Tamson House is in Ottawa – and takes up an entire city block, a ringed fortress around a central garden. It looks perfectly normal from the outside, but what most people don’t know is that it’s a nexus, a portal to the other worlds that touch our own. Its garden is an echo or the original forest that covered the world.
This book continues the story of the house, which began in Moonheart. Jamie Tam died defending the house in Moonheart, but lives on as the guardian of the house, able to talk to some of the residents of the house through his old computer. There are a number of residents of the house – it’s always attracted a creative, bohemian bunch that don’t really below anywhere else. However, since Jamie is technically dead, his niece Sara is the new owner of the house, and she’s off traveling in the Otherworld, leaving the faithful Blue and several others in charge of Tamson House while she’s gone.
The book is a bit disjointed, starting with a couple of stories that were published elsewhere first, and then giving a couple of episodes in the life of friends Esmeralda and Emma, before leading to the final action of the book, where the house is threatened again, and everyone must work together to save it.
I enjoyed the story because I really did enjoy Moonheart, but I have to say, the flow wasn’t there, and the disjointed nature of the book made it a little less enjoyable than Moonheart. Still, it’s a de Lint book, and even his not so good efforts are far better than much of what else is available.