Book Review: A Scattering of Jades

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

A Scattering of Jades     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Alexander C. Irvine
Class/Genre:   Fantasy
Tor, Jul 2002, $25.95, 428 pp.

In 1835, the great fire destroyed much of Lower Manhattan’s wooden tenements. A stunned resident Archie Prescott knows his world has gone up in the inferno with his wife and their four-year-old child Jane dead. Unbeknownst to the grieving father, the child’s corpse is not that of Jane. Instead a MesoAmerican witch Lupita abducted Jane for use in a sacrifice to Thloc, but instead caused the deadly fire. Jane received deep burns especially scarring her face. Lupita sells Jane to Riley Steen, owner of a mummy needing virgin blood to bring Thloc to the human plane. Timing is everything and seven years must pass before he can accomplish his deed.

Seven years later, Riley travels to Kentucky's Mammoth Cave, where another mummy of the malevolence has been found. In New York, an eleven-year-old girl with a damaged visage keeps following Archie, insisting he is her father. Jane has escaped Riley for now, but his thugs are coming to recapture her because she is the critical element in the reanimation. Only if Archie can accept the truth, will she have a champion and may survive the final ordeal.

A SCATTERING OF JADES is an incredible accomplishment that combines a powerfully insightful nineteenth century historical novel with easy to believe paranormal elements. The complex story line works on several levels as Alexander C. Irvine ties his varying subplots back into a prime theme through his key cast members. A strong dose of Dante’s Inferno stood upside down is blended with Aztec myths and Americana personage and events into a great historical fantasy tale that announces the arrival of a talent worth following.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner