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Keeper's Chronicles #1
Summon the Keeper
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 Jacques Labaet: very French Canadian, very sexy, very dead. Jacques is a ghost who wants to be the man in Claire's life. Oh yeah, and there's Austin, a talking cat with attitude: "I barely know you, but I'm assuming you're human. I'm not saying this is a good thing, it's just the way it is."
331 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published May 1, 1998
230 people are currently reading
3822 people want to read
About the author
Tanya Huff
150 books2,444 followersTanya Sue Huff is a Canadian fantasy author. Her stories have been published since the late 1980s, including five fantasy series and one science fiction series. One of these, her Blood Books series, featuring detective Vicki Nelson, was adapted for television under the title Blood Ties.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 417 reviews
June 1, 2013
I enjoyed this... mm, not quite urban fantasy. Call it contemporary Canadian fantasy, although 1998 isn't so contemporary any more; a few more years and we can probably call it historical. It had a good sense of place, and a lot of dry Canadian jokes and humor.
Claire Hansen (the same name as my street, ha! Minnesota is close to Canada in more ways than one) is a Keeper, a sort of witch whose job it is to patch tears in the fabric of reality where evil leaks through. But she's a Canadian witch, so generally very polite. Not as polite as handsome, displaced Newfie Dean McIssac, however, first met as the handyman of a rather haunted B&B in Kingston, Ontario. Neatnik Dean is one of the few fictional heroes I've met who does windows, not to mention laundry, dishes, and cooking. I don't know how old Huff was when she wrote this, but this is definitely practical heroism as reimagined by an older woman writer, and I'm thoroughly on-board with it.
The sequel, The Second Summoning, continues the tale, and is even funnier, not to mention wry and sly. Makes me almost want to move to Canada despite the weather (also described in loving first-hand detail.)
Also, good cat values.
Claire Hansen (the same name as my street, ha! Minnesota is close to Canada in more ways than one) is a Keeper, a sort of witch whose job it is to patch tears in the fabric of reality where evil leaks through. But she's a Canadian witch, so generally very polite. Not as polite as handsome, displaced Newfie Dean McIssac, however, first met as the handyman of a rather haunted B&B in Kingston, Ontario. Neatnik Dean is one of the few fictional heroes I've met who does windows, not to mention laundry, dishes, and cooking. I don't know how old Huff was when she wrote this, but this is definitely practical heroism as reimagined by an older woman writer, and I'm thoroughly on-board with it.
The sequel, The Second Summoning, continues the tale, and is even funnier, not to mention wry and sly. Makes me almost want to move to Canada despite the weather (also described in loving first-hand detail.)
Also, good cat values.
April 25, 2018
Read this to my 13-year-old son. He gave it six stars out of five.
January 31, 2022
DNF at 40%
Around a year ago, I started looking for new Urban Fantasy books to read. It felt at the time that I have read all of the good ones. This book was recommended and it seemed interesting so I added it to my TBR. I decided to start it a few days ago since I wanted some fun UF to read but alas, this wasn't it.
I would've probably avoided this book if I'd realised that it was published in 98. It's outdated compared to the UF I read (although some were published a few years later I enjoyed them regardless).
I was bored a lot reading it and couldn't care less about the plot. I also didn't find it funny nor was able to connect to the characters. It was underwhelming.
I honestly don't have a lot to say about it, I was forcing myself to read it while I had no interest in the story. I decided to DNF and use my time to read a better book and that's what I did.
I only recommend it if you enjoy old ish books set in Canada, maybe it's something you can relate to so you'll appreciate the setting and atmosphere but I honestly don't. I think I've given up on finding some worthwhile UF books but hopefully, I'll come across some good ones anyway.
Around a year ago, I started looking for new Urban Fantasy books to read. It felt at the time that I have read all of the good ones. This book was recommended and it seemed interesting so I added it to my TBR. I decided to start it a few days ago since I wanted some fun UF to read but alas, this wasn't it.
I would've probably avoided this book if I'd realised that it was published in 98. It's outdated compared to the UF I read (although some were published a few years later I enjoyed them regardless).
I was bored a lot reading it and couldn't care less about the plot. I also didn't find it funny nor was able to connect to the characters. It was underwhelming.
I honestly don't have a lot to say about it, I was forcing myself to read it while I had no interest in the story. I decided to DNF and use my time to read a better book and that's what I did.
I only recommend it if you enjoy old ish books set in Canada, maybe it's something you can relate to so you'll appreciate the setting and atmosphere but I honestly don't. I think I've given up on finding some worthwhile UF books but hopefully, I'll come across some good ones anyway.
December 22, 2008
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 said that "I'm after calling him" meant he was was GOING to call. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Being after doing something means it's done.
Okay, got that out of my system. I lived in Newfoundland for three years as a doctoral student and we got beat up if we (1) called anybody a N---ie (2) ventured out of doors during any hockey season in which an American and Canadian team were facing off or (3) misused the after plus perfect. So I try to save others.
Back to the book . . . the cat is great, caustic and wise as a cat should be. The Newfoundland sweet innocent is hysterical, all these creatures you only read about in mythical encyclopedias (as in enc. of myths . . .) keep appearing, and there's a sexually frustrated sailor ghost with big brown eyes who steals the whole show. Great fun to read, laugh out loud humor.
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 said that "I'm after calling him" meant he was was GOING to call. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Being after doing something means it's done.
Okay, got that out of my system. I lived in Newfoundland for three years as a doctoral student and we got beat up if we (1) called anybody a N---ie (2) ventured out of doors during any hockey season in which an American and Canadian team were facing off or (3) misused the after plus perfect. So I try to save others.
