Long Hot Summoning

by Tanya Huff

Reviewed by Ruby

Diana is now finished high school, which means that she is now a full time Keeper. Being the most powerful Keeper in the world, she feels that it's about bloody time. For her first Summoning she is brought to a mall in Kingston where one of the stores is actually selling bits of the Otherworld. Truthfully it is actually replacing bits in this world with replacement bits of the Otherworld, corrupting them at the same time. Realizing that she is way over her head, Diana goes to her older sister, Claire, for help. Together the two make their way into the Otherworld where there is a mall exactly like the mall in Kingston, only evil and populated by street kids that are slowly turning into elves and lead by Arthur. The Arthur. Only anime.

Anyway, while that is going on Austin and Dean are taking care of the Guesthouse and are taken prisoner by a three thousand year old mummy that has woken up and wants to suck the life out of a Keeper to make her whole again. It's good thing that Claire is in the Otherworld fighting for her life then.

I had the same problem with this book as I did with the other two. Everything happened at the end and all the actions leading up to the finale were slow going. Even pointless. Everything concerning the mummy and Lance and whatnot was not the least bit important to the main plot of the story and just seemed to slow it down.

It's weird because nothing really happened in this book. Claire and Diana go the the Otherworld, Dean takes in an evil mummy, there's a lot of talking and planning and then the good guys won. The end.

The author has a very unique style of writting which I really enjoy. It throws humor in with life and death situation that make her books a joy to read. Usually. There was something off about this book. Maybe it was bordering too much on sarcasm and not humor or maybe the same lines were getting stale by the third book.

I was a little disappointed by this series.  I'm a huge fan of Tanya Huff, but this has to be my least favorite of her books.

By the way: Hell talking to itself got really annoying by the third book.

Grade: C