Product Description

In his first year in Los Angeles, Angel encountered Jheira, a hunter from another dimension whose fiery emotions cause men to fall under her spell. Four years later he is astonished to find the fugitive Jheira again - and disconcerted to find that her power over men is as strong as it was before. Someone else is looking for Jheira - hoping that she will help him to thaw an army of demon soldiers: souls of the damned entombed beneath the eternal ice in a frozen and desolate hell. And in a museum in Los Angeles, on loan from China, one of the world's great archaeological treasures stands waiting. Thousands of warriors sculpted in terracotta, looking as if they could come to life any moment. Meantime in Sunnydale Buffy is trying to come to terms with a new and different life, juggling her work as a counsellor with looking after Dawn and keeping an eye on Spike and his fragile sanity. A demonic invincible army is the last thing that she needs...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #721161 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

About the Author
Nancy Holder lives in San Diego with her husband Wayne and young daughter Belle. She is a four-time Bram Stoker award winner for her work in supernatural fiction and the author of several Buffy and Angel bestsellers.

Customer Reviews

Heated in more ways than one.
This is a very well constructed story for all Buffy/Angel fans. It brings both gangs together in a very positive way on an epic journey. It sure has the wow factor if you like a story with passion, drama, intrigue and lots of fighting. The title was aptly chosen with the villains need for heat to survive, Jhiera's powers over men and the main characters passion surfacing thoughout the novel.
There wasn't too much backstory in it, just enough and some very up to date references from both shows that played well into the storyline.
I loved it and would recommend it to any Buffy/Angel fans.
Now I'll go take a cold shower......

Okay, enough with the giant "BtVS"/"Angel" crossover novels
It is getting harder for me to finish reading some of the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" books I have been reading as of late. Part of the problem might be the prolonged depression now that all of Joss Whedon's series are no longer in production, but I think that there are some larger concerns to be considered, and Nancy Holder's "Heat," which involves both "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" provides an appropriate context for ruminating in search of some deep thoughts.

In the episode "She" from the first season of "Angel" he met up with Jhiera, an inter-dimensional hunter who was trying to protect the women of her culture from being stripped of their emotions. Angel feel victim to her heat (hence the title of this novel) but returned to her own dimension. Now Jhiera is back and looking for a young woman who could be the key to stopping an inter-dimensional war that involves not only the terra-cotta army of Chinese warriors you might remember from President Ronald Reagan's visit to China and other news stories, but a powerful ancient Chinese sorcerer. The terra-cotta warriors just happen to be on display in Sunnydale, right near the good old Hell Mouth. Ironically, given the penultimate line of dialogue on "Angel," there be dragons involved as well.

Several things kept occurring to me about both this particular novel and other "BtVS"/"Angel" novels as I read "Heat." First, there always seem to be continuity problems with these books in terms of events. "Heat" takes place during the seventh and final season of "BtVS" and fourth season of "Angel," at a point when the First is playing with Buffy and Cordelia is with Connor instead of Angel. Yet none of these rather significant developing story lines matter much to this narrative. I have found the best "BtVS" novels have been those written pretty much outside the show's continuity, such as "The Gatekeeper Trilogy" and "The Lost Slayer" serial novel, and I would not mind stories that plugged holes in the show's chronology. But stories like this, which are sort of in limbo, strike me as being problematic.

Second, having now read a couple of "BtVS"/"Angel" crossover books I really find them problematic because the cast of characters involved is just too large. Giving everybody something to do means few people get anything substantial to do in terms of the story. Holder approaches this problem by coming up with a solution that involves everybody to pair up and go off to do something. There are a couple of interesting moments with some of these pairings (e.g., Anya and Connor, Wesley and Willow), but these are just passing moments as we jump from scene to scene as the complicated end game plays out. Holder is usually pretty good at capturing the characters, and "Heat" is one of the few times I have not been bothered by Anya, but she is just juggling too many characters. I really do not want to see another one of these crossover novels unless the focus is on just a few characters: I would love to see a Willow & Wesley novel. Not just because Alyson Hannigan and Alexis Denisof are married, but because of the fascinating character arcs they have gone through over the course of these series.

Third, all of the Chinese stuff about Qin, First Emperor of China, the Year of the Hot Devil, the terra-cotta warriors, Flamestryke and the rest are really interesting, but I am not sure they had to be part of a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" novel (it makes more sense for "Angel"). Overall the best parts of "Heat" are those involving these Chinese elements when the crossover casts are not even around. I had a similar concern with Holder's "Blood and Fog," where Jack the Ripper was worked into the plot even though he was not necessary and the story would have been better without. This time I found myself thinking that the novel would have worked better if it had nothing to do with either series or just involved the "Angel" crew.

