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257th out of 1,664 books
—
6,992 voters
Summon the Keeper (Keeper Chronicles #1)
by
Tanya Huff
Claire Hansen, the Keeper, is summoned to the Elysian Fields Guest House to reseal a hole in the basement, which is literally an opening to Hell. The owner and monitor of the site disappears, leaving Claire stuck managing the place until the problem is solved. Her new employee, Dean McIssac, is a gorgeous Newfie who cooks, cleans, and lives the Boy Scout oath. Then there's...more
Paperback, 331 pages
Published
May 1st 1998
by DAW
(first published 1998)
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Title in German:
Die Chroniken der Hüter: Hotel Elysium
A Keeper is a person whose task is to repair holes in the fabric of the universe caused by bad deeds or magic and where evil is able to find its way into our world. Claire Hansen is such a Keeper who was summoned along with her talking cat Austin to Kingston to take care of a hotel where hell resides in the basement and a bad Keeper is put to sleep by other Keepers and not to be aroused in any circumstances.
Arriving there she meets her employ...more
Die Chroniken der Hüter: Hotel Elysium
A Keeper is a person whose task is to repair holes in the fabric of the universe caused by bad deeds or magic and where evil is able to find its way into our world. Claire Hansen is such a Keeper who was summoned along with her talking cat Austin to Kingston to take care of a hotel where hell resides in the basement and a bad Keeper is put to sleep by other Keepers and not to be aroused in any circumstances.
Arriving there she meets her employ...more
Mar 04, 2007
Leesa
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Everyone, especially people with a weird sense of humor
Shelves:
readrepeatedly
This is one of my favorite series by Tanya Huff. I laugh all the way through every time. Hell talking to itself, multi-colored mice, talking cat, Retired Olympians (not atheletes) and much more!
Bubble gum for the brain, with some GREAT snarky one-liners and some scathing pop culture references thrown in - sorta like when you bite through the sucker and hit the gum, these little gems keep popping up.
One of the characters is from Newfoundland, though, and the author has his linguistics wrong. Lots of people have trouble with "he's after getting tall" which is something Irish people or Newfoundlanders would say quite normally. It means he has become tall. The Newf character in the story s...more
One of the characters is from Newfoundland, though, and the author has his linguistics wrong. Lots of people have trouble with "he's after getting tall" which is something Irish people or Newfoundlanders would say quite normally. It means he has become tall. The Newf character in the story s...more
In this series, set mainly in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, witches aren't witches, and there are two types of them: Keepers and Cousins. Keepers are the ones with the most power, responsible for maintaining the metaphysical balance between the human world and the Otherrealms. They are "dispatched," or Summoned (in the terms of the book) to "accident sites" to help determine the cause of holes that are leaking dark power, or "dark possibilities," that help spread evil into the world.
Claire, the fem...more
Claire, the fem...more
This is a fantasy with two romantic love interests, a hunky handyman and an impossible to resist lusty ghost, that came highly recommended to me and I wasn't at all disappointed.
Claire is what they call a "keeper", a person with supernatural powers who keeps order in the universe and the evilness of hell under wraps. Her latest assignment has her ticked off. She's been summoned to a bed and breakfast where hell resides in the basement and she fears she may be stuck there for the rest of her lif...more
Claire is what they call a "keeper", a person with supernatural powers who keeps order in the universe and the evilness of hell under wraps. Her latest assignment has her ticked off. She's been summoned to a bed and breakfast where hell resides in the basement and she fears she may be stuck there for the rest of her lif...more
I've read a lot of Tanya Huff's books: the Valor series,(military sf) all of the four Quaters books, (high fantasy) all of the Blood books, all of the Smoke books (so far, I hope,)(both of these series are contemporary fantasy with vampire as a central character) and I recently read and loved The Enchantment Emporium, of which this is in the same universe.
