A review by iffer
Summon the Keeper by Tanya Huff

2.0

I was excited to find this at a library $5 for a bag of books sale, because I had heard of Tanya Huff when I was younger as an author I'd probably like based on my elementary and middle school love for fantasy books, but for whatever reason I didn't have access to her books.

It's partially because I was reading this as an adult more than two decades after it was first published, but I found it somewhat boring. I think it's was probably somewhat progressive at the time that it was published because the main character is a strong, independent woman who enjoys strings-free sex

Spoiler

and ends up with a younger man

, but the book dragged for me. The main character's insistence on her own superiority and inability to ask for help because she's a "Keeper," became stale. Claire's treatment of Dean was annoying, and if the genders were swapped back (since the "novel" thing about this is that Dean is the "feminine" one and Claire "wears the pants," because Dean is basically a pure-hearted ideal house husband whom Claire is trying to protect), I would just tell the "feminine" one to leave. Dean is too good for Claire; by the end of the book, Claire does not seem to have learned her lesson about valuing Dean and telling him the truth, nor has Dean learned to stand up for himself. I mean, there's a snarky talking cat, so that's a plus. My lackluster response for this book was probably also due to the fact that i wanted/was expecting something more like Ilona Andrews's Clean Sweep.