Back to the book . . . the cat is great, caustic and wise as a cat should be. The Newfoundland sweet innocent is hysterical, all these creatures you only read about in mythical encyclopedias (as in enc. of myths . . .) keep appearing, and there's a sexually frustrated sailor ghost with big brown eyes who steals the whole show. Great fun to read, laugh out loud humor.
March 4, 2007
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!
August 30, 2021
I can’t remember where I read about this, but people spoke so highly of it, I bumped it up on the to-read pile. Although not as funny as I was expecting, I did enjoy the talking cat and the all caps commentary from Hell. The plot meandered for a large chunk of the book but picked up nicely toward the end, and I liked how it wrapped up. Claire was super cranky, and I never really warmed to her as a heroine. I did like her sister Diana, so I might at least read the third, which is more from her POV.
Just kidding—I’m not capable of skipping the middle book in a trilogy, but it sounds like a very free-spirited thing to do.
I’m not sad I read it, but I don’t feel a strong urge to dive right into the next.
Just kidding—I’m not capable of skipping the middle book in a trilogy, but it sounds like a very free-spirited thing to do.
I’m not sad I read it, but I don’t feel a strong urge to dive right into the next.
October 29, 2010
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 life. She spends the book attempting to figure out how to complete her assignment while fighting off the advances of the sexy ghost, fighting off her lusty thoughts of the younger handyman, arguing with her know it all cat (who talks) and dealing with the strange assortment of guests who visit the B&B.
This book was pure fun, had lots of sensual tension, some great one-liners (many made by Hell - who argues with itself), and all of the characters were likable. Despite the setting there was nothing gory about it. If you like fantasy comedies or are looking for a change of pace give this one a try.
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 life. She spends the book attempting to figure out how to complete her assignment while fighting off the advances of the sexy ghost, fighting off her lusty thoughts of the younger handyman, arguing with her know it all cat (who talks) and dealing with the strange assortment of guests who visit the B&B.
This book was pure fun, had lots of sensual tension, some great one-liners (many made by Hell - who argues with itself), and all of the characters were likable. Despite the setting there was nothing gory about it. If you like fantasy comedies or are looking for a change of pace give this one a try.
October 15, 2018
Light, with gentle, sarcastic humour, this was a fun little urban fantasy. Nothing too dire, no one really horrible (except for the nosy next door neighbour), and a slow relationship building between Keeper, Claire Hansen, and Dean, the general handyman/cook/cleaner of the run-down bed-and-breakfast. And the star of the book, Austin, the talking cat, who's focused on the important things: his stomach, being disgusted with his human Claire, and sharing his unerring insight on the goings-on around him.
May 6, 2022
I went into this book knowing only that there was a hole to hell. That's it. And boy, did it surprise me.
Hell, was funny. Claire was badass. Austin, I want him as my pet. Dean and Jacques? Lovely and too pure for this world (maybe not so much in Jacques' case).
It was a really fun read, surprisingly wholesome too.
I am definitely reading more about Claire, Dean and Austin's adventures and more about this author. I am a new fan.
Hell, was funny. Claire was badass. Austin, I want him as my pet. Dean and Jacques? Lovely and too pure for this world (maybe not so much in Jacques' case).
It was a really fun read, surprisingly wholesome too.
I am definitely reading more about Claire, Dean and Austin's adventures and more about this author. I am a new fan.
January 27, 2016
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, fights the attractive Dean who becomes her assistant, stops her talking cat from getting into too mischief - and food! - and saving people from not only a visiting female vamp, but also from the world of Hell locked in the basement.
I've noticed mixed reviews because of all the frequent comedy. On my side I think the comedy worked well and is one of the things I found so endearing with the book. I loved Jacques the french ghost and his amusing attempts to get laid while stirring the testosterone laden air between himself and Dean. The cat's sense of humor was strong and he can claim the more witty lines of the novel. The Greek Gods may have been a little overkill, though... Amazingly Claire, as the main character, was one of my lesser favorites. She just seemed a little too bitchy much of the time.
As for the actual plot, well, it's out there but grew on me. I had trouble getting into it at first but not long. This may not be because of the book, though, so it's not fair to state that in the review without the forewarning of me not being used to the fantasy world. It's different but not so different I was turned off from it. Plenty of 'stuff' hits the fan, showing this is no easy job, and the comedy is kept rich through it all, with obvious things (like the entire world of course) at stake. It makes you wonder what really goes on out there we never know about sometimes.
As a summary, even though I laughed out loud more than once, toning down the humor during certain scenes would have helped the book more than harmed it. Hell, even Hell has a sense of humor here. Having a dark villain amidst funny situations in a grim setting would have worked better, I think. It was hard to go along with the bitchy main character much of the time, as she was overly dominating and hard to bear for not only the reader, but the other characters I found myself falling for. It may be a trend for the author, as Huff also creating a similarly bitchy character in the Blood Line series.
If you're in the mood for a light read and to have mucho fun, this is the one to find.
I've noticed mixed reviews because of all the frequent comedy. On my side I think the comedy worked well and is one of the things I found so endearing with the book. I loved Jacques the french ghost and his amusing attempts to get laid while stirring the testosterone laden air between himself and Dean. The cat's sense of humor was strong and he can claim the more witty lines of the novel. The Greek Gods may have been a little overkill, though... Amazingly Claire, as the main character, was one of my lesser favorites. She just seemed a little too bitchy much of the time.