Claire is a Keeper who is summoned to a Kingston, ON ramshackle rooming house that is staffed by the handsome, capable, Newfie, young, and vir...more
Claire is a Keeper who is summoned to a Kingston, ON ramshackle rooming house that is staffed by the handsome, capable, Newfie, young, and vir...more
The author does a great job in her space opera novels but fails me in this sample from her paranormal mystery/romance series. Claire is summoned to an Ontario bed and breakfast to carry out her job as a �Keeper�, which involves using her magical powers to assure that mysterious doorways to Hell are walled off or shut down so that our reality is not inundated with evil. She and her sarcastic talking cat, Austin, discover that the gate in this case is in the basement and a past Keeper who was corr...more
2 ½ stars
Summon The Keeper I found to be an ok read but frustrating right from the start!
Claire's the keeper who has been summoned to the guest house to take care of afew things.
Number 1 : the pit of Hell in the basement which talks to itself (random I know, lol)
Number 2 : Sara in room 6, who's been put to sleep using magic. She was one of the previous keepers who got caught trying to use the pit of hell for her own gain.
The other characters along for the ride is her talking cat Austin, Dean, J...more
Summon The Keeper I found to be an ok read but frustrating right from the start!
Claire's the keeper who has been summoned to the guest house to take care of afew things.
Number 1 : the pit of Hell in the basement which talks to itself (random I know, lol)
Number 2 : Sara in room 6, who's been put to sleep using magic. She was one of the previous keepers who got caught trying to use the pit of hell for her own gain.
The other characters along for the ride is her talking cat Austin, Dean, J...more
Claire Hansen is a Keeper who's job and birthright is to keep the universe secure. She's in for quite a shock when she's summoned to a run down hotel, and then wakes up the next morning as it's new owner. When Claire finds a hole to hell in the basement, and a woman frozen in a magical sleep state in one of the rooms, she quickly discovers that there's more going on in Elysian Fields Guesthouse than the previous owner revealed. Now, it's her job to clean things up.
Summon the Keeper is the first...more
Summon the Keeper is the first...more
I laughed until I cried, then I used quotes for my sig, then I went out and bought everything else I found by Tanya Huff, then I chuckled to myself recalling various bits for the next several months. :)
It's a fun read if you're looking for something humorous that is not overtly obvious a typical Urban Fantasy. I would say the genre 'urban fantasy' hasn't really be around all that long and this was written before there was a particular definition for it, so it has hints of romance, fantasy, humor in a way that I haven't really seen in the recent urban fantasy novels that are out there.
I really enjoyed the pace of the plot, but I have read a few reviews that feel differently. For me I was enjoyi...more
I really enjoyed the pace of the plot, but I have read a few reviews that feel differently. For me I was enjoyi...more
Oh, I needed this change of pace after reading so many mediocre UF books lately. Technically, I suppose it is still UF - magically strong female protagonist battles supernatural forces in an urban environment whilst being emotionally torn between two men - but it is also being completely different from other books in the genre. The characters are a bit more complicated and believable, the writing a bit more intelligent, the humor a bit more clever, and the plot never feels like a rehash of books...more
Personally, I really like this book. The plot was a cross between a dragon-rescue and a mystery, but without any of that damsel-in-distress or forced stupidity malarkey that so often chafes my nerves ... everyone carried their own weight in this one and no one was TSTL. Sure, the teenager was overconfident, but I found that to be spot on. It had a fairly complex "mythos" and it took me a few chapters to find the flow, but I enjoyed the story so thoroughly (in a large part because it was funny wi...more
Jul 04, 2008
Kirsten
added it
This book was a joy to find. Besides the excellent characterization of the cat Austin, the humor, magic and characters in this book were delightfull!
Decent urban fantasy tale, light on the urban. It's entertaining enough...Enough that I wanted to finish the book, but not so much for me to run out and read the sequel. Several of the characters were highly enjoyable, including the snarky yet evil portal to Hell. The heroine is summoned to a B&B and she spends almost the entire book there, which I didn't consciously realize until the book was almost done. Props to the author for making it interesting enough that I didn't realize the charact...more
I have never read a book by Tanya Huff that I didn't find myself immediately engrossed in. Whether it's fighting battles in far off galaxies, sympathizing with vampires, wandering with minstrels or being enchanted by talking cats in present day Ontario, her worlds are full of imagery and stories you can really sink your imagination into.
