Having discovered her dormant fire magician heritage Nisha Farsight is struggling to control her powers. At the same time Quentaris is in the grip of a heatwave and keeps experiencing ground tremors. When her friend Tal is offered the opportunity to find a magical artefact that will help Nisha control her powers he ventures into the rift caves to retrieve it. However all he finds is a small spoon.

Whilst showing the spoon to Nisha Tal drops it and a clear voice rings out "I belong to Alberic Mallison. Please return me." Nisha and Tal discover that Alberic Mallison worked as a cutler in Lower Quentaris, a city built underground below Quentaris. As they venture below to return the spoon to its rightful owner they find themselves in a strange subterranean world where a number of craftspeople have been taken from their homeworld and confined to Lower Quentaris.

Nisha and Tal visit Alberic's shop to return the spoon but find themselves on a quest to help the craftspeople find what has been lost and recover their freedom. At the same time they may be able to save Quentaris from the heatwave and the tremors.

Beneath Quentaris is the fifth of The Quentaris Chronicles. In this novel we rejoin Nisha and Tal. Nisha is struggling to control her fire magic and Tal will do anything to help her. When a mysterious stranger offers him information concerning an artefact that may help he ventures into the caves to find it. This takes the pair into the land beneath Quentaris where Nisha has to undergo a series of trials to help some trapped crafts people in order to gain the magical artefact.

As I have said in the reviews for the previous four stories, this book is very well paced and encourages the reader to keep going until the very last page. Once again I found myself compelled to finish this story in one sitting!

It is nice to revisit two characters from the very first of The Quentaris Chronicles and see how they have developed over the intervening period.

Enchanting and compelling.