Magic At The Gate-Devon Monk

Magic At The Gate
Devon Monk
Roc, Nov 2 2010, $7.99
ISBN: 9780451463623

In Portland, Guardian of the Gate Zayvion Jones lies in an otherworldly induced coma. His former girlfriend Chase and her former soul complement Greyson pushed his soul into the Death realm.

Zayvion’s current love hound Allie Beckstrom is frantic, but knows what she must do to save the soul of her beloved. No one enters the realm of Death twice; as it is impossible to escape once you are there. Yet that is what Allie must do. She enters a macabre perverse looking Portland in which even the air feels dead to find the lost soul of her lover. Accompanying her are Stone her gargoyle and her deceased father Daniel, whose partial essence remains inside her. She trusts the gargoyle but not her deceased sire who betrayed her when he lived. The cost to her soul could prove eternal, but to save Zayvion is worth any price and not just because he is her love though in her heart that is enough; he is critical in the war between the forces of the light and the malevolence of the dark.

The latest Magic Beckstrom romantic urban fantasy (see Magic Storm and Magic in the Blood) is a great entry as readers accompany the heroine, the gargoyle and dad into a hellish version of Portland that screams of Edvard Munch. Allie makes the entry powerful with her willingness to die for love; as she believes death may be a sort of Eagles’ Hotel California. Even if she cannot escape, she must find a way for her beloved to leave as he is needed in the realm of the living though she will miss him perhaps forever.

Harriet Klausner