WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR AN ENTIRE TRILOGY. DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT SPOILERS OR YOU HAVE ALREADY READ ALL THREE BOOKS IN THE TRILOGY.
I was given this entire trilogy, “The Complete Keeper Chronicles” by Tanya Huff, by a good friend of mine. It consists of three books: SUMMON THE KEEPER, THE SECOND SUMMONING, and LONG HOT SUMMONING. I thought it would be great to review all three of them, and then give my overall conclusion of what I think of the entire trilogy as a whole!
SUMMON THE KEEPER: This first book gives a good introduction to the concept of Keepers, of what their role is, and the characters are incredibly quirky and fun. The main heroine, Claire Hansen, reminded me much of Sherlock from the TV show Sherlock BBC when first introduced, though it became very apparent that she has feelings besides being all strict with her ways as a Keeper. Dean was absolutely cute when he was first introduced, reminding much of Watson from the same TV show in a way, as he reacted so violently to the sleeping (almost thought to be dead) woman who turned out to be evil, going and panicking while Claire just kind of stood there and was like “So there is a sleeping person. Any problem with that?”
Once Jacques was thrown into the mix, he immediately became my favourite character. Yes, he was a ghost, and yes was an old pervert and yes he might have had things against Dean and in a way was a romance rival with him, fighting over Claire (which made for a very fascinating love triangle, especially since Claire insisted during a call to her sister Diana that she had no interest in either of them), but I still liked him the best out of all the characters. Claire’s talking cat was pretty cool, too, and he had his moments to shine during the entire first book such as whenever he and Claire were talking about Dean in general.
When it came to the romance contained within this first book, I actually rooted more for Jacques and Claire to get together rather than Dean and Claire. Even if Jacques was a perv while Claire was a no-nonsense type of person, I feel like they would have been a better match for one another. That being said, I didn’t support Dean and Claire getting together as much because of the fact that, well, I just felt like the two didn’t click as well together in the beginning (though this thankfully improves in the next two books, especially the second one). Also, another critique I have is the that the Greek Gods and Goddesses vacationing at the Elysium Guest House really wasn’t needed at all. It felt like a bit of a filler, to fill more amounts of pages, when the book could have easily just went straight to fighting against Hell (which was portrayed as a character itself which I found amusing) in terms of the plotline.
Overall, individually I’d give this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars, because I’m deducting 0.5 stars for the not-clicking-good-enough romance and unnecessary Greek Gods and Goddesses stuff involved.
THE SECOND SUMMONING: This was just as fun to read as the first book (and more), which was good. I really liked the angel (Samael, aka Sam later on) and the demon (Byleth) characters, because they were both opposites of each other. They saw the world they found themselves in in different ways (Samael being good and wanting to help others, which doesn’t go as well, while Byleth is being like a rebellious teenage girl and pissing off almost everyone she meets) and what they did there really shook up the rest of the characters, especially Diana who wanted to keep Samael in this world. I especially liked how there was much more of Diana in this second part of the trilogy and I loved the interactions between Samael and Diana especially. I was actually rooting for Diana to try to keep Samael in the world (despite the grave consequences that had throughout the book), too, and I even started pairing those two together in my head.
Imagine the awkwardness with this shipping of Diana and Samael when Samael finally became a cat. Whoops.
Overall, 5 out of 5 stars because I have literally no critiques for this one out of the entire trilogy.
LONG HOT SUMMONING: This was the one I enjoyed reading the least. I have a feeling it was because of all the multiple characters I had to keep track of. Though I did enjoy this part of the trilogy having more of Diana as the heroine as well as having a more sister-to-sister dynamic between Claire and Diana, the numerous amounts of characters made me a bit lost as I read through the whole thing. First you have Sam being a cat and all, and then you have other people starting off this war in the mall, and what the heck is going on with Dean and Claire over there meanwhile!? I felt like I was running around in circles trying to figure everything out and that wasn’t exactly fun to decipher. If anything, there should have been less characters in the book.
I felt that although it was fun having Diana as even more of a main character now and the character interactions were nice, the large amount of characters really threw me off and the plotline felt a bit too random throughout the sequence of events. Therefore, I’m giving this 3.6 out of 5 stars, losing 1.4 stars because of the way-too-random-even-for-this-trilogy plotline as well as the massive amount of characters I had to keep track of (which became really annoying).
Conclusion: Overall, I would give the entire trilogy a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, only losing the 0.5 points because of all the multiple characters you had to keep track of, especially in the third book, as well as the plotline being too random at times. However, if you like random sequences of events, and you like fantasy/supernatural things, you definitely want to read this.