It's here! After traveling overseas from New York to England,
visiting the mystical community of Altus, and returning to London,
Lia Milthorpe is finally reaching the end. She has been working
tirelessly to find the missing keys and the last pages of the
prophecy that pits her against her twin sister, Alice, in a battle
to either let evil into the world forever or lock it out for
good.

In a cruel twist of fate, Lia has what she considers the wrong
place in the prophecy of the sisters --- she is the Gate, the twin
traditionally placed to let Samael, the Beast, into the world to
begin his reign of chaos. Alice, her estranged twin, is the
Guardian, who should be working to keep Samael out. But instead,
each sister has picked the opposite job, which makes Lia's role
even harder. As time goes on, Samael gets stronger, and his Souls
prod at Lia more and more to try to get her on their side.

Fortunately, Lia has a lot of good on her side. Armed with three
of the four Keys, her aunt Virginia, and her lover Dimitri, she
embarks on a series of journeys to prepare for a final battle
against Samael. By the skin of her teeth, she manages to stay ahead
of the Souls, though not without some backsteps along the way. But
she faces a huge challenge as Beltane approaches because she cannot
banish Samael for good unless she can convince Alice to abandon
evil and join her side. Generally, it might be easy to convince
your twin sister to help you make sure that the world survives to
see the next century. But when your sister has been learning to be
evil far longer than you've been learning to battle it, and when
that sister is about to marry your ex-boyfriend, the task can get a
little difficult. So Lia has her work cut out for her.

CIRCLE OF FIRE is a fun read, but it's only for readers of the
other two Prophecy of the Sisters novels, PROPHECY OF THE
SISTERS and GUARDIAN OF THE GATE. Even as I read it, I found myself
needing to check details in the previous books to make sure I still
remembered what was going on. In terms of adventurous plot and
setting, it's nearly as good as the first two. The romantic side of
the trilogy takes center stage this time, and as a result, the rush
to Beltane is, in fact, too rushed to be smoothly
readable. As is the case with most epic culminations, the final
scene is so epic that it's not as interesting to read as all the
events leading up to it.

Still, final showdown aside, CIRCLE OF FIRE is more or less a
satisfying end to an original fantasy.

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