Rating: 
Summary: Very disappointing
Review: Some time ago I read The Eight from this writer and really liked it. The argument was very attractive, with that mix of intrigue and historical facts and places. It was a book with a story so compelling that I could hardly stop reading until finished. So, when I got to know about this title The Magic Circle I bought it inmediatly and was really eager to read it. And it was a big disappointment. The text is so confusing with all those family relationships who no one can believe are true and the historical facts are so innumerable and thrown to the reader with almost no care, order or reason to be there that I could barely finish reading it. The ending is very bad constructed also, giving no reward to the reader who makes de effort to pass the many pages this book has. Really annoying and complex to the absurd, hardly believable story.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book
Review: I really liked the book, as in the eight, the story gets weak or too fantastic in some spots, but the author keeps it interesting, adding historical facts to the plot which keeps you glued to the end, by the way, I thought it was too much of a build up in the story to have such a bland ending.
Rating:
Summary: Ah...an adventure novel a feminist can love
Review: I must be the only one who's read this book without having first read Neville's first novel, The Eight. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and for reasons perhaps different from some other readers. It was the first book I've read in a long time that combined history, intellectual pursuit, spirituality, action, intrigue and sex in a context totally without violence or domination. Even the final conclusion is respectful and feminist, which may disappoint some readers who are hoping for a "slam-bang" payoff. Certainly there is much in the 550 pages, and I found the going much more enjoyable if I just didn't pay attention to the latest permutation of the Behn family and instead concentrated on the larger issues: what were they really questing for? What are the connections between different time periods and cultures involved? I am eagerly looking forward to reading The Eight.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Much
Review: I normally enjoy the work of an author who is able to reinterpret established facts of history and combine it with intrigue, suspense and drama into the one novel. Based purely on the strength of the synopsis on the back cover this is what I expected with the Magic Circle, however I was very disappointed.The Magic Circle offers much but delivers little. I was expecting a novel which would keep me riveted page to page, however I found myself at times struggling to comprehend the complex web of characters not only in the Roman and bibilical periods of the novel but the present day charcters of the Behn family. I have to agree with the reader who tired of hearing of a new shocking family secret every time Ariel spoke with a new family member. This aspect of the novel was badly overdone. At one stage I looked in the back of the book to see if the author had included a family tree diagram to aid the reader in trying to comprehend the intricate relationships of the Behn family. Whilst reading I was looking forward to finishing the book to uncover " the chilling truth of the ne millenium", to me this never happened, I felt as though there was something missing. Maybe I was looking forward to an ending like the ones I encountered in The Day After Tomorrow or The Genesis Code. Reading this at times I felt I was in a history lesson, lots of names and lots of dates. Don't get me wrong the authors research for this novel is second to none. I haven't yet encountered a novel which covers so many historical events and characters from so many different time periods. Neville's shortcoming is that she has overloaded the reader with this information, combine this with the complex Behn family and you have a novel which is simply too long and has too much information. Putting those critcisms aside, Neville has a wonderful descriptive writing style, places such as Vienna come right off the page. Her main characters come alive, rescuing the book from below average status. In summary the book i! s still worth a read but be prepared to take notes.
Rating: 
Summary: The Magic Circle Does Not Add Up to [The] Eight
Review: Like many other fans of Neville's first book (The Eight), I was very eager to jump into The Magic Circle and enjoy another fantastic time travel adventure through history. Unfortunately, I got the wrong book for that--The Magic Circle is one of the most confusing and contrived books that I have ever had the misfortune to read. Keeping track of the complexity of the Behn family tree became a trying challenge--it would have been better had the author recapped the details from time to time. For example, Ariel could have written a journal and summarized her family tree or there could have even have been a family tree diagram in there somewhere that Ariel added to everytime she learned a new fact about her background. Throughout the book, I kept finding places where an editorial hand would have helped some of the awkward prose. And the ending? Don't get me started on that. I literally struggled to finish the book, because I thought that the ending would clarify everything. It didn't. At the end, I felt that I had paid money to fly away on a great adventure, but instead all I got was the receipt and no adventure.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This novel is an excellent trek through history and acround the globe. Katherine Neville again uses the present to ground us and connect us through her characters to major events in history. I learned quite a bit about the beginnings of Christianity as well as more modern political issues. Fascinating and fun to read.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting to a point, but...
