This Will All Be Yours. . .
What could be more enticing-or more terrifying- to a lonely thirteen-year-old than to be offered both companionship and limitless power?
Kidnapped, imprisoned in an underground labyrinth, Maggie Stuart must decide if the ancient being known to her only as "The Burnt Man" is friend or foe, if this is a new home or a deadly trap, and whether or not she can overcome her greatest fear-of what she herself is becoming. . . The Last Rite is Book One of the Maggie Stuart series. Book Two, The Red Ring is also available.

Maggie Stuart, protagonist of The Last Rite and The Red Ring, moves to Montreal, searching for magic. Since the events of her sixteenth year, Maggie has become something of a chameleon. She studies art when finances allow, and otherwise pursues her own work with often stolen art supplies while working at a miserable minimum wage job. Alone but trying not to be lonely, Maggie has learned some slight of hand, but it doesn't come close to satisfying her need to work real magic. Now, she's starting to feel like something is about to change, maybe for the better, maybe for the much, much worse.

Maggie Stuart, now 16, feels alienated and lost - her former friends ignore her, and magic, something that once came naturally, has deserted her entirely. But when she interrupts a dangerous occult ritual, it is the beginning of another baptism by fire for both her and the boys she once saved: Jason Lawson, Scott Saunders, and Aaron Scribner. And she discovers that the supernatural world has never been as far away as it had seemed. . . In book two of "Blood & Magic," Maggie is swept into the world of the occult after witnessing a ritual performed in the school gymnasium that is eerily reminiscent of the "last rite" she endured three years earlier. Even stranger, the participants include three boys who were also present at that momentous event - Scott Saunders, Aaron Scribner, and her grade eight crush Jason Lawson. Unlike Maggie, they haven't maintained any known connection to that previous time - so how on earth did they manage to find a book of magic AND learn how to use it? Her previous adventures unlocked a deep desire to work magic in Maggie, an urge that has been frustrated at every turn. Now, isolated and lonely, she sees a chance to become involved again in the occult, even if it means becoming a sidekick to her former friends. Where there's magic, though, you can be sure that Mr. Hunt isn't far away, or that he's working for his own ends, even when those ends match up with Maggie's. Or, at the very least, an uneasy truce can be struck. Maggie pulls in the full force of her prior experiences to draw in the reluctant Metro Toronto Police detective John Tamblyn, Tamblyn's suspicious colleague Carla Szaba, and even uses a budding friendship with an older student, Irene. Can she find the line between getting help and flat-out using people as she battles an invisible force which seems determined to frighten, maim and kill on its way to an unknown goal? From the placid streets of suburban Toronto to the terrifying depths under the city, from the corridors of law enforcement to the bitter heart of a young girl's dreams, THE RED RING will take you on a journey far beyond the average fantasy. Follow Maggie into the darkness, if you dare.

This Will All Be Yours. . . What could be more enticing-or more terrifying- to a lonely thirteen-year-old than to be offered both companionship and limitless power? Kidnapped, imprisoned in an underground labyrinth, Maggie Stuart must decide if the ancient being known to her only as "The Burnt Man" is friend or foe, if this is a new home or a deadly trap, and whether or not she can overcome her greatest fear-of what she herself is becoming. . . ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jen Frankel is the author of THE LAST RITE and its sequel THE RED RING, the first two books of the Maggie Stuart series. She writes in many different genres, but speculative fiction of any sort is what she loves best. She lives and works in Toronto, Canada.