Book Review – “The Enchantment Emporium” by Tanya Huff

The Enchantment Emporium

It starts with homemade baking and a family reunion. But nobody had better dare eat Auntie Jane’s blueberry pie without checking it for charms, or they could find themselves inadvertently confessing all their secrets, or perhaps, you know, sprouting something in an odd place or breaking into an embarrassing rash.

And that close family at the reunion? May just be descended from the mating of a human woman and the Celtic horned god. At least, judging by the antlers that the men tend to manifest when they get, um, horny.

The magical/mythical wildness constantly lies just under the surface in Tanya Huff’s new book, The Enchantment Emporium. And much of the time, it doesn’t just lie there, it bursts into the open and plays.

Alysha Gale — Allie — leaves Ontario for Calgary, to find out why her grandmother has disappeared and possibly even died. The older woman was already an anomaly among the large, mostly female Gale clan, in that she had left the family behind to go off and live alone in that western Canadian city. And Allie battles her own homesickness and the pull of family, as she exerts her powers to investigate on her own in an effort to be independent.

Becoming involved with a leprechaun, an evil sorcerer (they always are), and even several Dragon Lords from the Under Realm, Allie draws some powerful Gale family members from her own generation after her to Calgary, as she uncovers what could be a threat of magical destruction not just to the city, but perhaps to the world. Yet still she resists calling in the Aunties (whom some consider witches), despite the way those charmed pies just keep on appearing in the fridge, and despite the dangers to Allie’s own brother, David, teetering on the knife-edge between good and evil power.

And then there’s Allie’s undeniable attraction to Graham, that reporter who keeps hanging around, who is much more than he seems to be, and whose loyalties are not always clear…

This book has everything — magic, drama, myth — and above all, humour. It’s really very, very funny.

One of the amusing and entertaining elements of the book stems not from the book itself, but from me. You see, even though I’ve lived in Toronto for the last 9 years, I was born in Calgary and spent most of my life there.

So I really enjoyed imagining the characters driving up Centre Street, or trying to figure out exactly where Allie’s grandmother’s shop (the Emporium) would be (“hmm…that would definitely be beyond Inglewood”). And having lived several years just next to Nose Hill, I could believe that it might be a place of power, and a gate between realms.

But it tickles me absolutely to death to think that the reason Calgary has done so well from the oil industry is that it’s been influenced by the Under Realm.

I loved the main characters, and the Aunties who were such a constantly looming Presence even when they weren’t often in the room. And I want one of those mirrors! (You have to read the book to find out what I mean.)

I wasn’t entirely satisfied with how Allie’s brother David was portrayed; I felt he didn’t get enough development for us to empathize with him or quite see why everyone was so worried about him. Or why his ultimate fate should move us. But beyond that slight lack, I pretty much enjoyed everything about this book. And I thoroughly approve of the fact that Tanya Huff sets her novels in Canadian cities, and never tries to “Americanize” them.

I should mention, for those who aren’t entirely familiar with the role that  sex plays in Celtic and other myths, that although there’s little graphic description of sex in the story, it plays a definite (and frequent) role, including between the Gale cousins. (Remember those antlers?) If this sort of thing would bother you, you might be uncomfortable at times.

Otherwise, if you enjoy myth and magic being brought into the real, very practical, pie-baking world — I bet you’ll love The Enchantment Emporium.

(Thanks go a million times over to Maia, who got me this book two weeks ago as a two-month-early birthday present! *Mwah*)