Charles de Lint is a master of urban fantasy. Combine that with his remarkable skill as a storyteller, his love of music, Celtic and Native legend and you have a tale that is enchanting, captivating, restorative.

Forests of the Heart returns to de Lint’s imaginary town of Newford, and draws heavily from native desert culture pitted against uprooted Celtic culture, all of it existing on an alternate plane that truly is just one step to the left. The Gentry, portrayed as angry, black-clad, cigarette-smoking thugs, are used as dupes by a woman gifted in the ancient arts, who wants nothing more than to achieve immortality through the summoning of the Celtic green man, the Gladsuine. In turn, the Gentry dupe an angry young man into being the host for the summoning, and this, in turn, sets off a chain of events that take the reader from the deserts of Arizona to the ice-ravaged town of Newford.

Always uplifting, often whimsical, Forests of the Heart is a delightful read I will likely return to again and again.