There is a justification for this being a Buffy and Angel novel, which is where we start off in the Prologue to "Heat." But that connection is pretty much lost until we get to the end of the novel. At that point Holder provides a pretty good scene with Buffy and Angel dealing with their plight as star-crossed lovers in an unfair universe. But by that point my immediate thought was, okay, we have these pretty good scene that could be potentially great and all we have to do is jettison all of the Chinese elements that are the main plot of this novel, keep the focus essentially on just these two characters, and come up with a better way of setting up this payoff.

Mabye the problem is that hardback "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and/or "Angel" novels have to be big in scope and that one of the ways of doing that is to bring both casts together, which is not working well, and/or to have another Armageddon as the threat. At some point we have to pass the threshold for playing that particular card and I am inclined to look over my shoulder to make the case we are long past that point. Then again, with both series over and done it could just be that the spark is gone. Whatever the case, it has been a while since I was really excited about one of the novels based on the hit television series created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt.

Okay, enough with the giant "BtVS"/"Angel" crossover novels
It is getting harder for me to finish reading some of the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" books I have been reading as of late. Part of the problem might be the prolonged depression now that all of Joss Whedon's series are no longer in production, but I think that there are some larger concerns to be considered, and Nancy Holder's "Heat," which involves both "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" provides an appropriate context for ruminating in search of some deep thoughts.

In the episode "She" from the first season of "Angel" he met up with Jhiera, an inter-dimensional hunter who was trying to protect the women of her culture from being stripped of their emotions. Angel feel victim to her heat (hence the title of this novel) but returned to her own dimension. Now Jhiera is back and looking for a young woman who could be the key to stopping an inter-dimensional war that involves not only the terra-cotta army of Chinese warriors you might remember from President Ronald Reagan's visit to China and other news stories, but a powerful ancient Chinese sorcerer. The terra-cotta warriors just happen to be on display in Sunnydale, right near the good old Hell Mouth. Ironically, given the penultimate line of dialogue on "Angel," there be dragons involved as well.

Several things kept occurring to me about both this particular novel and other "BtVS"/"Angel" novels as I read "Heat." First, there always seem to be continuity problems with these books in terms of events. "Heat" takes place during the seventh and final season of "BtVS" and fourth season of "Angel," at a point when the First is playing with Buffy and Cordelia is with Connor instead of Angel. Yet none of these rather significant developing story lines matter much to this narrative. I have found the best "BtVS" novels have been those written pretty much outside the show's continuity, such as "The Gatekeeper Trilogy" and "The Lost Slayer" serial novel, and I would not mind stories that plugged holes in the show's chronology. But stories like this, which are sort of in limbo, strike me as being problematic.

Second, having now read a couple of "BtVS"/"Angel" crossover books I really find them problematic because the cast of characters involved is just too large. Giving everybody something to do means few people get anything substantial to do in terms of the story. Holder approaches this problem by coming up with a solution that involves everybody to pair up and go off to do something. There are a couple of interesting moments with some of these pairings (e.g., Anya and Connor, Wesley and Willow), but these are just passing moments as we jump from scene to scene as the complicated end game plays out. Holder is usually pretty good at capturing the characters, and "Heat" is one of the few times I have not been bothered by Anya, but she is just juggling too many characters. I really do not want to see another one of these crossover novels unless the focus is on just a few characters: I would love to see a Willow & Wesley novel. Not just because Alyson Hannigan and Alexis Denisof are married, but because of the fascinating character arcs they have gone through over the course of these series.

Third, all of the Chinese stuff about Qin, First Emperor of China, the Year of the Hot Devil, the terra-cotta warriors, Flamestryke and the rest are really interesting, but I am not sure they had to be part of a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" novel (it makes more sense for "Angel"). Overall the best parts of "Heat" are those involving these Chinese elements when the crossover casts are not even around. I had a similar concern with Holder's "Blood and Fog," where Jack the Ripper was worked into the plot even though he was not necessary and the story would have been better without. This time I found myself thinking that the novel would have worked better if it had nothing to do with either series or just involved the "Angel" crew.

There is a justification for this being a Buffy and Angel novel, which is where we start off in the Prologue to "Heat." But that connection is pretty much lost until we get to the end of the novel. At that point Holder provides a pretty good scene with Buffy and Angel dealing with their plight as star-crossed lovers in an unfair universe. But by that point my immediate thought was, okay, we have these pretty good scene that could be potentially great and all we have to do is jettison all of the Chinese elements that are the main plot of this novel, keep the focus essentially on just these two characters, and come up with a better way of setting up this payoff.

Mabye the problem is that hardback "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and/or "Angel" novels have to be big in scope and that one of the ways of doing that is to bring both casts together, which is not working well, and/or to have another Armageddon as the threat. At some point we have to pass the threshold for playing that particular card and I am inclined to look over my shoulder to make the case we are long past that point. Then again, with both series over and done it could just be that the spark is gone. Whatever the case, it has been a while since I was really excited about one of the novels based on the hit television series created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt.