The Bowl of Night: A Bast Mystery

The half-human, half-sidhe sorcerer Truth Jourdemayne returns in this latest (after Witchlight, 1996) contemporary fantasy from Bradley (Lady of Avalon; Forecasts, May 19). While looking, along with her fiance, psychic researcher Dylan Palmer (a professor ""in the Indiana Jones mold""), into reports of paranormal activities in the remote West Virginia town of Morton's Fork, Truth encounters another link to her wizardly ancestors. Decades ago, her great-uncle, the power-mad occultist Quentin Blackburn, betrayed his witchly lover, Athanais Dellon, by taking over her family's lands to gain control of the Wellspring, a mystical Gate to alien and magical lands. Blackburn and Dellon died in a duel fought over control of the gate, but their spirits are still competing for possession of the place, using two human descendants--gifted actress and troubled psychic Melusine ""Sinah"" Dellon and drunken, no-account rich man's son Wycherly Musgrave--as their pawns. Only Truth's knowledge can save Sinah and Wycherly and close the Gate before it's too late. Fans of supernatural suspense will enjoy this high-spirited, smoothly told novel from a fantasy master. (Sept.)