Keeper of Light and Dust-Natasha Mostert

Keeper of Light and Dust
Natasha Mostert
Dutton, Apr 2009, $25.95
ISBN: 9780525951001

Like her mother and grandmother before her, Mia Lockheart is a Keeper; a person who uses Chi life energy to heal and protect others. She also knows that practitioners of the Book of Life and Death can drain the Chi from a victim. In her case only South London fighters belong to her keep, but she makes them safe just before they enter the ring. One of her fighters failed to tell her he was entering the ring; he died from unknown causes a few days after his bout.

A fighter Nick Duffy is someone Mia could easily love, so she has not marked him as hers. When she asks him about her fighter who died, Patrick mentions other battlers have also died in the same way in the past five years. Patrick hires Adrian Ashton as his trainer for a championship match. Adrian gets his new fighter prepared, but hides his real agenda from Patrick. Mia knows what it is and plans to stop him anyway she can, but can you stop someone who does not comes out of the shadows to reveal what he truly is.

Natasha Mostert has written an enthralling supernatural thriller that combines science, metaphysics, and Asian martial arts to forge a system that can either heal or kill. Mia is a strong woman who comes a from a long line of strong women; she is a warrior and healer. Adrian is the enigma who brings the freshness to the tale as Mia wonders if her attraction to him is because he may be her yang even as she is falling in love with Nick. KEEPER OF LIGHT AND DUST is a magical metaphysical Mostert masterpiece.

Harriet Klausner