The Keeper Trilogy has all this as well as Ms. Huff's quirky sense of Canadian humour that I found impossible to put down and kept reading aloud to my husband as...more
The Keeper Trilogy has all this as well as Ms. Huff's quirky sense of Canadian humour that I found impossible to put down and kept reading aloud to my husband as...more
It was only when reading her Blood Lines book that I realised that this author penned the stories for the tv series Blood Ties. While the tv series was a little cheesey, the story is great, although a little more details in the sex scenes would be much appreciated! Same can be said for this book, which Huff writes with great humour. I loved this story, and her slant on all things good an evil. Quite taken with the young handyman as well. Tanya Huff has a load of talent and puts some other more w...more
This was the first Tanya Huff I ever read, years and years ago. It's just as good as I remembered.
I love all the characters, especially Austin. (I have a fondness for cat "wizards".) Claire and Diana are so... human. Dean is adorable but not overbearingly good. It's so easy to get lost in their world.
Due to the innuendo, I wouldn't recommend this to readers under the age of 16. Beyond that, any fan of fantasy ought to enjoy this series.
I love all the characters, especially Austin. (I have a fondness for cat "wizards".) Claire and Diana are so... human. Dean is adorable but not overbearingly good. It's so easy to get lost in their world.
Due to the innuendo, I wouldn't recommend this to readers under the age of 16. Beyond that, any fan of fantasy ought to enjoy this series.
I read this book since it is set in the town I just moved to--Kingston. The book is light and fun and made me chuckle. I also learned a surprising amount about Canada. Huff allows her cranky, kick-butt heroine to be crankier than usual and lets her make understandable, stupid decisions. Dean, the caretaker, reminds me of Carrot in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series(high praise) and Austin the cat is funnier than most literary felines. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.
In the world of...more
In the world of...more
I can't help but stray away from most fantasy I've tried because of them being so bizarre. Summon The Keeper by Tanya Huff still beckoned me, mainly because I so loved her Blood Line series (up for re-read and review shortly I hope). The world painted is certainly unique and a little hard to grasp, yet with the characters and setting I was able to be nabbed into it. Situated in a Canadian Bed and Breakfast, life is anything but ordinary with the keeper when she encounters a sexually hungry ghost...more
This is a reread, but after a dozen years, it reads like new.
Characters
Claire – a cranky twenty-seven-year-old Keeper. People of her lineage keep the world from sliding into Hell – literally. Wherever holes into the darkness open, Claire hears the Summons and travels, sometimes around the world, to close those holes. Able to manipulate the fabric of the universe, she is ready to sacrifice her life for the good of the ordinary citizens. She thinks she knows best what is good for everyone. Often...more
Characters
Claire – a cranky twenty-seven-year-old Keeper. People of her lineage keep the world from sliding into Hell – literally. Wherever holes into the darkness open, Claire hears the Summons and travels, sometimes around the world, to close those holes. Able to manipulate the fabric of the universe, she is ready to sacrifice her life for the good of the ordinary citizens. She thinks she knows best what is good for everyone. Often...more
I've been a fan of Tanya Huff's book since my high school days, but I started with her Fantasy series first, ( Fifth Quarter et al, Wizard of the Grove, Of Darkness, Light, and Fire ). You see some of her snarky humour in those stories, but nothing in them prepared me for the smiles and laughs I got out of Summon the Keeper. Huff always has amazingly real characters and she can have them fighting racist talking lizard people without missing a beat. Every character has their comedic moments and n...more
This book was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed the world the author created, both because I liked the characters, and because it was surprisingly funny! I honestly laughed out loud through most of this book. But don't think that was at the expense of plot, because the story was solid. As the story approached the end, the pace became almost frantic, and I was up waaaaay too late last night finishing it, because I couldn't put it down.
