Tangled Webs

Starred review from December 17, 2007
In Bishop’s bewitching latest Black Jewels adventure (after 2005’s Dreams Made Flesh
), a tour of an old house becomes a hellish matter of life and death. Lady Surreal SaDiablo receives an invitation to preview the “silly, spooky” house that Queen Jaenelle Angelline has created to parody myths about the magically gifted Bloods, and she persuades her friend and fellow magic user Warlord Prince Rainier to join her. The only snag is that Jaenelle didn’t send the invitation. Crazed, jealous novelist Jarvis Jenkell has discovered his Blood heritage and developed his own haunted house with the goal of trapping other Bloods and using their travails to inspire his fiction. As Surreal, Rainer and several local children struggle to escape Jenkell’s deadly snare, Jaenelle’s husband, Daemon Sadi, and Sadi’s half-brother, Lucivar, must call upon all their Craft skills to free the trapped. With feverish pacing and terrifying twists, Bishop’s surefire spell craft will leave readers’ hearts pounding.

March 1, 2008
In the aftermath of the major conflict in previous Black Jewels stories, this one opens with Surreal SaDiablo receiving an invitation from former Realm queen Janelle Angelline. When she arrives in response, the door of the house she enters disappears, snaring her in a black-magic web, with monsters at every turn, from which she cant free herself with witchcraft, or shell be trapped forever. Janelle didnt send the invitation, of course, but now she and her family must rescue the houses captives and figure out who set the trap. With enough plot to interest series fans and newbies alike, this is at least good commuter reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)