Like all wild, unpredictable things in nature, they seek to tame her, to shackle her down with a husband and children, and breed the fire line out of her. But this story isn’t about breaking and moulding nature - it’s about daring to leap high, and touch the stars and have hope and hunger in your heart, passion and fire in your blood.

Filled with wonderfully rich descriptions of fire in all it’s forms, it’s a subtle and deceptively simply written piece which kindles and then bursts into flaming life as Eliza struggles to return fire to the skies from whence it came. We watch her risk her safety to save the dying fire, and we cheer as she finally embraces those parts of herself which only come alive as she is cloaked in flame - and then loses them as her mission is accomplished. The ending is marvellously bittersweet. We don’t know whether to feel sorry for her for what she has lost; warmth, passion and - of course - the fire inside, or whether to celebrate with her the fact that she experienced much more than most of us ever could, even if only for a moment.

“But though she thrived, though she had all any mortal woman could want, she was never really warm again, not in her most secret places. Each spring, when thunderstorms rumbled across the countryside, she sat out on the split-rail fence, face upturned to the swirling silver-gray clouds, and remembered how a star had once danced inside her heart, how, for a breathtaking second, she too had strode toward the stars on crackling legs of fire."

Gem #1 - Susan Hettinger, the reserved, introverted, extremely competent entertainment industry accountant who has carefully organized her life to provide the maximum amount of order and control. Susan is a bean counter, and proud of it. In her own words, “I can read a Profit and Loss Statement and instantly analyze the business. Ask me about the above the line costs of a particular film or the financial liquidity of the backers for a particular venture project and I spout out particulars. Ask me about the breakeven point for a theatrical production and I will provide production costs and income.” Spontaneity is not in this woman’s vocabulary. Magic is not a part of her analytical world. That is, until she meets…

Gem #2 - Margaret Carson-Baxter, also known as MJ Carson, the charismatic, chaotic, rock-star extraordinaire turned actress with a troubled past. Yes, it really is as cliché as it sounds, but this story is a modern fairy tale and Maggie is the mystical enchantress. Go with it. Eventually the reader gets to see not only the illusions that Maggie surrounds herself with, but also understand why they're there. Harte does a good job of making her character a believable human being in the enchanted and sometimes sinister land of entertainment superstardom.

Gem #3 - The clash of realities: order meets chaos, yin meets yang, and Maggie the human tornado meets Susan the control freak. It’s a classic case of opposites attracting, but, with the exception of a powerful physical attraction, these two don’t click together with the neatness of magnets. It’s a bit more like mixing elemental sodium and water - volatile - with serious consequences for both. Susan has difficulty dealing with Maggie’s energetic whirlwind; Maggie has difficulty understanding Susan’s stoic inflexibility, and Harte is skillful enough to make the reader wonder just exactly how this one will wind up with a happy ending.

Gem #4 - Susan first falls in love with Maggie’s hands. What a delightful detail!

Gem #5 - Susan’s mother, the leprechaun. (No, really, it IS a fairy tale.)

There are other gems scattered throughout, but for me, the real gold was to be found in Susan’s first person narrative. I love her reactions to having her orderly world turned topsy-turvy. It’s an internal battle of, “I don’t believe in magic. I want to believe in magic. I'm scared sh*tless by magic.” And through that internal battle, I found enough magic and humor in this story to want to recommend it to others.

So my problem is, how do I describe it without confusing you? Well the prequel, for lack of a better word, is Littermates. What starts out as the childhood of a young female out of Cat People becomes a realistic and harrowing tale of abuse as the child loses the father who could have told her of her heritage, and is instead taken by her human mother into the custody of a child molester. In defence, the child develops multiple personalities. By crossing genres, the author makes what could have been a depressing story of a victim, and makes it one of survival and accomplishment. By mixing fantasy with domestic terror, she transcends both. The separate personalities are each appealing, and completely individual as they are forced to make their way in the world alone. Sort of. And none of this encapsulates the magic of the writing and the creation of the author.

‘Acacia’ is the sisters, years later when they have, wait for it, founded a detective agency. I know, it seems ludicrous, but honestly, it works. Certain of the sisters have a desire for human blood, and their method of culling the human pack is sometimes humorous, sometimes terrifying. So, even as you try to tell yourself that this is ridiculous, that you can’t really be engrossed in a mystery being unravelled by a multiple personality lesbian/straight vampire cat, you cannot stop reading. Or caring about each of the sisters. That’s because the story is well written, the characters and situations expertly drawn, and the plotline somehow marvellously clean and straight forward despite the twist and kinks. It manages to stay routed in reality, all while you know that you are reading something that defies any genre, and is unlike anything you’ve read before.

How should you read them? Both can be read independently, though each reflects upon the other just as any human’s adulthood is found within childhood. Possibly, they are best enjoyed by slipping back and forth between the books. Which is appropriate. A story like none you’ve ever come across should probably be read differently from any other as well.