The Mask and the Sorceress is the second installment of Dennis Jones’ fantasy trilogy, The House of the Pandragore. Set 25 years after the events of The Stone and the Maiden, this book follows the fortunes of Ilarion Tessaris, the son of Key Mec Brander and Mandine Dascaris, who have ruled the realm of the Ascendancy peacefully since defeating the evil sorceror Erkai the Chain in the first novel.

Ilarion is sent on a sea voyage to check on his mother’s half-sister Theatana, long exiled to an island far to the south of the Ascendancy as punishment for the aid she gave Erkai. When a raid by an unknown race of men sets Theatana free, Ilarion’s ships set off in pursuit, only to be wrecked on an island by a vicious tropical storm. He is found there by another raiding party and made a palace slave in the fading kingdom of Hydra. Meanwhile, Theatana begins nurturing a fragment of Erkai’s Dark Magic, hoping to grow powerful enough to take the Ascendancy back and destroy her sister’s family.

Jones has hit his stride with the second part of The House of the Pandragore series. Like the first book, The Mask and the Sorceress is a beautifully crafted, swiftly paced page-turner. But whereas the first novel was a straightforward quest story, in this installment the quest is internalized as Ilarion struggles with the humiliation of being a slave in a civilization once as great as the Ascendancy, and the realization that he might never return to claim his own kingdom. Jones provides enough background material for new readers to be able to follow the ongoing story, but The Mask and the Sorceress can stand firmly as a read-alone novel.