Book Review: Traveler

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Traveler     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Melanie Jackson
Class/Genre:   Romance   Fantasy
Series: Lutin Empire
Love Spell, Aug 2003, $5.99, 369 pp.

Most people ridicule H.U.G. members as lunatic conspiracy buffs seeing the improbable. However, the members of the Humans Under Ground group know that though paranoid, they are right about nasty happenings. This time the threat is the goblins going after possession of the magical generator. Xanthe of H.U.G. believes the Motor City police too weak and ineffective to stop the goblins so she sends her disciple Io to end that potential problem.

Io meets the notorious Jack Frost in Goblin Town just beneath the Motor City. They are attracted to one another from the start, but she keeps her distance partially out of fear because he is a death fey. Still as they work on stopping the Goblins, whose plan is even more devious than Xanthe told Io, she and Jack fall in love, but first they must win the day against impossible probability and somehow stay alive doing this and that makes for even more impossible odds.

By page thirteen this reviewer began thinking of shutting down the novel and not critiquing it as it was impossible to follow. However, because of enjoying Melanie Jackson’s previous romantic speculative fictions such as THE SELKIE and DOMINION, I decided to persevere for a few more chapters, but not past page fifty. Four hours later I had finished a fabulous romantic fantasy thriller. The story line needs a couple chapters to let the audience know this isn’t Kansas, but once the alternate world is introduced the plot turns into an exciting other world fantasy thriller starring two delightful protagonists on a quest to save an unbelieving and unthankful world. Those fans that stay the course will relish this walk on Ms. Jackson’s weird wild side.

Harriet Klausner

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