Long Hot Summoning: The Keeper's Chronicles #3
by
Tanya Huff
Order:
USA
Can
Daw, 2003 (2003)
Paperback
Reviewed by Hilary Williamson
I
've enjoyed Tanya Huff's works for some time, my favorites being her
Confederation
(
Valor's Choice
,
The Better Part of Valor
) series and this one,
The Keeper's Chronicles
, which I find hilarious. The third in the series,
Long Hot Summoning
, lived up to my expectations and more.
T
his particular adventure involves two Keepers (Claire and her powerful young sister Diana, who's just finished high school) and hence two wisecracking cats - old pro Austin and ex-angel rookie Sam. Most of the action takes place in a shopping mall and in its
Otherworld
equivalent, entered through '
Erlking's Emporium
'.
Bystander
street kids, who slipped through and are morphing into elves, have wished into existence an archetypical Arthur, their teen '
answer to a leadership dilemma.
' The bad guys are building a
segue
so that Hell can access our world and it's up to the Keepers to save the day, with a little help from their new elvish friends.
W
hile Claire and Diana explore the
Otherworld
mall, Dean and Austin develop problems of their own. A romantic couple have just rented a room at the inn - an aging professor and a mummy named Meryat - with a young grad student named Lance in hot pursuit. To buy himself some time, Dean sends Lance through the third floor elevator entrance into the
Otherworld
, where he eventually bumps into Claire. When it turns out that Lance was right, and after Austin's
I told you so
, Dean heads to the mall to trap a basilisk, in order to deal with the '
life-sucking, reanimated mummy
' Meryat before Claire's return. In the meantime, Diana and Arthur's captain Kris are caught by the bad guys and end up in conversation with a hole in the ground.
A
fter all hell breaks loose (literally of course), the good guys win by their usual willingness to sacrifice and by a '
bubblegum pink, Barbie pink
' attack. I love this series and its tongue in cheek satire of modern life, the mall and the minivan; don't miss it!
Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons.
Find more Fantasy books on our
Shelves
or in our book
Reviews