Black Magic Sanction

January 4, 2010
The eighth bewitching but overly dense Hollows adventure (after 2009’s White Witch, Black Curse
) updates the travails of Rachel Morgan, delectable magical jack of all trades. Having recently learned that Rachel is a witch-born demon whose children would be demons, a white magic coven is shunning her and accusing her of black magic. They offer her a terrible choice: sterilization or imprisonment in Alcatraz. Trent Kalamack, drug lord and elf in hiding, offers to get the coven off her back, but her double-crossing “ex-rat ex-boyfriend,” Nick, shows up and lands her in more hot water. As Rachel battles those she thought were on her side, her survival depends on a paranormal cornucopia of elves, demons, vampires, gargoyles, pixies, and even a leprechaun. This thrill ride celebrates the can-do spirit of one of urban fantasy’s most charming witches.

January 1, 2010
The current high tide of flip, hyperactive supernatural fiction has lifted Harrisons Hollows novels about young, lovely, athletic witch Rachel Morgan onto best-seller lists along with similar series by Kelly Armstrong, Charlaine Harris, and Patricia Briggs. In her eighth outing, Rachel is still learning the ropes as far as her powers go. In the first chapter, shes nearly seized by a lunatic demon. In the second, she has a blowout in a grocery store with a member of the coven of moral and ethical standards, who tries to take her directly to a judicial meeting concerned with her conduct. The third chapter is a kind of breather. During the rest of the yarn, Rachel bounces or gets bounced from one ouchy captivity or near-captivity situation to another, and by the end, it has been firmly established that she aint no ordinary witch; heck, she can hop cross-country in broad daylight! She can also dish it out and take it, verbally as well as physically. Lacking any plot, this, uh, adventure depends on the latter ability, on several other characters parts besides Rachels, to keep on keepin on. If it were filthier than it is (sorry, romance fans, no sex for Rachel), it might be amusing in the manner of early John Waters flicks (Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble). Consider it a for-fans-only volume.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)