The Enchantment Emporium

April 27, 2009
Thoughtful and leisurely, this fresh urban fantasy from Canadian author Huff (Valor's Trial
) features an ensemble cast of nuanced characters in Calgary, Alberta. Headstrong young museum research assistant Allie Gale takes over her missing grandmother's titular junk-shop, which is supposedly crucial to the local community. When Allie arrives to find a leprechaun, a monkey's paw and a magic mirror, she realizes her grandmother didn't mean the human community. After spotting low-flying dragons and other UnderRealm creatures in the neighborhood, Allie calls on the help of her powerful family of modern, benevolent Toronto witches, who attempt to visit via a spacetime-spanning Wood until something shadowy begins pushing them out in inconvenient locales like Haiti. Fantasy buffs will find plenty of humor, thrills and original mythology to chew on, along with refreshingly three-dimensional women in an original, fully realized world.

July 15, 2009
Alysha Gale isn't sure what she wants to do with her life. Born into the magical Gale family, she feels that everything is predestinedshe'll marry another Gale, have magical children, and, after menopause, become one of the Gale Aunties. Though she tries to live a normal life, she finds her attempt thwarted when her Gran goes missing and leaves Alysha a strange inheritance: a Calgary junk shop that is a hub of activity for the city's fey community. Though Alysha journeys reluctantly to Calgary, she soon realizes that this trip is yet another part of her predestiny as a Galesomething scary is brewing in the prairie province of Alberta, and she needs to help stop it. VERDICT This new urban fantasy by the author of the "Blood" vampire mysteries (the basis for Lifetime's now canceled "Blood Ties" series) will appeal to fantasy fans who enjoy supernatural phenomena in real-world settings and urban fantasy readers who are bored with the grittier side of the genre. A good readalike is Laura Anne Gilman's "Retrievers" series.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 15, 2009
The Gale family, dominated by its Aunties, is more than a little unusual. The men have a proclivity for growing horns, with the most powerful of them boasting towering racks la the mythological Green Man. The women, less physically disconcerting but magically gifted, live more or less normally. Young Alysha Gale even has real work . . . well, at least a research grant . . . well, at least she did. Fortunately, just as she loses her grant, Allie receives a letter stating that her grandmother has died and left Allie the Enchantment Emporium in Calgary. Decamping to Alberta, Allie discovers that the store is not only a junk shop specializing in yo-yos but also an information exchange for the fey community. She also discovers a homeless leprechaun, whom she hires, and that her grandmother is only presumed dead. Soon dragons may be flying overhead, a strangely attractive tabloid reporter interviews Allie, and Calgary seems to be hosting a sorcerer. Now, sorcerers are precisely what the Aunties most fear, although Allies beloved brother may become one someday. Meanwhile, Calgary is in danger of becoming the epicenter of the end of the world as we know it, and Allie starts falling for an assassin while getting over losing the love of her life to another man. This enchanting, suspenseful urban fantasy should grab fans of Charles de Lint, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and Jim Butcher.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)