Twilight Crossings II

Twilight Crossings II
Sheri L. McGathy, Shannah Biondine, Jeanne Allen, Jeanine Berry
Double Dragon Publishing
ISBN: 1-55404-146-5
Fiction, Fantasy
Reviewed by Eugen M. Bacon

A hush settles over the land. Time seems to slow, and for the briefest of moments, you behold the beauty of twilight.
Mysterious bubbles float into a simmering pot. A mesmeric foreword from Sheri L. McGathy affirms what I already know: I love her writing. There is always a magical quality, something insightful, an exquisite element almost literary. Her tales are well thought, finely told, wonderfully readable, and are sometimes almost calming. Where Lies Beauty questions beauty, confronts perfection. Tanner and her brother, Conn, are Seekers. Faylon is a New Worlder who will pay anything in gold to go in a treacherous journey beyond the Divide. Only Seekers can guide him into ruins of the ancient mages, into the cursed forest of Sha-da-nay, The City of light. Parallels: superb characterization opens the reader to the magnificence of slave Manny whose scars much remind Tanner of her own gruesome past, but whose pure eyes carry greater youth than dawn. Sheri L. McGathy draws a clear yet intricate world, one so full of myths, its very land breathes.
Shannah Biondine’s Mourn a Moonreft Sky skilfully paints a voyage bursting with mystery in the core of a medieval world. A slain wizard, a stolen Umbra Amulate, a Glacian quest. Zavend, a rare Waniand scholar, travels far. He seeks the assistance of amorous Capt Praxis, a female of hidden thoughts. But she is also a skilled rider of griffons, terrible beasts. Only first they have to catch one such creature before the pursuit can begin.
Jeanine Berry’s The Well of Forever holds definite darkness inside beauty. Caireya is a slave and a seer in an ancient palace, a fortress that has survived the Cataclysm. Caireya?s powers allow her the ability to unearth things. Younger sister, Eronne, has a healing gift. But, since the vanishing of the great sorcerer, Lohar, the two females are towed onto an expedition to Maricor by their master, Demor. His greed will not sleep until his hands clasp a magical wand with legendary powers. Through spell, he manages to weave a shell of the great mage, a grand find. But the simulacrum has powers of its own, and in the wrong hands?
Jeanne Allen’s Viking imaginings beget The Treasure of Arvalis, a historical romance full of action. Temple priestess, Eirena, is not spared visions that hold much foreboding. When these visions come true, and the land of Ignatia is tossed into a horrific fate, Eirena must convert a barbarian, a warrior of intrinsic savagery, into a liberator of the people.
Twilight Crossings II is a remarkable novel. It carries individual tales so full of charm; four astonishing novellas as much filled with adventure as enchantment.