Mercedes Lackey, Jinx High

Jinx High

Mercedes Lackey

Tor, November 2006, $12.95, 336 pp.

ISBN 0765313197

Derek Kestrel is cruising in his girlfriend Fay Harper's car with some of their friends, when suddenly she gets angry and disappears. The teen in the back seat is trying to grab the wheel when an accident happens and she is thrown into the windshield. Fay reappears and they are all sent to the hospital where tests show nobody was drinking, even though they all were. Derek's father senses something evil is trying to get their hooks into his son, and he calls on his old friend Diana for help.

Fay is a very powerful sorceress, who for over three centuries has transferred her essence into that of her adolescent female child, retaining the knowledge from one jump to the next. When a school friend of Derek's is magically attacked by imps, Diana believes that there is someone older and powerful working magic in the area. She doesn't see Fay as a threat, or know that she is using blood, sex, and death magic to get even with those who cross her. To make matters worse, the area that Derek lives is a null zone, because the gods don't want to wake the sleeping One Below, who is being disturbed by the magic she senses in her dream state.

This is the third and last Diana Tregarde urban fantasy, and it stands the test of time, as readers will love reading this dark fantasy that was written in 1991 before the author became famous. Although readers know who the villain is and what she does, the fun is in watching Diana trying to find and stop her before more lives are ruined. Teenagers as well as adults will love this dark classic.