From School Library Journal
Grade 5-8. Nita Callahan, a 14-year-old wizard from Long Island, is annoyed when her concerned parents ship her off to Ireland for six weeks on an enforced vacation from magic-working and her partner Kit?but what's time or space to wizards (see So You Want to Be a Wizard [1996] and its sequels [all Harcourt]). In any case, Ireland is hardly the ideal spot for a magic-free getaway, and indeed Nita soon finds herself involved in big doings. With the ancient harvest festival of Lughnasad approaching, signs point to a major attack from the malicious Lone Power, the very inventor of Death, in its guise as Balor of the Evil Eye. The assembled wizards of Ireland have but one hope: to find or re-create the Four Treasures of the Tuatha de Danaan, said in ancient stories to have helped defeat Balor once before. Moving easily between light, everyday language and the sonorous formality of high fantasy, Duane seamlessly interweaves encounters with creatures from legend with glimpses of modern Irish life and teen culture. Her view of magic's place in the scheme of things is so clever and well reasoned that readers will have no trouble suspending belief. Nita is an appealingly hot-tempered teenager who faces slavering dire wolves and trollish drows with more courage than the dismaying realization that she's gotten "the hots" for young fellow wizard Ronan. Balor's appearance in the climactic battle is all too brief, but against this army of wizards, it never stands a chance. At least in retrospect. An unusually consistent fantasy, rich in details, subplots, and Irish lore.?John Peters, New York Public LibraryCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
To give Nita a vacation from magic, Nita's parents pack her off for a month-long stay with her eccentric aunt in Ireland. But Ireland is even more steeped in magical doings than the United States, and Nita soon finds herself and a host of Irish wizards battling creatures from a nightmare Ireland--a realm where humankind is the stuff of tales and storybooks, and where the legends and monsters of the country's mythology are a deadly reality.



Card catalog description
Sent on vacation to her aunt's home in Ireland, teenage wizard Nita becomes entangled in a magic battle to save the country from the ghosts of its past.


About the Author
Diane Duane is the author of more then twenty science fiction and fantasy novels, including four other books in the Young Wizards series. Four of her Star Trek novels have been New York Times bestsellers. Ms. Duane lives in rural Ireland.



Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Shannon

She went out through the little concrete yard to the front of the house, where the front door was open, as Aunt Annie had told her it almost always was, except when everyone had gone to bed. Her aunt was in the big quarry-tiled kitchen making a cup of tea.

"So there you are!" she said. "Did you sleep well? Do you want a cuppa?"

"What? Oh, right. Yes, please," Nita said, and sat down in one of the chairs drawn up around the big blond wood table. One of Aunt Annie's cats, a black-and-white creature, jumped onto her lap: She had forgotten its name too, in the general blur of her arrival. "Hi there," she said to it, stroking it.

"Milk? Sugar?"

"Just sugar, please," Nita said. "Aunt Annie, who were those people out there with the horses?"

Her aunt looked at her. "People with the horses? All the staff have gone home. At least I thought they did."

"No, I heard them. The hooves were right outside my door, but when I looked, they'd gone away. Didn't take them long," she added.

Aunt Annie looked at her again as she came over and put Nita's teacup down. Her expression was rather different this time. "Oh," she said. "You mean the ghosts."

Nita stared.

"Welcome to Ireland," said her aunt.

Copyright © 1993 by Diane Duane

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to the following address:

Permissions Department, Harcourt, Inc.,
6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887

ANNOTATION

Sent on vacation to her aunt's home in Ireland, teenage wizard Nita becomes entangled in a magic battle to save the country from the ghosts of its past.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

To give Nita a vacation from magic, Nita's parents pack her off for a month-long stay with her eccentric aunt in Ireland. But Ireland is even more steeped in magical doings than the United States, and Nita soon finds herself and a host of Irish wizards battling creatures from a nightmare Ireland--a realm where humankind is the stuff of tales and storybooks, and where the legends and monsters of the country's mythology are a deadly reality.

FROM THE CRITICS

Children's Literature - Judy Silverman

This book continues the story of the young wizard, Nita, as her parents ship her off to Ireland to visit her Aunt Annie (and to get her away from her partner Kit, whose attentions seem too intense). Ireland isn't at all what Nita expected, with all the ghosts, and with a young cat who knows too much about the far distant past. Everything Nita sees is fascinating, and the history of Ireland soon captivates her. But soon she is linked with a group of Irish wizards fighting for their lives with an nightmare-Ireland's demons, legends, monsters-that is all too real.

Alan Review