As for the actual plot, well, it's out there but grew on me. I had trouble getting into it at first but not long. This may not be because of the book, though, so it's not fair to state that in the review without the forewarning of me not being used to the fantasy world. It's different but not so different I was turned off from it. Plenty of 'stuff' hits the fan, showing this is no easy job, and the comedy is kept rich through it all, with obvious things (like the entire world of course) at stake. It makes you wonder what really goes on out there we never know about sometimes.
As a summary, even though I laughed out loud more than once, toning down the humor during certain scenes would have helped the book more than harmed it. Hell, even Hell has a sense of humor here. Having a dark villain amidst funny situations in a grim setting would have worked better, I think. It was hard to go along with the bitchy main character much of the time, as she was overly dominating and hard to bear for not only the reader, but the other characters I found myself falling for. It may be a trend for the author, as Huff also creating a similarly bitchy character in the Blood Line series.
If you're in the mood for a light read and to have mucho fun, this is the one to find.
December 5, 2007
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. :)
April 25, 2021
This is the first book of a contemporary Canadian urban fantasy series that's a whole lot of fun. It's people (and catted?!) with delightful characters, and is very amusing and entertaining.
November 25, 2013
For October's WOGF review, I decided to get my random read out of the way. Nerd that I am, I actually went to the trouble of writing a shell script to select an author randomly, and wound up with Tanya Huff. I was thinking of picking up one of her military science fiction works, but Summon the Keeper seemed like a good pick for Halloween. It, uh, wasn't.
The protagonist is hoodwinked into taking care of a B&B with a portal to hell in the basement which, as a vaguely magical Keeper, it is her job to close, or monitor or something. She does, to her credit, take some steps towards doing this, but they are mostly off screen, and take up a very small fraction of the book.
For the rest of the book, stuff happens. The protagonist has an incredibly painful Betty and Veronica thing going on. Veronica is played by a ghost who is mean to be Quebecois, but acts like a broad caricature of a Frenchman and who evidently died before the invention of the concept of sexual harassment was invented. Betty is a really stupid Newfoundlander who resents stereotypes about stupid Newfoundlanders and has basically dedicated his life too cooking, cleaning, and (apparently, although this is not stated in the text) working eight hours per day. Also, in this universe, Newfoundland is indistinguishable from a Dickens novel.
Since there is really no way to fill 300 pages with that, other stuff happens. A vampire shows up, feints at seducing the Newfie, and then leaves without having any effect on the plot. The elevator turns into an inter-dimensional portal for no adequately explained reason. In a wicked-dumb segment the Greek pantheon shows up and does things that aren't funny. There are some werewolves or something.
Yes, friends, a great deal of stuff happens in this novel, but stuff happening is not the same thing as a plot. If the stuff that happened was particularly interesting or funny then I might be willing to overlook the absurdly thin plot, but it really, really wasn't. The jokes were flat. The protagonist communicates entirely by snarking, which I suppose is meant to make her funny but actually just makes her a jerk. The love triangle was horribly unconvincing. The talking cat (yes, she has a talking cat) was indistinguishable from Garfield.
I was excited to read this book. I wanted to like it. It seemed like it took some cues from Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October, which was funny and clever and original. This book is none of those things. This is a bad book. Don't read this book.
To be cross-posted on Worlds Without End.
The protagonist is hoodwinked into taking care of a B&B with a portal to hell in the basement which, as a vaguely magical Keeper, it is her job to close, or monitor or something. She does, to her credit, take some steps towards doing this, but they are mostly off screen, and take up a very small fraction of the book.
For the rest of the book, stuff happens. The protagonist has an incredibly painful Betty and Veronica thing going on. Veronica is played by a ghost who is mean to be Quebecois, but acts like a broad caricature of a Frenchman and who evidently died before the invention of the concept of sexual harassment was invented. Betty is a really stupid Newfoundlander who resents stereotypes about stupid Newfoundlanders and has basically dedicated his life too cooking, cleaning, and (apparently, although this is not stated in the text) working eight hours per day. Also, in this universe, Newfoundland is indistinguishable from a Dickens novel.
Since there is really no way to fill 300 pages with that, other stuff happens. A vampire shows up, feints at seducing the Newfie, and then leaves without having any effect on the plot. The elevator turns into an inter-dimensional portal for no adequately explained reason. In a wicked-dumb segment the Greek pantheon shows up and does things that aren't funny. There are some werewolves or something.
Yes, friends, a great deal of stuff happens in this novel, but stuff happening is not the same thing as a plot. If the stuff that happened was particularly interesting or funny then I might be willing to overlook the absurdly thin plot, but it really, really wasn't. The jokes were flat. The protagonist communicates entirely by snarking, which I suppose is meant to make her funny but actually just makes her a jerk. The love triangle was horribly unconvincing. The talking cat (yes, she has a talking cat) was indistinguishable from Garfield.
I was excited to read this book. I wanted to like it. It seemed like it took some cues from Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October, which was funny and clever and original. This book is none of those things. This is a bad book. Don't read this book.
To be cross-posted on Worlds Without End.
April 12, 2010
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, Jacques the ghost and a whole bunch of guests ranging from vampires to gods like Zeus & Aphrodite. Lets also not forget the nosy next door neighbor Mrs Abrams, her hell hound dog and Claire's sister Diana who is also a keeper.
Everything about this book seemed to be so long winded, making the pace painfully slow. I know a lot of people found this book to be humorous although I didn't laugh once but maybe it just didn't match my sense of humor and if your looking for romance you won't find any here. Claire spends the whole time trying to dismiss Dean (the hunky handyman) as possible relationship material because of his age, calling him a kid. Only right at the end does she decide that she has feelings for him but she thinks she has missed her chance. As soon as all the keeper business is taken care of at the guest house and she receives her new summons shes on her way again to her next job. Dean drives up in his van and tells her to get in as he is going along for the ride.
