Diane Duane’s Wizard’s Holiday is the most recent book in the Young Wizards series and the sequel to A Wizard Alone. The title is after “Busman’s Holiday,” and should give you a reasonable idea of the plot: Kit and Nita go on a wizardly exchange program to another planet for vacation but have adventures, and their exchange counterparts come stay with Dairine and also have adventures.
The first portion of the book is a welcome lighter look at being on holiday in a strange place, after the darker turns of the last two books. We also get to see more of our Earth wizards’ families, which I enjoyed. The second part doesn’t work as well; one plot thread doesn’t seem to be fully tied off, the other was somewhat disturbing to me, and the thematic attempts to tie the two together were a bit forced. The plot does get points for giving us a much different incarnation of The Lone Power than we’ve seen before, however.
This feels rather like an interlude book, something like A Wizard Abroad, but not as static—there is emotional progress from the last two books, after all. The interlude nature is enhanced by the very tantalizing hints about serious troubles afoot for the next book, Wizards at War (currently in progress). I am looking forward to it, though I greatly doubt that Duane will actually make good on the truth in the Lone Power’s taunts to Nita about getting other people to die for her. (Oh, and there had better be something more about the Ponch stuff in that book, or I shall be Most Annoyed.)
I’ve posted this to rec.arts.sf.written, with spoilers at the end of the post (Google link).