New York Times bestselling author Barbara Hambly is among today's most brilliantly inventive writers of fantasy. Her riveting novels portray the timeless struggle of good and evil with matchless intensity and insight. Now, in the sequel to her critically acclaimed Dragonshadow, Hambly works her most compelling magic yet. The result is a masterpiece of dark fantasy, a courageous and compassionate journey through the hells of the human heart . . . and beyond. Once the most powerful mage in the land, Jenny Waynest is now a broken woman. Though sickened by the memory of how the demon Amayon had possessed her body to slake his sadistic lusts, she knows a part of her was corrupted by his touch. That part mourns the demon's defeat and longs for his return, though he has already cost her everything she holds dear: the trust of her husband, Lord John Aversin; the chance to be a mother to her mage-born son; and the magic that had given her life its purpose. Lord John has torments of his own: memories of the beautiful and cruel Aohila, demon queen of a rival hell, whom he'd tricked into providing the help he needed to free Jenny. Now, condemned to death for trafficking with demons, John cannot forgive Jenny for what she suffered. Nor can he forgive himself--for opening the door to a far greater evil . . . an evil that still haunts his dreams. And not only his dreams . . . For a vengeful Aohila needs mortal aid in realms beyond her power, and who better to provide it than Lord John? Blackmailed into cooperating, John is given a guide: none other than Amayon, the demon he'd driven out of Jenny and into the waiting claws of the demon queen. Now, forced to put his life in the hands of a creature he dare not trust by a monster he dare not disobey, John must fight his way through unimaginable horrors in quest of a prize that may doom the world he has left behind . . . While Jenny, awakened by the stardrake known as Morkeleb the Black, embarks on a quest of her own--one that will lead her, without the magic she has always relied upon, into a world as deadly as any braved by her husband . . . only much closer to home. When plague threatens his lands and his family, Lord John Aversin agrees to the demands of the demon queen Aohila and travels beyond the borders of his world into an alien land to capture a renegade lord of Hell. Once known for his skill at dragonslaying and now condemned for trafficking with demons, Aversin walks a fine line between losing his soul and saving all that he holds dear. Continuing the story begun in Dragonslayer and Dragonshadow, Hambly explores the strengths and weaknesses of her characters as they pit themselves against powers beyond their control. Her expert storytelling as well as her talent for creating sympathetic and believable characters places the author among the front runners of the genre. Recommended for fantasy collections. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. Another of Hambly's yarns (following the superb Dragonshadow, 1999) about the struggles of bespectacled, bookish warrior Lord John Aversin and his wife, Jenny Waynest, to turn aside an invasion of demons. Poor Jenny, having lost her magic, is constantly both tempted and soothed by the whispers in her head emanating from her former tormentor/lover, the demon Amayon. In pursuit of marauding slaver-bandits, Jenny with her son Ian's wizardly help turns back into a dragon. Later, she reluctantly resumes human form, only to be outwitted, trapped, and poisoned by her unknown foes. John, meanwhile, agrees to serve Aohila, the demon queen behind the Burning Mirror of Isychros, after she saves Ian from a mysterious sickness. With Amayon as his treacherous genie-in-a-bottle assistant (last time out, John betrayed Amayon into Aohila's ungentle hands), John must slog through numerous ghastly hells, suffering the tortures of the damned, to find Corvin, the mysterious being Aohila's ordered him to capture. Finally, in a grunge-cyberpunk parody, John reaches a human world powered by ``etheric crystals'' where magic no longer works. Avoiding the demons that have infiltrated the endless city, he seizes Corvin and returns home, only to be duped by Amayon and condemned to deathfor consorting with demons. Yes, it ``ends'' on a double cliffhanger. And readers who've enjoyed the previously self-contained installments of this hitherto sparkling series are entitled to feel mightily disgruntled. So what do you do? Keep buying regardless? Exit, fuming? Or just scream? -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. "I might be slightly prejudiced for dragons, and I am definitely prejudiced in favor of anything Barbara Hambly wants to do with her main characters, Lord John and Jenny . . . She handles the action with great skill and charm, and the universe with beautiful imagery . . . She writes darn good books, our Barbara!" --ANNE MCCAFFREY es bestselling author Barbara Hambly is among today's most brilliantly inventive wri