Deans last words being “Okay. We'll play it by ear.”
Its one of those books where the author leaves it so open ended in order to make you want to go buy the next just to see if they finally get it together.
I read this book for the Pick it for me April Challenge, I was given several books to choose from but thought I would go for something I wouldn't normally pick myself. It certainly was a challenge and I am glad I stuck with it till the end.
I would say its worth giving this book a chance as a lot of people have really rated it quite high but this just wasn't for me.
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, Jacques the ghost and a whole bunch of guests ranging from vampires to gods like Zeus & Aphrodite. Lets also not forget the nosy next door neighbor Mrs Abrams, her hell hound dog and Claire's sister Diana who is also a keeper.
Everything about this book seemed to be so long winded, making the pace painfully slow. I know a lot of people found this book to be humorous although I didn't laugh once but maybe it just didn't match my sense of humor and if your looking for romance you won't find any here. Claire spends the whole time trying to dismiss Dean (the hunky handyman) as possible relationship material because of his age, calling him a kid. Only right at the end does she decide that she has feelings for him but she thinks she has missed her chance. As soon as all the keeper business is taken care of at the guest house and she receives her new summons shes on her way again to her next job. Dean drives up in his van and tells her to get in as he is going along for the ride.
Deans last words being “Okay. We'll play it by ear.”
Its one of those books where the author leaves it so open ended in order to make you want to go buy the next just to see if they finally get it together.
I read this book for the Pick it for me April Challenge, I was given several books to choose from but thought I would go for something I wouldn't normally pick myself. It certainly was a challenge and I am glad I stuck with it till the end.
I would say its worth giving this book a chance as a lot of people have really rated it quite high but this just wasn't for me.
May 15, 2018
A friend found this because I couldn't remember it! It's one of the worst things I've ever read! I happened to be on a vacation without wifi, so I had to read it or re-read a magazine I brought. It was...work.
Lots of campy jokes, waaay too many puns, even for me (like the bad kind. Not the fun word play, the "look how funny I am" kinds.)
A really bad stereotype of Frenchman who's a ghost that becomes corporeal enough for a little sexy time which is...weird.
Anyways, glad I remembered the name of it so that I never accidentally read it again!
Lots of campy jokes, waaay too many puns, even for me (like the bad kind. Not the fun word play, the "look how funny I am" kinds.)
A really bad stereotype of Frenchman who's a ghost that becomes corporeal enough for a little sexy time which is...weird.
Anyways, glad I remembered the name of it so that I never accidentally read it again!
March 1, 2020
Lots of proofreading errors in the Kindle edition but I still enjoyed the story.
March 17, 2021
This book just pissed me off. It's such terrible representation for women, among it's myriad of flaws. I read this book to complete a book bingo card in time, otherwise I would have left it unfinished. This is my second Tanya Huff book, and while the first one left a terrible impression on me, this one left a worse one.
Before I dive into the flaws I will say what I enjoyed: the premise of accidentally acquiring an inn and having to rescue it from a hole to Hell is pretty neat. Dean, the man-of-all-work-cum-housekeeper is also probably the best character this book had to offer up.
Flaws (in no particular order):
1. There is no plot. There are things that happen. Sometimes they are connected, mostly they aren't. By the time a semblance of a plot does go on, you've wasted hundreds of pages being assaulted by a misogynistic creepy ghost, a thoughtless annoying neighbor, and a myriad of other annoyances. If this is supposed to be more slice-of-life fantasy then have that, not this mish-mash.
2. Where is the female rep?
* Of the main on-page characters that take up most of the time, 3 males (a sarcastic meme-dropping cat, a young housekeeper and a lecherous ghost) get the most attention in the entire book.
* Claire is supposed to be our main character, but she a very rude, thoughtless person who pretends she is better than she is. Since we see the story from her perspective, it's easy to think of her as a good person. But she is a pretty terrible main character. And there is a way to be assertive and state what you want without demanding things and not telling people things.
* The neighbor woman is annoying, doesn't listen, and basically nags everyone to death as soon as she shows up. Also her dog has like no training and everyone hates the neighbor dog that always barks.
* Claire's family means well but is basically bossy, annoying, and they don't get along. They are also not around a lot.
* The one female guest is a vampire woman who alternates between just ooooooozing sex and being a weird matronly-like figure. The trope of the madonna-whore if you will.
3. The weird love-triangle. Why is there a love triangle (it's actually just a love-angle)!? It's also set up to be impossible: Claire is constantly on the move, the one guy is "too young for me" and wants to stay in place, the other guy is a sleazy old ghost. The romance isn't even built up in a way that makes sense. Claire basically has the hots for the ghost from the first gross comment. She allows him to constantly beg for a body so he can do things to her, and she likes it.
4. This book is supposed to be funny I think. I didn't laugh or crack a smile at any of these "jokes". I love a good bad-pun, but the puns were just not even at that level. Hell talking to itself was always an annoying interjection. There is supposed to be mice or imps? Somehow a pest infestation is a running and ongoing gag that makes no sense. This book is trying waaay too hard.
5. The writing is really not that great. For example, Dean goes out to hang with his friends. When we next see him, it starts with, "Later that night, Dean let himself into his apartment through the door in the area." What area? Is there some external door that wasn't mentioned before? The continuity in the text is very lazy. This book loves to just drop things without mentioning them previously, e.g. Claire turned a bunch of chains into rice, but the first we hear of it is 5 minutes later when she's stepping on the rice and Dean finally asks 'hey were did all this rice come from?' also we were with Claire the whole time and should have seen her create rice. It's a backwards sort of writing that makes me have to work harder for the text than I feel this book deserves.
