"Excellent pacing and naive charm make this good-natured fantasy especially suitable for teens." — Publishers Weekly
"Ebullient fantasy featuring sympathetic characters, fantastic sorceries, and a fairytale plot." — Library Journal
"Lawrence Watt-Evans delivers worlds brimming over with magic, mystery, and danger; fast-paced, action-packed, and thoroughly entertaining." —Realms of Fantasy
November 11, 2002
In contrast to today's elaborate fantasy sagas, Watt-Evans's latest installment in his Ethshar series (Night of Madness; The Misenchanted Sword) provides a simple, complete story. Despite several years of study, Kilisha, an aspiring young apprentice wizard, has much to learn. After gathering ingredients for a lesson, she returns home to find her master, Ithanalin the Wise, transformed into a statue. A tax collector interrupted Ithanalin while working on a spell, a magic mirror tells her, with the result that the wizard's soul has been distributed among the various household objects. "The dish had run away with the spoon" is literally the case here, as all the furnishings have become animated and escaped out the door. In her efforts to track down the runaway objects and restore her petrified master to his former self, a quest that will eventually take her to the Overlord of Ethshar's fortress, Kilisha first tries to involve the Wizards' Guild but ultimately must rely on the few spells she knows and her master's spell book—as well as her own imagination, initiative and ingenuity. Excellent pacing and naïve charm make this good-natured fantasy especially suitable for teens.
May 2, 2016
In this steamy, but somewhat awkward sequel to 30 Days (2015), the cards outlining “Alyssa’s 30 Days of Sex” fall into the hands of Glenna O’Donald, a 28-year-old research assistant at a college in Toronto. In recent years, her focus has largely been on her job, but when her beloved great-grandmother dies, she decides it’s time to have some adventures. She begins journeying through the cards’ instructions with a coworker, sociology professor Eric Morris, whom she’s been lusting after for a year. Their sensual studies are intense and fulfilling, and Glenna quickly finds herself growing attached to Eric. The sex scenes are delightfully stimulating and kinky, but Eric remains more reticent than is comfortable for either Glenna or the reader, and the lack of communication leads to conflict. Furthermore, the lighthearted erotic exploration clashes with the weighty concerns that the couple blunders into, from issues with Glenna’s best friend, Jasmine, to tensions inherent in a workplace romance. The erotic aspects of the story are well worth reading, but the rest leaves much to be desired.