Review: It just is not The Eight. Maybe it is an unfair comparison, but I got the impression that Ms. Neville was aiming for the same audience. Anyway, I found that the book was overwhelming in the amount of information it wanted me to swallow, and after a while following the Behn family tree was confusing, with a new revelation everytime Ariel spoke with someone. And after reading through all that I expected the ending to give me more explanation, more specifics and I got neither. I read through the book for that ending? The book is well written and has a nice pace to it, but it feels like the author was overreaching. Then there is one point I think needs to be made. Who exactly did Ms. Neville try to tell me was Jesus of Nazareth? I think perhaps Ms Neville should never have involved Jesus in the plot of the book. It does not make sense to me. I was surprised that the full picture of Jesus is not presented to the reader, for example, the resurrected Jesus was seen by not only Mary Magdalene, but (according to Scripture) 500 persons. And I found it hard to believe that Joseph of Arimathea lived with the druids and condoned their rituals to the point of volunteering for a human sacrifice! ( did the author get ideas from Alexandra Ripley's A love Divine?). I am afraid the book gives a very untrue portrayal of early Christians ( specially unflattering to Saint Paul) and it would be confusing to non Christians. Again, the book makes for an interesting read, but the end result was not satisfying. With that said, I will most likely read Ms neville's next book.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time or money!
Review: I love to read, and when I go on vacation I love to take several good books to enjoy while I am away an uniterupted. For Spring break I grabbed a copy of The Magic Circle at my local bookstore. I had not read this author's prior successful books, but based on the reviews of her earlier work, I decided to give it a try. At first I was intrigued, but I quickly lost my interest as the tale rambled, the theories seemed implausible, the "genealogy" of the characters was not only impossible to follow but ridiculous, and the theme disconcerting. I quickly questioned the author's research, and many of the characters appeared to be stereotypical. I FORCED myself to finish this book, all the while realizing I was being forced to squander valuable reading time on a novel that was not worth the paper it was written on. I may yet give this author's other works a try, simply because I am so surprised by the positive reviews she has received for them. However, it will take some time for me to be ready to do so. Do yourself a favor, don't waste your time or money on this book; there are so many others to choose from which offer far more than this. This book fails to deliver on the promises of past reviews.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and exciting. Just as good as The Eight.
Review: The Magic Circle is a fascinating and entertaining book. I think readers should give it a chance. Ms. Neville has already written The Eight, this is a different book and the constant comparisons of the two really annoy me. Give her a break! If she rewrote The Eight, people would be complaining about that too. The Magic Circle a different book and is every bit as good as The Eight. As with her other two books, Magic Circle borrows from historical facts to make her story come alive as a fascinating and informative piece. She masterfully weaves her fiction and fact together to make her fiction believable, and her facts more understandable and interesting by giving a human feel to them. Reading it made me interested in the subjects she touches on, and so I read other books and actually learned something from them. Maybe that's the problem with the bad reviews this book is getting. Maybe people are afraid to actually learn from reading novels. Ms. Neville, according to her biography enteries, has an intimate knowledge of what her main characters do, and adds to her knowledge by tireless research. I found that when the book talked about the telluric currents and the power grids of the earth, I would study maps and review history to see what else happened in these places. When she talked of Song of Solomon, I dug out a bible and read Song of Solomon because her book made it interesting. I found and read a book called Spear of Destiny that talked about the spear that Hitler was obsessed with, because Magic Circle made me wonder about it. For me, The Magic Circle was exciting and informative. I strongly suggest anyone who read and liked either of her other works to pick up this one too. Give it a chance and I don't think you'll regret it.
Rating:
Summary: A confusing mess
Review: Poor history. Poor science. Poor theology. The plot is ridiculous, the characters cardboard, the dialog hackneyed. I'm glad I got this one at the library instead of wasting money on it.
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