6. The premise of how 'Hell' even exists is pretty neat - there's a spectrum of possibilities one end which we can refer to as 'evil' and the other as 'good. The unused ones turn into magical power. And if you draw too much, but also if you murder someone, and also if you do anything bad at all with that power on the 'evil' end you create a hole to Hell. And so the Keepers are sent out into the world to close the constantly opening holes to Hell everywhere. What. You lost me. At this rate (with humanity's track record of murders alone!) we should all be existing *in* Hell. Hell is this book - confirmed.
Before I dive into the flaws I will say what I enjoyed: the premise of accidentally acquiring an inn and having to rescue it from a hole to Hell is pretty neat. Dean, the man-of-all-work-cum-housekeeper is also probably the best character this book had to offer up.
Flaws (in no particular order):
1. There is no plot. There are things that happen. Sometimes they are connected, mostly they aren't. By the time a semblance of a plot does go on, you've wasted hundreds of pages being assaulted by a misogynistic creepy ghost, a thoughtless annoying neighbor, and a myriad of other annoyances. If this is supposed to be more slice-of-life fantasy then have that, not this mish-mash.
2. Where is the female rep?
* Of the main on-page characters that take up most of the time, 3 males (a sarcastic meme-dropping cat, a young housekeeper and a lecherous ghost) get the most attention in the entire book.
* Claire is supposed to be our main character, but she a very rude, thoughtless person who pretends she is better than she is. Since we see the story from her perspective, it's easy to think of her as a good person. But she is a pretty terrible main character. And there is a way to be assertive and state what you want without demanding things and not telling people things.
* The neighbor woman is annoying, doesn't listen, and basically nags everyone to death as soon as she shows up. Also her dog has like no training and everyone hates the neighbor dog that always barks.
* Claire's family means well but is basically bossy, annoying, and they don't get along. They are also not around a lot.
* The one female guest is a vampire woman who alternates between just ooooooozing sex and being a weird matronly-like figure. The trope of the madonna-whore if you will.
3. The weird love-triangle. Why is there a love triangle (it's actually just a love-angle)!? It's also set up to be impossible: Claire is constantly on the move, the one guy is "too young for me" and wants to stay in place, the other guy is a sleazy old ghost. The romance isn't even built up in a way that makes sense. Claire basically has the hots for the ghost from the first gross comment. She allows him to constantly beg for a body so he can do things to her, and she likes it.
4. This book is supposed to be funny I think. I didn't laugh or crack a smile at any of these "jokes". I love a good bad-pun, but the puns were just not even at that level. Hell talking to itself was always an annoying interjection. There is supposed to be mice or imps? Somehow a pest infestation is a running and ongoing gag that makes no sense. This book is trying waaay too hard.
5. The writing is really not that great. For example, Dean goes out to hang with his friends. When we next see him, it starts with, "Later that night, Dean let himself into his apartment through the door in the area." What area? Is there some external door that wasn't mentioned before? The continuity in the text is very lazy. This book loves to just drop things without mentioning them previously, e.g. Claire turned a bunch of chains into rice, but the first we hear of it is 5 minutes later when she's stepping on the rice and Dean finally asks 'hey were did all this rice come from?' also we were with Claire the whole time and should have seen her create rice. It's a backwards sort of writing that makes me have to work harder for the text than I feel this book deserves.
6. The premise of how 'Hell' even exists is pretty neat - there's a spectrum of possibilities one end which we can refer to as 'evil' and the other as 'good. The unused ones turn into magical power. And if you draw too much, but also if you murder someone, and also if you do anything bad at all with that power on the 'evil' end you create a hole to Hell. And so the Keepers are sent out into the world to close the constantly opening holes to Hell everywhere. What. You lost me. At this rate (with humanity's track record of murders alone!) we should all be existing *in* Hell. Hell is this book - confirmed.
March 8, 2014
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 employee Dean McIssac a handsome young man who would bring honor to every boy scout group (he cooks, cleans and keeps things tidy) and discovers a lascivious ghost in the attic named Jacques Labaet. Not enough her hotel guests aren´t your average visitors they´re vampires, werwolves and retired ex-olympic gods (I liked this lot) and there´s a nosy neighbour with a crazy dog watching her all the time.
I liked the weird sense of humor in this book! The talking cat is hilarious and the pouting hell seems to have a split personality and is constantly talking to itself and its tries via bathroom mirror to lead Claire into temptation are amusing. But what surprised me a little bit was the force of attraction Claire felt for the ghost his "cherie´s" to and his "cherie´s" fro and obvious tries of seduction were slowly but surely getting on my nerves.. but maybe that´s just me and my dislike of men who see themselves as great seducers.. (rolls eyes). This book was fun to read and I will definitely read the next volumes – I´m just to curious what will happen between Dean and Claire...
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 employee Dean McIssac a handsome young man who would bring honor to every boy scout group (he cooks, cleans and keeps things tidy) and discovers a lascivious ghost in the attic named Jacques Labaet. Not enough her hotel guests aren´t your average visitors they´re vampires, werwolves and retired ex-olympic gods (I liked this lot) and there´s a nosy neighbour with a crazy dog watching her all the time.
I liked the weird sense of humor in this book! The talking cat is hilarious and the pouting hell seems to have a split personality and is constantly talking to itself and its tries via bathroom mirror to lead Claire into temptation are amusing. But what surprised me a little bit was the force of attraction Claire felt for the ghost his "cherie´s" to and his "cherie´s" fro and obvious tries of seduction were slowly but surely getting on my nerves.. but maybe that´s just me and my dislike of men who see themselves as great seducers.. (rolls eyes). This book was fun to read and I will definitely read the next volumes – I´m just to curious what will happen between Dean and Claire...
