Kestral and her Lycan army were defeated by the Druidess Sylvanis and her Lycan army in their war to determine the fate of civilization. While they both love Earth, Kestrel believes that humanity will destroy it (judging by how we are handling things, maybe she's not that far off?)What Sylvanis doesn't know is that Kestral has cast a powerful spell enabling her essence to remain on Earth until the last stone of the Calendar known as Stonehenge falls. This spell will awaken the power of lycanthropy in the ancestors of her champions and allow her to cheat death and return to, once again, wage war on civilization. Little does Sylvanis know that when she executes Kestral for her crimes, she's merely playing into Kestral's plans and setting her spell into motion. Sylvanis does discover Kestral's deceit and casts a spell of her own. When Kestrel's spell takes effect, she will be reborn and her champions will, also, reawaken to take up the fight against Kestrel and her Lycans. Two millennia pass and the final stone at Stonehenge falls, reawakening Kestrel. Sylvanis is, but with almost no recollection of who she once was. Kestrel will stop at nothing to destroy her and her Lycans before they discover their powers and find each other. Four individuals find themselves gaining the power of lycanthropy, with the forms of the Wolf, the Boar, the Tiger, and the Rat, and have to figure out how to control their powers before it's too late.

Basically, we the readers, are following the four werecreatures, the descendants of the former Druid armies) as their powers awaken and they learn to manage them. I can't even imagine how frightening and confusing it would be to suddenly transform into another creature. Timmins really does a great job conveying the chaos that would create in the lives of these individuals. The storyline was very creative and well thought out. I really enjoyed the character development and that the characters who gain the powers weren't unrealistically perfect. Some of them were pretty terrible people, to be honest. The novel does get pretty graphic so there may be some triggers for some readers. This story really has a lot of potential and I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.

This book was hard for me to get into at first, jumping from one character to another and with so many characters introduced it was honestly hard to keep track of them at times but saying that it is incredibly fast paced and full of non-stop action right from the get go and it got easier to follow the further into the book I got.

This isn’t your typical lycan / werewolf type story. In The Awakening the lycans are brutal and primal, bloodthirsty and vicious, more likely to rip a person in half (which they do… a lot) as opposed to being in a teenage love triangle! No Twilight werewolves in this book thank god!

The war once fought between two Druids has been carried to the present by powerful magic, filled with ancient and forgotten powers in a modern world connecting the past to the present, blending Celtic druid mythology and different Were-Creatures including a weretiger, a wereboar, a wererat, and a weresnake (and I am sure there will be more in the later books!) it has everything you could ever want in a book.

My only criticism is the ending, it ended a little abruptly as opposed to a cliffhanger ending but it certainly leaves you eager to read the next book in the series!!

Thankfully the second book is already out so no long wait to find out what happens next!

If you love to read fantasy then this is definitely a book for you.

the awakening part 1 by Michael Timmons.
years ago a war saw two druidess kestrel and sylvanis end a war by sylvanis Killing kestrel. But kestrel cast a powerful spell so she could cheat death when sylvanis discovers what kestrel has done she stabs herself then with her blood sheadds a spell off her own. when kestrel awakens sylvanis will be reborn and her champions will awaken as Well. But can they defeat kestrel and her Lycans?
an absolutely fantastic read. Loved the story and most of the characters. some I didn't like. it was great reading about the different characters. some I knew were bad and I knew which were good. there was some I wasn't sure off. it really felt as though I was there with the characters. i cant wait to read the next one. 5*. highly recommended.

Loved Mr. Timmins take on Lycans. Great story. I am totally looking forward to the next book in the series.

- - Received copy through NetGalley - -
L

This book begins in the past then quickly jumps to the present, it’s engaging with interesting characters and fast paced storyline.
I wasn’t keen on the style of writing, the language seemed quite awkward at times but the plot was solid and there’s was plenty of action to take my attention away from this.
Some of the characters I liked, others not so much, I feel that they need more page time than a lot were given, but then this is only the first part, I shall look forward to reading the next instalment.

I was very excited to read this book after I read a recommendation review from a fellow blogger. From the very first page I knew I was going to love this book and I was right! I currently have a preference for books that have characters are blood thirsty and vicious! That pretty much describes every character in this book!

