Submitted by Emily Bruce
(Oct 11, 1999)_The Golden Key_, by Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson, and Kate Elliott is a one-of-a-kind book. It's fairly long - about 750 pages in the first hardback edition, but it's fascinating almost the entire way through. The plot is complicated, for it involves more than 400 years of history in Tira Virte. The book uses "Spanish" words, often changed as slightly as niño to ninio. It concerns a family of painters called the Grijalva and their magic. Their art records births, marriages, deeds, treaties, and has a multitude of other purposes - some not so innocuous. Sario Grijalva discovers some of these and manages to trap his beloved cousin in a painting for centuries while he shifts his mind from painter's body to painter's body. This book is very good, though slightly on the heavy and disturbing side. If you're just looking for a light read, I wouldn't recommend it. However, it is still a fascinating story.
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(4 ratings)