Keepers of the Flame
Robin D. Owens
Luna, Jan 2008, $14.95, 400 pp.
ISBN: 9780373802623

On the world of Amee in the realm of Lladrana, there is a war going on against the Dark an evil entity from another dimension who wants to rid the orb of humans. It uses the Master to send monsters against the people and the Marshallss and the C hevaliers fight them. Now the Master has sent something to the cities and towns; a new disease that the medicos can't heeal. The city master Sevair Mosif pays for a Summoning of an Exotique from earth with medical skills. What they get are identical twins Elizabeth who is an MD and Bri who practices alternative healing. Both have healing hands and are able to cure the afflicted.

Both the twins insist they will return to Earth when the Snap occurs. While they are there they look for a way to heal the disease and later look for a cure for a mutation of the disease so the Chevaliers will avoid this fatal illness contracted on the battle field. Both women are accepted and people make it clear that they want them to stay. Bri finds love with Sevair who is the first person who accepts her for who she is and Elizabeth falls in love on the rebound with the noble chevalier Fauchon. Tragedy strikes when one of the twins takes ill on the battlefield and nobody knows how to save her.

There is one more summoning before the Exotiques and their husbands go to the volcanic island where the Dark resides and try to undo the spellknot protecting evil; having two Exotiques summoned, the author changes the dynamics of previous storylines as each twin has their own story. Readers will be enthralled with this latest entry in the series (see GUARDIAN OF HONOR) and eagerly await the next book when the final summoning and battle takes place. Robin D. Owens is a worldbuilder who makes the audience believe in the realm she creates.

Harriet Klausner