October 4, 2020
3* and struggled not to slide to 2.5. I had some high hope for another one of Tanya Huff's books. This one did not deliver for me. I felt like the writing was a bit MA but also dealt with some serious adult themes of 20 year olds. The magical elements were a bit all over the place for me.
April 21, 2012
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 none are done in the same way. Being from Canada I might have gotten some extra mileage out of a few of her jokes =]. The story is in no hurry to get anywhere and that's more than fine because Huff sets out to entertain you every single page. The fantasy world has time to explain itself and many creatures make their way to "Elysian Fields Inn" which is especially fun for those of us who know their mythology. I feel I should mention that the blurb might promise more romance than really appears...I'm not sure if I'm spoiling anything by saying that there's more romantic tension than an actual love story. These days, I find we tend to expect a particular level of romance in our urban fantasy, but this is an older book (published in 1998), so it's fun to see what was going on in the urban fantasy genre when it was kind of in its "teenage" years, before it had the glut of established tropes that it has now.
If you want some light, endearing and incredibly entertaining reading then I highly suggest reading the entire trilogy, though Summon the Keeper is the best of the three (this review is actually the result of my third re-read).
If you want some light, endearing and incredibly entertaining reading then I highly suggest reading the entire trilogy, though Summon the Keeper is the best of the three (this review is actually the result of my third re-read).
January 14, 2008
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, Austin, Claire deals with all of this plus the temptations of Hell and a slew of interesting out-of-this world guests. The overnight visit of the geriatric, ex-Olympic Gods and Goddesses is by itself worth a second read ("Aphrodite travels with more clothing than Ginger took on that 3 hour cruise").
I sincerely hope this is the beginning of a series. How many other books out there can I read where Hell laments that no one knows the classics anymore when his reference to Citizen Kane goes unrecognized? I recommend.
I sincerely hope this is the beginning of a series. How many other books out there can I read where Hell laments that no one knows the classics anymore when his reference to Citizen Kane goes unrecognized? I recommend.
January 1, 2014
I really like that this is set in Canada and features Canadian characters. Dean is the best thing about the book, because he's a Newfie and because he's just all-around adorable. I don't agree with all of Claire's decisions, but she's an interesting character. I like the concept of Keepers and Cousins. I like Huff's "kitchen sink" approach to magic and mythology; there's a little bit of everything blended together for fun, including a couple of references to Star Wars and Star Trek that had me giggling.
July 11, 2020
I enjoyed it but not enough to finish it properly, I 'skimmed' the last %40 of the audiobook because I lost interest
Read
June 18, 2022On my most recent trip to our town’s used bookstore, I got a hefty dose of Tanya Huff books. Having finished the Gale Women series (though that didn’t stop me from accidentally buying another copy of The Future Falls by mistake, oops), I was happy to discover several books in two different series from Huff. I decided to start her Keeper Chronicles first with Summon the Keeper. It was a great change of pace from some of the other books I have read lately. Tanya Huff’s storytelling is that comfy kind of familiar where you always feel like you’re coming home.
Claire Hansen is a Keeper, which is an efficient way of saying she is a member of a supernatural lineage dedicated to preserving the fabric of the universe. She does this by sealing sites where the fabric of the universe has worn thin, sometimes as a result of people unwittingly using what we might call magic but what Claire calls “the possibilities.” Summon the Keeper sees Claire arrive at the Elysian Fields Guesthouse in Kingston, Ontario. Previously under the supervision of a Cousin—a less powerful ally to the Keepers—he scampers off Claire arrives, leaving her in charge of this dilapidated hotel. She has a talking cat, Austin, by her side, and quickly charms the hotel’s one employee, Dean, a handyman/chef/all around hunk. There’s an evil, sleeping Keeper in room six and a literal hole to Hell in the furnace room, and Claire is determined to seal this site and get out of Kingston no matter what.
Most of the fantasy novels I picked up from the used bookstore are what I would call “classic” fantasy from the 1980s and 1990s. Summon the Keeper, published 1998, is no exception. There’s something really quaint about reading a book that is now twenty-four years old—I love the references, now so outdated, to things like computer towers with CD-ROM drives. The fact that Huff sets her stories so often in Canada also makes me smile!
Huff is a master at writing compelling and intense scenes whether they are action-focused or feelings-focused. Claire is a great protagonist: she is capable and confident in her abilities, yet she also has plenty of flaws. Sometimes we might describe her as overconfident, though in a different way from her younger sister. I like that, at twenty-seven, she is older than a lot of female protagonists that we get in urban fantasy, yet she is still young enough to be plenty inexperienced, both at her job and her life.
Though the love triangle between Claire, Dean, and Jacques does very little for me, I appreciate what Huff is trying to accomplish. Claire’s reluctance to deal with the tension between her and Dean drives, directly or indirectly, quite a lot of the conflict in this book. Though Hell, personified by an ALL CAPS split personality that comments sarcastically on events throughout the book, is the nominal antagonist, one might also argue that Claire is her own worst enemy. She spends so much time trying to “solve” the problem of the Elysian that she keeps stirring up trouble. My main reaction, as I was reading, was “Man, Huff is never giving Claire a break,” but this is usually the result of Claire’s own actions.
In this way, Summon the Keeper, despite being a slimmer novel, is packed full of entertaining action and intense drama. I was genuinely enthralled by the plot, curious to find out how Claire would resolve the problem of the evil Keeper and seal up the hole to Hell. The ending is fine—a little rushed, a little too cinematic for my aphantasic brain to process—but I am looking forward to reading the sequel, and likely soon, given that I acquired it at the used bookstore too!
