Dark Sister: A Sorcerer's Love Story

Andrews (Shakkai: Woman of the Sacred Garden) here offers the 10th installment of her Medicine Woman series, a garish fable meant to advance her own brand of New Age spirituality. Why do women betray one another? This question, raised in a Seattle lecture hall, is finally answered in the jungles of the Yucatan, where the first-person narrator (named Lynn) rejoins the Sisterhood of the Shields, a secret order of women. The answer comes in the form of a parable about the downfall of the beautiful and powerful Sin Corazon, a priestess of the Sisterhood whose insatiable curiosity leads her to pick up a ``male shield.'' When her husband betrays her, Sin Corazon embraces the dark side and embarks on a path of evil and self-destruction, seducing and tormenting men, betraying the Sisterhood and even trying to turn the author/narrator to Evil. In desperation, the Sisterhood throws a handsome curandero (or priest) in Sin Corazon's path to help her regain her equilibrium with her feminine side. The two fall in love and Sin Corazon is healed and rejoins the Sisterhood. The book reads like a journal entry, with long narrative chapters, flatly related action and trite conclusions. (Oct.)