Description: Highly imaginative and ebulliently romantic illustrator and storyteller Bantock revived the epistolary tale of Griffin and Sabine, the cosmic love story that catapulted him onto best-seller lists more than a decade ago, in his last book, The Gryphon. In that tantalizing volume, the long silent correspondents make contact with another smitten pair: the young archaeologist, Matthew, and his sweetheart, Isabella. As their mystical adventure continues here, Sabine affirms her psychic connection with Matthew, who has just begun work on a new dig in Alexandria, perhaps on the site of the city's legendary lost library, and Griffin continues his long-distance, somewhat spooky mentoring of Isabella, who is studying sphinxes in Paris. All four are eloquent, artistic, and oddly calm in the face of inexplicable, often frightening events that mark their approach to a hidden treasure their menacing foe seems also to covet. Bantock draws liberally on the myth of the Egyptian god Thoth, scribe and guardian of the great library, and employs a self-possessed cat as Isabella's new familiar, upping the ante on both love and mysticism only to leave his enchanted readers hanging, waiting impatiently for the next elaborately constructed installment. As always Bantock's illustrations are as clever as they are exquisite, each a beautifully detailed clue to the metaphysical mystery at hand, but, as before, many of the letters are removable, making this an unlikely candidate for circulation but well worth having for in-library reading. - Booklist -- -

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