Hounding The Moon

June 19, 2006
Readers who crave the fantasy equivalent of a summer movie will welcome Frost's debut, which introduces Tess Noncoiré, a widowed writer who has joined the Goddess-worshiping Sisterhood of the Celestial Blade Warriors, sworn to protect the dimensional portal between humanity and demonkind. Thanks to her magical bond with the wisecracking, cigar-smoking imp Scrap, who changes form to become her Celestial Blade, Tess fights evil—even in the middle of a busy schedule of appearances at science fiction conventions and bookstores to flog her bestselling fantasy novels based on the Sisterhood. When Tess saves a Native American girl from an apparent hellhound attack, she's drawn into a complex plot to open the portal between Earth and the demon realms. Despite an intriguingly dark setup, the novel falters on stereotyped characters and awkward plotting, with Tess spending as much time detailing the charms of SF fandom as she does making herself a target for evil.