There are passages in this book that not only swept me up, but forced me to read and re-read them, again and again, before I could move on. As ever, Oz's prose is powerful and lyrical, and his characters slip off the page and into your thoughts as if you're seeing them and feeling their emotions and their frustrations at every turn. Here, the taciturn natures kept them more distanced than usual, but they somehow felt all the more magical for it.

Simply, Oz is one of my favorite writers, and this book didn't disappoint. ( )