So far, this is my least favourite Summoning book. Again, fantasy and romance. But in this one the level of macho-ness was a bit too high for me, particularly since it was so refreshingly lacking in the previous books. The lady summoned to Llandrana this time (Calli) is a rodeo rider and has to fix some things for the volarans, the flying horses. All the makings of a kick-ass heroine, you'd think, but instead the most important thing she and her new hubbie wish to achieve is to start a cute little family. Ok, Calli does want to perform her task, but the most heroic thing she does is a reconnaisance of the dark's lair. I'm sure it was scary as hell, but somehow still not so impressive. ( )

I'd read most of it already - up to the Lipizzaners - but for whatever reason hadn't finished it, hadn't gotten to the climax. She had a lot of different tasks! Here, the conflict between the two of them makes a lot of sense - it's a matter of different views of two equally compelling duties. And the time after Callie's Snap was important, to let her deal with her unresolved issues, as best she could. Somehow in this one, they're both much more ordinary than the first two Exotiques and their men. Marrec is a common Chevalier, not a powerful man in his own right nor the son of anyone of importance. Calli's doing pretty much what she's always done - although the horses she's training now can fly and speak mind-to-mind with her, it's not far from familiar territory. Alexa and Marian had their normal occupations utterly changed; Calli learned to fight but even that feels like her rodeo days to her. For her and Marrec, the changes are primarily internal and emotional, which makes this story less spectacular and more intimate than the first two. Looking for the fourth book - frust, it's not in the library! ( )

While recuperating from a serious injury and escaping from the emotional rejection of her father, Calli Torcher stumbles through a portal to another world. But this is no accident–she’s been Summoned to bond with flying horses called volarans and to fight a great evil encroaching onto the land. Through navigating her way through this new world, she finds acceptance when there was none in her old home. If it wasn’t for the two previous books in this series (which is epic fantasy, not paranormal), I would have never picked this book up. I generally find horses, wings or not, boring. The volarans in Protector of the Flight weren’t particularly original either. I was far more interested in the inner turmoil and character development of the main protagonist which I think the author pulled off satisfactorily. As for the main conflict overarching the series, Owens wimped out on this latest episode of the struggle against a still unknown enemy. It’s already book three (and from what I can tell, there will be a total of six books)–where are the hints on why the evil is targeting that world anyway?

This took a long time to really get going and I found the section where Calli first arrived to be a bit by the numbers. Once she and Marrec started disagreeing the story started moving much better and the final section was excellent. ( )

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