I liked this book even better than the first book [b:Dragon's Eye|5376|Dragon's Eye|James A. Hetley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165520035s/5376.jpg|8818]. Everyone's back, Gary Morgan's off to college, Dan and Ben are up to their usual tricks and the ladies, Alice Haskell, Kate Rowley and Caroline Haskell have their hands full dealing with the brujo who they thought died the first time around. Up next: [b:Dragon's Bones|12201846|Dragon's Bones|James A. Hetley|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nocover/60x80.png|17174537]. ( )

Conclusion of the 'series' balancing out the Haskell's and Morgan's power by giving Kate some much needed backstory and support.

It turns out that the aztec bojum from the last book managed to absorb some of Kate's Stonefort power and use it to transfer his awareness to the nearest free body, that of Kate's deceased daughter Jackie. However she's only just ambulatory and he needs a lot more power to complete his embodyment. A ritual sacrifice at moonrise would do the trick. Meanwhile the Morgans have trouble of their own, the next generation rebels as children will, Gary's hooked up with a totally inappropriate girl, and Catherine's off playing with the desert tribes - in addition to not learning her Morgan abilities. The two plot lines look like they ought to align given that Ben manages to acquire an ancient aztec stone blade alive with a blood drinking spirit.

Slightly weaker than the previous book, it lacks the cohesion between plot lines that would make it great. The characters are all fun and well written. It's great to see Kate come into her own, and Jane makes a wonderful counterpoint, but the interaction between the Morgans and Haskells needs to be stronger than Catherine. There's a few jumps in the timeline which obscure critical interactions which doesn't help, and rushes through others that could have given more weight to the impact. Kate's inheritance being just one example that could have been more impressive rather than a duex et machina at the end. The Morgan storyline is not strong enough to support a book, but it interferes too much with the Haskells this time around.

Worth reading, but not the highlight of the series. ( )

Well, it's better than Dragon's Eye - there was at least one character I liked and could somewhat identify with. That it was the feral cat Jane…is interesting. I liked Caroline, too, and Gary when he stood up to his family and his father. But it's still a funny mixture of blow-things-up and native (for several values of native) magic, plus some dealings with the underbelly of modern life. Overall - interesting story, glad I read it, not going to read it again (probably) nor seek out any more sequels. Not bad but didn't grab me. ( )