Keepers of the Flame

November 26, 2007
Twin sisters Elizabeth and Brigid “Bri” Drystan are pulled from Denver into another dimension in this overcrowded fourth installment of the Summoning (after 2007’s Protector of the Flight
). The twins have the gift of “healing hands,” and while Elizabeth works in traditional medicine, Bri has been exploring global alternative healing methods. Recently reunited, the two find themselves unexpectedly propelled through a rainbow-lit portal to the mystical, musical world of Lladrana, filled with flying horses, magic mirrors and seductive knights. The sisters can’t return to Earth until they heal the people afflicted by a mysterious disease, and by then they may not want to go. Elizabeth must decide whether Chevalier Faucon Creusse is a better match than the lover she left on Earth, while Bri falls for her protector, Sevair Masif. Despite some too-cute prose (“there is a keep-cold twiddle-spell”; “I am Sinafinal, a fey-coo-cu”), Owens’s colorful epic has some charming moments.