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
Claire Hansen is a Keeper, which is an efficient way of saying she is a member of a supernatural lineage dedicated to preserving the fabric of the universe. She does this by sealing sites where the fabric of the universe has worn thin, sometimes as a result of people unwittingly using what we might call magic but what Claire calls “the possibilities.” Summon the Keeper sees Claire arrive at the Elysian Fields Guesthouse in Kingston, Ontario. Previously under the supervision of a Cousin—a less powerful ally to the Keepers—he scampers off Claire arrives, leaving her in charge of this dilapidated hotel. She has a talking cat, Austin, by her side, and quickly charms the hotel’s one employee, Dean, a handyman/chef/all around hunk. There’s an evil, sleeping Keeper in room six and a literal hole to Hell in the furnace room, and Claire is determined to seal this site and get out of Kingston no matter what.
Most of the fantasy novels I picked up from the used bookstore are what I would call “classic” fantasy from the 1980s and 1990s. Summon the Keeper, published 1998, is no exception. There’s something really quaint about reading a book that is now twenty-four years old—I love the references, now so outdated, to things like computer towers with CD-ROM drives. The fact that Huff sets her stories so often in Canada also makes me smile!
Huff is a master at writing compelling and intense scenes whether they are action-focused or feelings-focused. Claire is a great protagonist: she is capable and confident in her abilities, yet she also has plenty of flaws. Sometimes we might describe her as overconfident, though in a different way from her younger sister. I like that, at twenty-seven, she is older than a lot of female protagonists that we get in urban fantasy, yet she is still young enough to be plenty inexperienced, both at her job and her life.
Though the love triangle between Claire, Dean, and Jacques does very little for me, I appreciate what Huff is trying to accomplish. Claire’s reluctance to deal with the tension between her and Dean drives, directly or indirectly, quite a lot of the conflict in this book. Though Hell, personified by an ALL CAPS split personality that comments sarcastically on events throughout the book, is the nominal antagonist, one might also argue that Claire is her own worst enemy. She spends so much time trying to “solve” the problem of the Elysian that she keeps stirring up trouble. My main reaction, as I was reading, was “Man, Huff is never giving Claire a break,” but this is usually the result of Claire’s own actions.
In this way, Summon the Keeper, despite being a slimmer novel, is packed full of entertaining action and intense drama. I was genuinely enthralled by the plot, curious to find out how Claire would resolve the problem of the evil Keeper and seal up the hole to Hell. The ending is fine—a little rushed, a little too cinematic for my aphantasic brain to process—but I am looking forward to reading the sequel, and likely soon, given that I acquired it at the used bookstore too!
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
September 2, 2023
Well, 1 star for the good premise, and 1 star for the talking cat, and a final star because by the end of the book I realised that I did enjoy it and would read the rest of the series. This book is rather badly written. You will skip between characters in a scene, sometimes one sentence at a time until you are totally confused as to who is saying and thinking what. I also disliked Claire, she was arrogant, stubborn, obnoxious and very rude most of the time. Dean was a bit bland for my taste, but I get that he'd appeal to some people. And then there is the magic which isn't really explained properly and I'm still not dead sure what they did in the end to close the hole to hell. Thank goodness for Austin, the talking cat, he was brilliant! I also laughed my butt off at some of the guests that the guesthouse attracted.
So, yeah, in the end it was enjoyable, even with all the problems.
So, yeah, in the end it was enjoyable, even with all the problems.
October 27, 2020
That was quite fun. I do love me some 90s Tanya Huff. And a talking cat full of snark.
May 3, 2020
3+
Cute. Of course anything with talking cats has to be cute, right?
Cute. Of course anything with talking cats has to be cute, right?
October 23, 2012
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, she does, but unfortunately, her powers not only make her justifiably conceited but also inevitably lonely.
Dean – a twenty-year-old cook, handyman, and Claire’s developing heartthrob. Raised by a preacher grandfather, Dean belongs to the rarest category: he irons his jeans and helps old ladies across the street. Claire’s first impression of him:
He also has brilliantly white teeth, wide shoulders, narrow hips, and “a pair of blue eyes surrounded by a thick fringe of dark lashes.” The Keeper is clearly enchanted but resisting it.
Austin – Claire’s cat. No explanations required except that unlike the majority of cats, Austin can talk. He talks a lot, and his sarcastic comments constitute the treasure of this novel.
Jacques – a French sailor ghost haunting the hotel. Claire has a fling with him.
Story
In answer to the current Summons, Claire arrives in Kingston, Ontario and finds a huge, un-closable hole to hell in the basement of an old, run-down inn. The bulk of the story is stationary: it takes place inside the inn. The only change of location happens, when the heroes climb up or down the stairs.
Surprisingly, the tension mounts steadily, as Claire studies the complicated hole in preparations for closing it, argues with the cat, and plays the innkeeper to a stimulating variety of paranormal guests. She also combats her growing attraction to Dean with the increasing levels of rudeness and arrogance. And she is loosing the battle.
Small, disjointed mini-scenes populating the novel add to the sense of approaching doom, as the tension escalates. Soon, the reader thinks and avidly turns the pages. The love triangle between the Keeper, the ghost, and Dean flavors the tale with droll absurdities and exacerbates the reader’s already frayed nerve endings. Soon… Something must happen soon.
It speaks highly of the writer’s mastery of her craft that she managed to create a fascinating, multidimensional story without leaving the walls of the hotel. She also made her story amusing, mostly through dialogs which contain all the different aspects of funny. Sometimes the characters’ verbal exchanges are witty, at other times humorous or ironic, and occasionally sharply caustic.
