With a Tangled Skein - Piers Anthony It’s definitely a step-up from Bearing an Hourglass, but the third book in the series still struggles to match the first. Sort of a prequel, the plot starts a couple generations earlier in the Kaftan family. Fate, meanwhile, weaves and shapeshifts through Satan’s ploys.

Writing the book through the eyes of Niobe won’t win Piers Anthony any gender or cultural sensitivity awards. Even I cringe at the stereotypes he freely uses.