I'll Huff and I'll puff
Canadian sci-fi and fantasy writer
Tanya Huff is one of the few writers of fiction
whose books I'll buy new (in $7.99 paperback edition, mind you). I just guffawed through a rereading of her 1998 "Summon the Keeper" after a friend returned it, raving that it was one of the best bits of fluff he'd parsed in ages. And now I've lent it out again....
Story's of an arrogant Keeper, charged with saving the world, who ends up near Huff's home, at a B&B in Kingston, Ontario, called the Elysian Fields Guesthouse. Hell is indeed one of the guests.
And oh yes -- the cat talks.
"The Second Summoning" (2001) reprises our earnest adventurers' angst, as they chase after a very confused angel who's accidentally been granted genitalia (the boy kind). Hilarity ensues. This one is Huff's most heterosexual book -- that's an observation, not a criticism.
The most recent in the series, "Long Hot Summoning" (2003), has the younger lesbian sister falling for a mall rat in the maw-l [hee hee] of Hell. Perfect summer reading.