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ISBN: 0812521048

ListPrice: $3.95

Summary: Dallas Police Detective Mark Valdez isn't just any cop, he's a psychic who knows that the cattle mutilations and torture murders he's been investigating are somehow tied together. He also knows that his meager psychic abilities aren't enough to identify the killers, much less stop them. Luckily, Mark has an ace up his sleeve: an attractive young romance novelist who happens to be a practicing witch. And not just any witch, either-Diana Tregarde is a Guardian, charged with protecting the Earth and all its creatures. Using modern science and ancient magics, Diana and Mark discover that they are tailing no ordinary serial killer but the awakened avatar of an Aztec god. Tezcatlipoca and his four beautiful handmaidens are preparing for a great sacrifice that will transform North America into a new Aztec realm. Diana isn't sure her powers are strong enough to take on those of a risen Aztec god, but she has no choice. As a Guardian, she is sworn to protect mankind, even at the cost of her own life. Luckily, she does not stand alone. Mark Valdez is more than just a cop. And Tezcatlipoca is not the only Aztec god walking in the world.

ISBN: 0812521129

ListPrice: $3.95

Summary: The Gypsy boy has asked for Di's help--called on for her magical assistance--and she could not refuse, especially after he was slain practically on her doorstep.But the vampire Di finds cradling the body isn't the killer--he's the Gypsies' protector, Andre LeBrel, who informs Di that there's more than one monster stalking the streets of New York.Now it's up to Diana Tregarde, Guardian and practicing witch, to find the killer and destroy them....with a little supernatural assistance from a very friendly, and very sexy, vampire.

ISBN: 0812521145

ListPrice: $4.99

Summary: This is the third and last of Mercedes Lackey's stories about Diana Tregarde. Diana is a Guardian, a witch/sorcerer trained to oppose those who misuse Magick and the creatures that serve them. This time Diana has been asked to come to a small suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma by an old friend, Larry Kestrel. Ostensibly, Diana is there to teach a short course in the practical side of professional writing, but Larry wants here to look into premonitions he is having about a threat to his son, Derek.
While there is no apparent danger to the boy, he has been mixing with a wild crowd, led by Fay Harper. If bad mojo does not get him, his lifestyle just might. In any case, what Diana realizes right away is that the real problem is that there isn't any problem. Tulsa sits in the middle of a nulls zone where nothing sends out mystical signals, and not even tornadoes show up to disturb the ether. When she checks with other guardians in the area, she discovers that there are legends of something very powerful lying asleep below the city. Something that nothing in its right mind would ever choose to wake up.
No sooner does Diana start to settle into her role, when the apparent quiet is disturbed by several severe magical attacks on Monica Carlin, a new girl at the high school. The attacks are sudden, too swift for Diana to pinpoint. And they are strong, the world of a mature, skilled sorcerer. This is the rub. Unlike Diana, the reader knows from the beginning that Fay Harper is the sorcerer, who disguises her age by jumping from her body to her daughter's every 30 years. Diana's struggles to identify this source of magic before it wakes the sleeper are limited by her inability to accept a teenager as a master sorcerer.
'Jinx High' is probably the best of the three books in this series, but it is not without a few irritating quirks. If you can get by the fact that Diana's favorite expression is 'Jesus Cluny Frog,' you will probably find the story interesting and entertaining. Lackey has a good grasp of ceremonial magic, and doesn't make the kind of oversimplifying mistakes that many writers in the magic genre are prone to make.
However, if Diana's faults are bearable, the characters of her high school students, villains and heroes, are less attractive. Without exception, they have shallow and self-centered streaks that create a little too much distance between the reader and the plot. Some people would argue that that is only reality. But, I'm old fashioned, and like al my protagonists to be, well, protagonists. That everyone has the same character defect doesn't build interest either.
For all my grumbling, this is a solid, readable story. It is a shame that there have been no follow-ups, because Tregarde's character has finally matured. Lackey's skills have continued to improve as well and it would be interesting to see where she would bring this series now.

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ISBN: 0523485093

ListPrice: $2.75

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ISBN: 0441810128

ListPrice: $2.25

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ISBN: 0977663906

ListPrice: $10.00

Summary: Two short stories set in the Liaden Universe. The first story is The Beggar King, set on Liad and about the young Daav yos' Phelium's early training to be Delm. The second is Necessary Evils, explore the time and space before Clan Korval, when the universe was degenerating into chaos, and individuals faced evil in many guises, including bioenginnered human-plant hybrids, slavery and of course greed.