Rating: 3 stars

After reading Natasha Mostert's smash hit, Season of the Witch, I was very eager to see what she would come out with next. Her newest release, Keeper of Light and Dust, contains interesting concepts but it fails to live up to the standard previously set.

Mia Lockhart is the latest in a ancient line of women known as Keepers. The purpose of a Keeper is to protect warriors through mystical means. This translates, in the modern era, to Mia's protection of several boxers in London where she lives and works as a tattoo artist. When one of Mia's charges enters the ring without her guidance and dies shortly thereafter, she learns that all the secrets of her line may not be enough to keep her boys safe. Someone is preying on these modern-day warriors and stealing their life-force. Mia will have to find the thief before he takes the one she loves most.

The story blends a large amount of Eastern philosophy with modern science, including quantum physics. Some of the explanations can get a little thick and if the reader isn't paying attention, they could get lost. In going for depth and substance the plot tips just over the edge of too-much.

While the concepts are certainly thought provoking, the characters themselves are not. There was no real depth of feeling or emotion with any of them; from the length of the book I would have expected more character development but they all remained rather shallow.

While it wasn't a terrible story, it also wasn't terrific. Perhaps I set my expectations too high but I was certainly expecting more than this.
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Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Dutton Adult (April 2, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0525951008
ISBN-13: 978-0525951001