Tangled Webs

Starred review from December 17, 2007
In Bishop’s bewitching latest Black Jewels adventure (after 2005’s Dreams Made Flesh
), a tour of an old house becomes a hellish matter of life and death. Lady Surreal SaDiablo receives an invitation to preview the “silly, spooky” house that Queen Jaenelle Angelline has created to parody myths about the magically gifted Bloods, and she persuades her friend and fellow magic user Warlord Prince Rainier to join her. The only snag is that Jaenelle didn’t send the invitation. Crazed, jealous novelist Jarvis Jenkell has discovered his Blood heritage and developed his own haunted house with the goal of trapping other Bloods and using their travails to inspire his fiction. As Surreal, Rainer and several local children struggle to escape Jenkell’s deadly snare, Jaenelle’s husband, Daemon Sadi, and Sadi’s half-brother, Lucivar, must call upon all their Craft skills to free the trapped. With feverish pacing and terrifying twists, Bishop’s surefire spell craft will leave readers’ hearts pounding.