with all her books.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely unique
Review: The Magic Circle is absolutely unique. I can see why it might be controversial, but some readers seem to be confused about something I thought I should correct. Speaking as a genealogist, relations between first cousins are not considered incestual. Marriages among royalty were forbidden dissolved for consanguinity, which did not include first cousinship. This is also true today. For instance Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were first cousins. But for those readers who have not read the book, incest plays a very tiny role in a complex and fascinating story. When it does enter in, it is through people like the Herods, the Roman Caesars, and the Nazis to make a major point about the story. I really enjoyed Magic Circle a lot because of such fascinating insights.
Rating:
Summary: Truly different
Review: I loved The Eight, and I enjoyed A Calculated Risk too. But I have to say I think The Magic Circle is her best book so far. I've gone back and read it three times now, and each time I've found something new I didn't see before. I'd recommend it for readers who don't just want the same old routine dished up over and over. This is really something different.
Rating:
Summary: Rollicking adventure novel
Review: I don't know why everyone makes this book sound so serious, like you have to take some kind of test to be smart enough to read it. I bought it at the airport and read it in one plane trip, that's how fast it went. The Magic Circle is really a rollicking adventure novel along the lines of Count of Monte Cristo.
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended
Review: The Magic Circle is one of the best books I've ever read. I have to agree with the readers who found this book especially deep and powerful. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: On the edge of my seat!
Review: I was kept on the edge of my seat all the way through. As a former professional skier, I would have to say that the ski scenes in this book, especially the avalanche scene, are the most exciting reading I've found in many years, and are the best action scenes outside of a James Bond novel.
Rating:
Summary: Man and spiritual beliefs go hand in hand
Review: I have just finished reading The Magic Circle. It is a masterful job of research in many anthropological cultures and the important figures that lived and believed within them. The suspense in each chapter was gripping and the words and names chosen for each of the characters excellent. Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged has long been considered a great piece of writing years in the making. I would classify Magic Circle on a par if not better particularly since the author is not out to hatchet religion but has recognized that man and spiritual beliefs go hand in hand sometimes for the good and sometimes intelligently wanting.Mankind in the search for truth that Ariel Behn searched for still does find all sorts of obstacles and frustrations trying to decipher truth in its many cloaks. Each person has their own belief formed from a myriad of experience. When one encounters a geniune "truth" it almost requires a scarifice to be classified as genuine.
Rating:
Summary: Masterly job of research
Review: I have read Katherine Neville's three books and enjoyed them thoroughly. They are wonderful novels. It is clear that she has done a masterly job of research and is deeply interested in the human search for knowledge.
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