Buffy is no longer the only Slayer, Willow's spell having activated all the potentials. The Scoobies have spread out to all parts of the world, tracking down the new Slayers, attempting to re-establish the Watchers Council and generally keep the world safe from Demonkind.

But, as you would expect, the world may well be about to face a new threat. Every hundred years all the demons get together under a truce to hold a Dark Congress. At the congress the demons discuss their differences, with the aim of agreeing to unite (bad news for mankind), begin an all-out war (bad news for mankind) or maintain the status quo (not good news, but the least bad option for the human race).

This congress is about to begin in Rhode Island and Buffy is very much in the middle of it all.

In the years since Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended nothing has really replaced it for me. There have been other shows I have watched and enjoyed - Bones, Eureka, the new Doctor Who and best of all Heroes. But nothing has come close to Buffy. Even the poorer episodes were generally better than most other series.

Since it went off the air its living on in book and comics form have given fans like myself the chance to continue to experience the Buffyverse. Of course, this could have been a disasterous continuation to the series - imagine if it had gone off air and all that was left was a series of appallingly-plotted badly-written cash-in books. Fortunately though the quality has been good and they have proven a wonderful lifeline for this fanboy.

This book continues the trend, but then again being a Christopher Golden book I am not at all surprised. Golden has, along with Nancy Holder, been the top performer in this universe. So to get the chance to read what he made of "what happened next". Thankfully he did not disappoint me.

The plot is good, although like much of the series, very much secondary to the character interactions. The characters were THE characters, fully fleshed, completely recognisable and exactly as I want them. Even the reasonably contrived manner brings Tara into the story, despite her being dead, is handled well. It would have been oh-so easy to just go, hey - this world's magic, she's back. But like most of the Buffy story on screen, things have consequences and the characters have to decide to live with them or not.

Books like this cannot totally make up for not having new episodes of a favourite show, but it can dull the ache.