When I read that this book was going to be about weres and Lycans I squealed with delight but what I thought I knew about weres from other books was completely shattered! There are weres from just about every know animal species not just an enormous pack of wolves roving the countryside! Sylvanis and her druid sister Kestrel are waging war against each other and Kestrel is winning; however, Sylvanis is cunning and finds away to cheat her death with a spell. After Kestrel enacts her punishment upon Sylvanis by running a dagger through her wickedly lovely heart, Kestrel realizes that it is too late, and that action is the catalyst for the spell to be complete. With no other choice, Kestrel uses her blood to cast her own spell to come back when Sylvanis is awakened along with both of their fallen armies! What wonderful first two chapters! This book is so action packed that I found myself at the halfway point within three hours because I could not put it down!
Once the Druidesses have been awakened in modern millennia, it is clear that the second war is upon us and everyone must find where their loyalties are and how to use their powers. From this chaos four warriors have the fate also has been awakened and their powers are the key to ending the war once and for all? Or maybe not because we already know what the Druidesses are capible of! We shall see!
There were so many characters introduced into this storyline and it was honestly hard to keep track of them at times. Which is one of the reasons for the 4-Star rating. It was totally cool that there was a Weretiger, Wererat, Wereboar, and Weresnake! I am sure that there will be many more Were types in part two! I am so glad that the Weres were not romanticized in this book and used as the weapons that their bodies were intended to be!
Other than the constant POV changes, there were times that the book seemed to be too detailed and could have been simplified. Also, I did not care for the very abrupt ending of the story as there seems to be so many loose ends to tie up. These are the other reasons for a 4-Star. Hopefully, all that will be resolved in book two!
Conclusion:
Holy POV changes Mr. Timmins! The book was already fast-paced but the constant POV changes made the story confusing at first to keep track of what was going on. I finally realized that was due to the author introducing how each character became a were and then tied it all together. At which point it made sense!
This book was a great new introduction into the world of Weres and their wonderful possibilities! I would recommend this book to anyone who loves fantasy and reading about new worlds! Well done Mr. Timmins!

This book is well written, it is fast paced and has a good plot and characters. It is a bit hard to follow with all the jumping around of the characters though. I will still read the next book to see how it ends. I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book from Netgalley.

This book was fast paced. Lots of action. I really enjoyed it. The author did a great job writing it. I feel it could of been better, had the POV not kept changing. I will continue to read the series.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. An epic fantasy that has all types of werebeasts and even has ancient prophecies in it. While I do tend to like fantasy novels, "The Awakening Part 1" was a little all over the place for me. Some sentences seemed really long and parts of the story seemed to happen for no real reason and were not explained. Overall, a decent fantasy novel, maybe it just wasn't my cup of tea.

I’m looking forward to the next part. It starts in the action and then moves onto a slow build introducing the starting character (it looks like they’ll be a lot) there’s a lot going on so even if you don’t like one of the characters there’s another. It’s written really well, the plot line original. I’m usually not one for the shifters since it’s always rah mate this claim that. This one I will admit I almost got in trouble for reading at work but it’s a good start and I couldn’t put it down.

This book started off great… And then things got weird. I was really enjoying the Celtic mythology and druidess prophecies in the beginning, but flash forward to the present and things get a little weird. Now we not only have wereWOLVES, we have wereTIGERS and wereBOARS, and no real explanation why. The main bulk of this novel is origin stories for the main were-animals that will eventually come together to fight for the resurrected Druidesses as they battle for the fate of planet Earth.
These origins stories, unfortunately, read like bad fanfiction. They were unnecessarily gory, which was inconsistent with my impression of the rest of the story. I could live with that, but then in addition to the gore, we started getting into really weird sexual themes. There were mentions of rape that really didn’t need to be there, there were flippant sexual misrepresentations, and the whole thing just got weird.
This is really unfortunate to me, because I had really high hopes for this book. I’m not sure if I’ll continue the series. I hate to give a bad review, but I think this needed a bit more finessing before being released. Also, the book was really short and probably should have included both halves of the novel instead of splitting.

The novel has potential but it also has a lot of frustrating aspects. I recommend this book for those with a love for the paranormal and a strong stomach.

The prologue had information that provided a backbone to the story but it was excruciatingly long which is a downfall considering many people tend to skip the prologue entirely. Even as the story started picking up the tempo after the prologue there was a serious lack of description in character emotions and reactions. The only time my heart stirred was during the gory scenes and fighting scenes which were written really well. All of the characters' physical appearance was described with great in-depth detail. Also, there was a lot of character change which was fine except that some part got confusing.

The major downfall of the story is the setting. I had a hard time visualizing certain scenes because it was missing a serious amount of descriptive detail in the setting description.

The writing style was to my absolute liking and was the reason why I overlooked the thought of giving the novel three stars instead of four. The pacing was fast but consistent and there were hardly any grammatical mistakes according to my eyesight.

If you like paranormal fantasies this is the book for you. Between druids, prophecies, spells, and shifters it has everything you could ever want in a book. It's incredibly fast paced and full of non-stop action. I really enjoyed that it wasn't a weird love story type thing like most shifter-fantasy books are. My only complaint is the POV changes.