Lynne Cantwell

The four-book saga concludes with its most adventurous adventure yet So there we were in Colorado - me, Raney Meadows, and my three Elemental teammates. We'd just put my father and his demon keeper on ice - well, actually, on the opposite of ice - and now we had to get past a sylph to grab the final Elemental Key from its hiding place at the top of Mt. Elbert. Then, I figured, it would all be over. The demon would have only three of the four Keys he needed to open the Door to the Very Bad Thing that Could Destroy the Earth. So we'd win. I mean, you can't open a door without all the keys, right? Yeah, no. I should have realized it wouldn't matter whether we had the Air Key. That demon - and whoever his Master was - would do whatever it took to open the Door of Doom, even if it meant tricking our band of Elementals into going through a portal of fire to get it done...

Another island...another Key to try to beat my father to... So it turns out there's not one, not two, but four Elemental Keys we're chasing. "We" being me - Raney Meadows, half undine and out-of-work actress - along with my three Elemental teammates, and my father and the demon riding him. The Keys fit a Door behind which is a Tool of Ultimate Earthly Destruction, and it would be a Very Bad Thing if my father got them all. Right now, the good guys are 0-for-2. The demon tricked us out of the Water Key in West Virginia and the Earth Key in Ireland. But we are determined to beat him to the Fire Key in Hawaii - while staying out of my father's way, of course, so he doesn't snatch me and put me in his collection of singular things. Anyway, if we lose this one - which we won't, but if we do - we'll have one more chance: the Air Key is somewhere in Colorado. But I'm sure we won't have to go that far...

I thought I'd escaped my troubles when I fled Hollywood to hike the Appalachian Trail. But trouble keeps finding me... There I was - Raney Meadows, a sort-of-famous actress on a really long hike - when a river goddess left a kayaker's body right where I'd stumble over it. Well, not stumble, exactly. The guy was in the water. But then I'm half-undine - a Water Elemental - so I could have stumbled over him. I mean, it's possible. Anyway, then the dead guy's brother shows up and tells me he wasn't a kayaker. And because I play a homicide investigator on TV, he asks me to find the killer. Which, okay. But I think the brother might be an Elemental, too. And since then we've met two people who could also be Elementals. So what's with the Elementals convention? Why here in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia? And why has the dead guy's cat picked me, of all people, to bond with?

If the Universe gave you the chance to deliver karmic justice, would you do it? Lynne Cantwell was the late-in-life child of parents who had already lost a baby daughter. Her brother, ten years older, delivered emotional and verbal abuse for as long as she could remember. As a young adult, she moved halfway across the country to escape him. Decades later, when their mother's health began to fail, Lynne was forced to work with her brother - first to keep their mother in their childhood home, and then to prepare the house for a sale that never happened. Everything changed, but the family dynamics stayed the same. This book - entertaining and heart-wrenching by turns - is a tale of the way abuse plays out across generations, and of what it takes to end it.

What's behind the final door? Maggie Brandt is the lone survivor of the fire that claimed her mother, her brother, and her childhood home. Turtle and Thunderbird, ancient Native American spirits who have enlisted her help, say the fire was necessary. They insist Maggie must move on quickly, for a greater trial is coming: the renewal of the earth, which only she can complete. But first she must check in on two of her children: Emily in California and Tim in Mexico City. And something else is pulling her to Mexico, too - an ancient entity whose task Maggie will want no part of. No wonder she feels like jumping off a bridge...

Maggie Muir Brandt has been charged by a Shawnee creation spirit with the renewal of the earth. But her elderly mother is losing her grip on reality, and she feels she must set aside her own life to move back to her childhood home to take care of her. Maggie's brother Sandy objects, saying it would be better for their mother to live closer to him. Sandy abused Maggie all through their childhood, and that history makes her suspicious of his sudden interest in their mother. Then, in a vision, she sees a water panther - a monster - attack a drowning doe, and she knows the water panther is Sandy and the doe is their mother. In her vision, Maggie thwarts the water panther's attack. But she knows he will be back, and she can't hold him off forever. It's an impossible situation, but it must be solved, and soon. Because time is running out for the earth, and Maggie can't fulfill her destiny until she has subdued her own demons - including Sandy.

More than forty deities, representative of sixteen pantheons from around the world, have found Their way into the twelve books and assorted short stories of the Pipe Woman Chronicles story cycle. In A Billion Gods and Goddesses: The Mythology Behind the Pipe Woman Chronicles, you will find additional information on each of the deities in this urban fantasy series, as well as a brief foundation in comparative mythology. This second edition adds deities from the final two books in the Pipe Woman's Legacy series, which had not yet been published when the first edition of this book went to press. The gods and goddesses in the Pipe Woman Chronicles hail from Alaska to Mexico, and from Russia and Scandinavia to Ireland and Japan -- with pantheons of several Native American tribes well represented. A Billion Gods and Goddesses is meant to be a companion volume to the Pipe Woman Chronicles, but it also serves as a wide-ranging introduction to the subject of mythology. Anyone curious about what others believe will find something to interest them here.