In The Rift: Glenraven book 2 - Softcover

Holly Lisle has been doing the pro novelist gig since 1992.  Prior to that, she was an on-again, off-again missionaries' kid, high-school entrepreneur, and once past graduation, a newspaper ad rep, a sign-painter/commercial artist, the "window girl" at a McDonald's, a guitar teacher for absolute beginners, a singer at local restaurants, and because all of those together paid starvation wages, she went to nursing school the next year, and two years later was an RN.

For ten years.  

She paid off her student loan the same year she got her first three-book contract, and...well...she's been writing for her supper ever since.

She is active online, providing courses teaching what she has discovered about writing fiction as well as maintaining her own weblog and website, HollyLisle.com. And with more than a million books in print via commercial publishers, she has now moved to publishing herself.

A second in the Glenraven series by Bradley (Lady of Avalon, 1997, etc.) and paperback author Lisle. Kate, a young woman in a small North Carolina town, comes into possession of a magical book that links her to the alternate world of Glenraven. Four denizens of that world, only one really human in appearance, arrive in her front yard. Kate kills the monster pursuing them, then learns that both Earth and Glenraven are in danger and must unite against the enemy. The Glenraven exiles help Kate defeat local thugs who attack because of her Wiccan religion; at the same time, she and Rhiana, the most human of the visitors, explore her latent magical talents. Meanwhile, in Florida, Callion, an exiled wizard from Glenraven, plots his takeover of Earth. Kate and the exiles travel to confront him, with the more alien-looking Glenraveners pretending to be costumed science fiction fans. (This, plus comparisons of our world and the quasi-medieval society of Glenraven, provides a fair amount of humor.) Callion, we learn, has an evil entity in captivityone that feeds on human flesh. We also learn that one of the exiles is a traitor, seeking to make common cause with Callion to return to Glenraven and seize power. With each of the aliens having a separate agenda, and with Kate becoming more and more alienated from her own society, the tension builds until the confrontation with the wizard. There are a few satisfactory twists of plot before Kate manages to defeat the evil wizarda triumph that is as much a victory over herself as over the external enemy. A smoothly plotted fantasy, with a strong woman protagonist, that should appeal to fans of both authors. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.