fantasy book reviews science fiction book reviewsDear readers,

fantasy and science fiction book reviewsI’ve thought and thought and my thinker’s thunked out.

A reader sent us a question asking for our help in identifying a book she read when she was younger and none of the reviewers have had any luck identifying it. Can you please help?

Lizza writes:

Twenty years ago(!) I read a book which scared me so much I left it behind on holiday and have been searching ever since for it. I cannot remember the title (though it might have been something like ‘the Keepers’) or the author(!), but wondered if any of you might have read it. Essentially a brother and sister were in charge of an ancient egyptian treasure and monster which they controlled through wearing special pendants which also kept them young. Skip forward 100ish years and our hero (some sort of private eye?) is introduced trying to get ‘a special necklace’ returned for an ‘old man’ who was mugged. The mugger is dragged out of the window by a mystery creature and the old man is replaced by a young man when his pendant is returned. The hero falls in love with the sister, there’s something about a whole load of dragon-like monsters in an abandoned vessel on the Manhattan river. I realise this is a long shot and I may be mixing up more than one book, but I thought I’d try! Any help appreciated. Thanks a lot.

So, dear readers, any ideas?  The first person to identify the book for Lizza (in the comments) gets to choose a book from our stacks as a reward. And if you would like the FanLit readers’ help identifying a fantasy book in the future, please use our form to contact me and I’ll put your request in a future Thoughtful Thursday column.

Author

  • Ruth Arnell

    RUTH ARNELL (on FanLit's staff January 2009 — August 2013) earned a Ph.D. in political science and is a college professor in Idaho. From a young age she has maxed out her library card the way some people do credit cards. Ruth started reading fantasy with A Wrinkle in Time and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — books that still occupy an honored spot on her bookshelf today. Ruth and her husband have a young son, but their house is actually presided over by a flame-point Siamese who answers, sometimes, to the name of Griffon.

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