The Wild Ways

October 3, 2011
Canadian author Huff cranks up the supernaturally complicated family shenanigans in this helter-skelter sequel to 2009's The Enchantment Emporium. Charlotte "Charlie" Gale faces off against the legendarily tricky Aunt Catherine, a fellow Wild Power who's joined forces with an aggressive oil company that plans to drill in the middle of local Selkie territory. Working to save the Selkies while wrangling a bored 14-year-old cousin who's also a dragon, Charlie has to come to terms with who she is and what she's capable of doing. Zingy characterizations and a quick pace are the book's strong points, moving the reader past often-convoluted family interactions with aplomb. Unfortunately, the most interesting plot twists rush past as well, giving short shrift to Aunt Catherine's role as a master manipulator. New readers will find it tough to get up to speed, but fans of the previous book will hit the ground running.

November 15, 2011

Charlotte "Charlie" Gale is a Celtic musician living with her extended family in Calgary. As an inheritor of the Gale women's "Wild Magic," she possesses talents more powerful and less controllable than those of her "Aunties." In a bid to win offshore drilling rights, an oil company hires Auntie Catherine to steal the sealskins belonging to a family of selkies in Nova Scotia. Now Charlie must face off with the one family member with powers equal to, and older than, her own. Huff ("Blood" series) is one of the pioneers--along with Charles de Lint--of urban fantasy, bringing an earthy wholesomeness that elevates the genre above the steamy eroticism so common to other series. VERDICT Combining Celtic folklore, musical references, and a love of nature and magic, this sequel to The Enchantment Emporium will appeal to Huff's many fans and to readers who like their urban fantasy with more depth and character development.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 15, 2011
The stand-alone sequel to The Enchantment Emporium (2009) focuses on Charlotte Gale, a Wild Power and a talented magical musician. When a situation involving Selkies and formidable Auntie Catherine arises in the Maritimes, she has the perfect cover for helping out some fellow musicians, who need her to compete in a Celtic music festival. Jack, a 14-year-old dragon prince and member of the powerful Gale clan, gets in trouble in Calgary, so Charlotte volunteers to take him east as a roadie for the band. A big oil company has figured out a way to blackmail an environmental protection organization into endorsing its bid for a shallow-water, offshore oil well near a protected seal breeding ground and fragile ecological area by stealing selkie seal skins and hiding them in a coal mine. Good music, magic, selkies, romance, humor, family conflict and allegiances, big-business machinations, goblins, trolls, dragons, and teen angst meld in an enchanting story. Charles de Lint fans and readers of Alex Bledsoe's Tufa books will love Huff's smart and entertaining read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)