I hope we still get commentary from Hell in the next book of the...more
I hope we still get commentary from Hell in the next book of the...more
Claire and her sister are Keepers. It’s their job to maintain the balance, in the cloasing holes to hell sense.
Because sometimes you just need books with a talking cat. And an adorable Canadian baby lesbian co-protagonist. And the texture of warm cotton candy, with no painfully misguided aspirations for more. Really, fluffy doesn’t even begin to cover it, and post flu of doom, that’s about all I could handle. I suggest waiting for similarly dire straits so as to avoid inadvertent diabetic coma.
Because sometimes you just need books with a talking cat. And an adorable Canadian baby lesbian co-protagonist. And the texture of warm cotton candy, with no painfully misguided aspirations for more. Really, fluffy doesn’t even begin to cover it, and post flu of doom, that’s about all I could handle. I suggest waiting for similarly dire straits so as to avoid inadvertent diabetic coma.
This book was a fun, delightful read. It was chock full of great characters. Claire, the Keeper, finds herself the caretaker of the Bed and Breakfast from Hell. She inherits a sexy ghost, a guest in room six who has been asleep for 40 years, a hunky caretaker who happens to be the most trustworthy person in the world ("Total strangers probably handed him their packages while they bent to tie shoelaces"), and a gateway to Hell in the basement. With the help of her smarter-than-you-or-me cat, Aust...more
If you're looking for a serious novel with insight, complex plots, and strongly developed dynamic characters just skip past this one. However if you just want something light and amusing to keep you entertained for a while, or you like cats, give this a go. Also, if you've given up on all Canadian authors being clones of Margaret Atwood, give this one a go too.
The story revolves around a Claire Hansen, who is a Keeper, a secret group whose job it is to keep the universe from falling apart upon h...more
The story revolves around a Claire Hansen, who is a Keeper, a secret group whose job it is to keep the universe from falling apart upon h...more
This is a light hearted take on various tropes in urban fantasy (including Lackey's Diana Tregarde books). The protagnoist, the Keeper, is in a run down B&B in Canada trying to plug a gateway to hell (which has taken to arguing with itself), deal with an argumentative cat, an interfering sister who is a powerful magic maker and an irritating sibling, and convince her libido to not go into overdrive when dealing with her insanely handsome, polite handy man. This is an amusing quick read.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I was introduced to Aunt Claire, Keeper, in a short story that was enjoyable - as was this, the first book in the series. As a Keeper, Claire travels about closing up portals to hell that have accidentally or intentionally been opened. Her only companion is Austin, an elderly cat - and a cat is really what you want with you when you are dealing with this type of work, I suspect. I'm amazed at how many portals there are in Canada. Seems like there would be more in the U.S.
While there is nothing like crappy fantasy to alleviate a bad mood, this was one of the most un-inventive plots I've come across. The writing was cliché-ridden and sloppy and the characters stereotypical to the point where they border on caricature. That being said, it was a pleasant two hours where I didn't have to engage with my reality, and therefore I will probably try to get another one of the series to see if it improves any.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What's The Name o...: Book about hotel [s] | 5 | 38 | Mar 10, 2013 12:31pm | |
| Read Across Canad...: Summon the Keeper | 10 | 13 | Dec 27, 2012 02:34pm | |
| What's The Name o...: Two sisters, bed-and-breakfast, in Canada? [s] | 4 | 31 | Aug 11, 2012 07:51am |
"Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia: Although I haven't actually lived "down east" since just before my fourth birthday, I still consider myself a Maritimer. I think it's something to do with being born in sight of the ocean. Or possibly with the fact that almost no one admits to being from Ontario…
Raised, for the most part, in Kingston, Ontario. It was the late sixties, early to mid seventies. Enough s...more
More about Tanya Huff...
Raised, for the most part, in Kingston, Ontario. It was the late sixties, early to mid seventies. Enough s...more
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Dec 02, 2010 08:39pm