A few weeks ago, I reviewed the first book in this trilogy (here). Marianne Curley is Australian; these books are not her first, although they are her first trilogy (or, for that matter, sustained work over any grouping of novels). She is considering writing a fourth volume in this trilogy, although she is not sure and has not said one way or another. Yes, that would make it a quartet. Or she could write a fifth volume and pretend she’s Douglas Adams.

Ethan and Isabel are members of the Guard; the Guard saves time. That is, the Guard makes sure that history happens in the way it is supposed to, and they are fighting against the forces of Chaos (the Order). In the first volume, Isabel got trained by Ethan; now she is a full member of the Guard, and Ethan has another apprentice. However, Arkarian (the violet-eyed near-immortal from the previous volume) has been kidnapped, and he is now in the Underworld. Isabel and Ethan and Ethan’s apprentice have to save time, as well as Arkarian — and Ethan’s mother, for that matter, who is quickly descending past the point of no return. Will they be able to do this?

As in the first volume, the story is told from mostly alternating chapters, between Isabel and Arkarian. Since they were separated, this made sense. Isabel had the majority of the story, though, since she was the one doing the rescuing. Isabel’s voice remained constant from the previous book; Arkarian is, of course, new, and he’s a little bit lugubrious. That is, he’s convinced that he’s doomed a lot, for various reasons. I didn’t find him quite as interesting or compelling as Ethan from the previous book, or Isabel herself, but then again, Arkarian has surprisingly little agency for a six-hundred-year-old being with odd coloring. He spends the majority of the book getting rescued, rather than doing anything active.

The overarching plot of the trilogy, with the prophecy and all, was perhaps not advanced seriously during this volume. Yes, we meet Ethan’s apprentice, so he can take his part in the prophecy, and yes, things accelerate in all forms (the school’s descent into Gothic chaos is quite amusing), but it seems more of the immediate plot that gets resolved. Naturally, someone we thought was dead — at least two someones, actually — turns out not to be, but it doesn’t actually read as a deus ex machina. It seemed appropriate.

One thing that bothered me was the pseudo-Grecian names — Dartemis, Lathenia. I’m guessing they were just supposed to be made-up names, but having two that were like Greek gods with an added letter or two was a bit annoying to me. The rest of the names in the book, from Lady Arabella to Matt, Ethan, and Dillon, are not offensive in any way, although I did imagine Keziah as looking quite different than he really did.

I don’t have that much to say about this book; it isn’t really spectacular in any way, but it was enjoyable. I would recommend it to anyone who’d enjoyed the first volume; I’d like to read the third one before I decide how much the trilogy has added to the genre. As it is, I’ll give it 3.5/5 stars and say that I hope the third volume really knocks my socks off.