Unusual, fast-moving, and entertaining. Recommended.
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, she does, but unfortunately, her powers not only make her justifiably conceited but also inevitably lonely.
Dean – a twenty-year-old cook, handyman, and Claire’s developing heartthrob. Raised by a preacher grandfather, Dean belongs to the rarest category: he irons his jeans and helps old ladies across the street. Claire’s first impression of him:
“In spite of his age, or rather lack of it, this was the most grounded person she’d ever met. … he’d never push a door marked pull, he’d arrive on time for appointments, and, in case of fire, he’d actually remember the locations of the nearest exits. Glancing down at his feet, she half expected to see roots disappearing into the floor but saw only a pair of worn work boots approximately size twelve.”
He also has brilliantly white teeth, wide shoulders, narrow hips, and “a pair of blue eyes surrounded by a thick fringe of dark lashes.” The Keeper is clearly enchanted but resisting it.
Austin – Claire’s cat. No explanations required except that unlike the majority of cats, Austin can talk. He talks a lot, and his sarcastic comments constitute the treasure of this novel.
Jacques – a French sailor ghost haunting the hotel. Claire has a fling with him.
Story
In answer to the current Summons, Claire arrives in Kingston, Ontario and finds a huge, un-closable hole to hell in the basement of an old, run-down inn. The bulk of the story is stationary: it takes place inside the inn. The only change of location happens, when the heroes climb up or down the stairs.
Surprisingly, the tension mounts steadily, as Claire studies the complicated hole in preparations for closing it, argues with the cat, and plays the innkeeper to a stimulating variety of paranormal guests. She also combats her growing attraction to Dean with the increasing levels of rudeness and arrogance. And she is loosing the battle.
Small, disjointed mini-scenes populating the novel add to the sense of approaching doom, as the tension escalates. Soon, the reader thinks and avidly turns the pages. The love triangle between the Keeper, the ghost, and Dean flavors the tale with droll absurdities and exacerbates the reader’s already frayed nerve endings. Soon… Something must happen soon.
It speaks highly of the writer’s mastery of her craft that she managed to create a fascinating, multidimensional story without leaving the walls of the hotel. She also made her story amusing, mostly through dialogs which contain all the different aspects of funny. Sometimes the characters’ verbal exchanges are witty, at other times humorous or ironic, and occasionally sharply caustic.
Unusual, fast-moving, and entertaining. Recommended.
March 20, 2025
Claire Hansen is a Keeper, a person of the lineage who is responsible for repairing holes poked into the fabric reality and keep things running smoothly for the rest of humanity. Keepers are "summoned" to where they are needed and Claire finds herself summoned to the Elysian Fields Guest House to seal a hole in the basement. When the current proprietor abruptly ups and leaves, with all the paperwork putting ownership on the B&B in Claire's name, Claire finds herself stuck running the place while also trying to figure out how to close the site.
Summon the Keeper is the first in the Keeper's Chronicles trilogy by Tanya Huff. The story is a lite and fun Canadian Urban Fantasy full of humor, magic, holes to other dimensions, retired Olympians, a talking cat, a lusty French ghost and a handsome handyman who even does windows. My favorite things were Austin the cat (obviously) and Hell constantly arguing with itself. In fact, I think I enjoyed all the supporting characters more than I liked Claire, whose personality I found off-putting at times. The plot meanders around while magical hi-jinks ensue and the humor almost downplayed just how potentially world ending the situation was. I liked the way the story was wrapped up and am looking forward to seeing where Claire, along with Dean, are summoned next.
Summon the Keeper is the first in the Keeper's Chronicles trilogy by Tanya Huff. The story is a lite and fun Canadian Urban Fantasy full of humor, magic, holes to other dimensions, retired Olympians, a talking cat, a lusty French ghost and a handsome handyman who even does windows. My favorite things were Austin the cat (obviously) and Hell constantly arguing with itself. In fact, I think I enjoyed all the supporting characters more than I liked Claire, whose personality I found off-putting at times. The plot meanders around while magical hi-jinks ensue and the humor almost downplayed just how potentially world ending the situation was. I liked the way the story was wrapped up and am looking forward to seeing where Claire, along with Dean, are summoned next.
December 1, 2010
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 virginal Dean. In Room 6 there’s an Evil Keeper who has been in a sleeping spell for sixty years, and there’s a gateway to hell in the basement. Claire travels with her talking cat companion, Austin. As guests, they host a folk musician/ vampire, identical triplet werewolves (of which only two show up) in town for a competition, retired Olympians who are not sports people, a Quebecois, ghost Jacques who “lives” there, and all sorts of beasties, not all of them children, on Halloween. A fun, but not world changing novel, but these rarely are. Fun is good.
I'm looking forward to the other two books in the series, well, anything by Tanya Huff.
Claire is a Keeper who is summoned to a Kingston, ON ramshackle rooming house that is staffed by the handsome, capable, Newfie, young, and virginal Dean. In Room 6 there’s an Evil Keeper who has been in a sleeping spell for sixty years, and there’s a gateway to hell in the basement. Claire travels with her talking cat companion, Austin. As guests, they host a folk musician/ vampire, identical triplet werewolves (of which only two show up) in town for a competition, retired Olympians who are not sports people, a Quebecois, ghost Jacques who “lives” there, and all sorts of beasties, not all of them children, on Halloween. A fun, but not world changing novel, but these rarely are. Fun is good.
I'm looking forward to the other two books in the series, well, anything by Tanya Huff.
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