When Quentin Fears was ten, his sister left this world, the victim of a car accident. Her death made him withdraw from this world too - into books, away from people. By the time he reaches adulthood, Quentin has become a certifiable recluse, moving restlessly from town to town, investing the millions he's made as a software creator and avoiding companionship. It's odd but maybe inevitable that on a rare outing to a party he should meet his dream woman, Madeleine. She's witty and beautiful and as naive to the world's ways as he is, and they marry in a matter of weeks. Their relationship seems idyllic but for one thing - Madeleine's multigenerational, cantankerous, eccentric family who all live in a rambling riverside mansion in upstate New York. But poor family dynamics isn't all that's wrong with them. Beyond the squabbling, there's an ancient, dirty family secret to which Madeleine holds the key. Only Quentin can stop her from unleashing an ageless malevolence that will rule the world. But to do so, he must do what seems impossible - step outside himself into the world he has avoided. He must learn friendship, trust, forgiveness, and the courage to face down the ultimate evil. Joining Quentin in this epic confrontation is a splendidly quirky cast of heroes, villains, and witches - from a no-nonsense nurse with a dash of the romantic in her to a small-town sheriff whose affable exterior conceals a dangerous past to a ten-year-old girl named Roz whose malign powers are rivaled only by her smart mouth. At age 11, Quentin Fears is devastated by his older sister Lizzy's death. Subsequently, he grows up to be a lonely man, obsessed with memories of Lizzy. He becomes extremely wealthy, yet everything he does centers around Lizzy. He even picks a wife who reminds him of her. Madeleine, the woman with whom he falls in love and marries in a matter of weeks, turns out to be an apparition invented by an evil witch. Once the story turns to Quentin's wife and her family, the plot degenerates into the script of a B-movie, with wild explanations for the comings and goings of ghosts and the mysterious treasure box that Madeleine wants her new husband to open. Card, the author of many highly acclaimed works (e.g., Children of the Mind, Tor, 1996) is more handy with quick and witty dialog than story content. There is not enough humor here it to be funny and not enough horror or fantasy for it to be either. Recommended only for large collections.?Shirley Gibson Coleman, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib, Mich. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. Card's second departure from science fiction, the genre in which he's a perennial best-seller, is, like the very successful Lost Boys (1992), essentially a ghost story and a better one than its predecessor because Card doesn't weigh it down with Mormon family values preaching. Instead, he inserts a smidgen of his religion by making his protagonist, bachelor millionaire Quentin Fears, a 34-year-old virgin. Actually, Quentin's chastity, credible and sympathetically portrayed, is rather refreshing. Card also makes it the vehicle for subtle satire of the American obsession with sex as well as the Achilles' heel whereby Quentin is bowled over when he meets the mysterious blond stunner Madeleine Cryer at a Washington, D.C., society party. Not the least of Madeleine's attractions for Quentin is her resemblance to his sister, who died when Quentin was 11 and to whom he was devoted. It turns out that Madeleine is not what she seems, or rather, is only seeming, as Quentin discovers after he meets her family in a creepy old Hudson River mansion--a haunted house, perhaps? Yes, but not merely haunted. Many readers will hear echoes of Robert Marasco's superb haunted-house thriller, Burnt Offerings (1973), and of Hitchcock's classic film about romantic obsession, Vertigo , in Card's effort, which, although not as good as either, is enthrallingly entertaining, nevertheless. Ray Olson A contemporary tale of the supernatural: fantastic/science- fictioneer Card's second mainstream outing (after Lost Boys, 1992). When Quentin Fears was a young boy, his beloved elder sister Lizzy went joyriding and ended up dead--though Quentin continued to imagine himself talking to her. After making a fortune in computers, Quentin sells out and drifts. Innocent about women, he meets a soulmate, Madeleine Cryer, at a party; perhaps because she reminds him of Lizzy, he falls in love. They marry quickly, fumble their way toward sexual awareness (with Madeleine as innocent as he), then visit Madeleine's family at their rambling upstate New York mansion. Next morning, during an elaborate breakfast, Quentin meets Madeleine's grandmother and assorted weird cousins; then, oddly, Madeleine insists that Quentin open a box that supposedly contains her inheritance. Thoroughly uneasy, Quentin refuses. Madeleine storms off and disappears--leaving no footprints in the snow, Quentin discovers, though he does come upon the graveyard