Fall of Light »

Nina Kiriki Hoffman is an award-winning author who does production work for the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and teaches short story writing through her local community college. She also works with teen writers.

Opal LaZelle is a special effects make-up artist, transforming actors into fantastical and grotesque creatures. Unknown to the casts and crews of the films she works on, Opal is gifted in the art of magic-and she applies more than make-up when altering an actor's features.

Her latest job requires turning Corvus Weather into a dark god of the forest. But when Corvus's performance becomes too convincing-on set and off-Opal realizes he's not acting. Something has taken possession of Corvus. Something sinister tied to the town's past, with the ability to absorb the very essence of life. Something Opal doesn't have enough power to confront, much less drive from the man she has fallen in love with.

Publishers Weekly

Hoffman (Spirits That Walk in Shadow) infuses this entertaining supernatural thriller with cozy, sexually explicit scenes of reawakening and personal growth. Opal Lazelle's magical gifts and her talent as a makeup artist have earned her a career in the movies, most recently on the set of Forest of the Night. She soon discovers that actor Corvus Weather is being transformed in both appearance and soul by Phrixos, a mysterious being with designs on Opal and the rest of the cast and crew. Although Phrixos seems generally helpful, Opal wonders whether its ultimate goal is benevolent. Opal's struggles to anticipate and stymie Phrixos are undermined by her failure to act decisively and Phrixos's inability to deliver on any of its veiled threats, but Hoffman manages to sustain the tension to the slightly bizarre end. (May)

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