Carolyn Jewel: MY IMMORTAL

Author: Carolyn Jewel
Series:  MY IMMORTAL 
Plot Type: SMR
Ratings: V-4, S4-5, H-2
Publisher and Titles: Grand Central
      My Wicked Enemy (2008)
      My Forbidden Desire (2009)
      My Immortal Assassin (2011)
      My Dangerous Pleasure (2011)

     The newest book in this series—My Dangerous Pleasure—has been published, and a review of that book follow this brief synopsis of the series so far:

    In this world, witches and fiends (aka demons, aka Kin) are bitter enemies. Even knowing this fact, we are still unsurprised to find that many of the books in this series feature a witch-fiend pair falling in love and following the rocky road to a happy soul-mate ending. 

     The villains are the mages—diabolically powerful magic users who gain power by binding hapless fiends to them, thereby harnessing the fiends' magical powers and super strength.  A fiend bound this way is called mageheld and must obey every horrific order from his mage master. The mages are always on the lookout for talismans—relics that contain the living spirits of fiends.

     If a mage performs a blood ceremony, he can drain a talisman of its fiendish power and absorb it into himself. Needless to say, the fiends want to keep every talisman out of the hands of the mages.  And also needless to say, each witch (at least in the first two books) has possession of a talisman. 

     In My Wicked Enemy, the warlord Nikodemus hunts down Carson to kill her and steal her talisman. Instead, of course, they fall in love as she comes into her witch powers, and the two of them defeat the mage who had imprisoned Carson since childhood. This book is on the high side of the sensuality ratings due to the blood lust scenes and a threesome scene.

     In My Forbidden Desire, Xia (who was mageheld in book 1) is assigned to protect Alexandrine, a witch with a talisman. Xia hates all witches, but, in short order, he falls in love with Alexandrine as she develops her powers, and the two of them defeat the mage that had bound Xia. 

    My Immortal Assassin follows Durian (who was free, then mageheld, then free again in previous books) and Grayson, a  human who absorbs Kin powers after a villainous Mage (Christophe) kidnaps her and forces her to submit to impregnation by one of his magehelds.

     In My Dangerous Pleasure, Iskander and Paisley (his human tenant) get together when she is brutally attacked by a mage. Paisley is minding her own business running her bake shop when the mage Rasmus Kessler begins stalking her, telling her that she must be his lover forever.  When he destroys all of her earthly possessions, she moves in with Iskander. At first, Iskander thinks that Paisley is a "vanilla" human (i.e., that she has no magical talents), but eventually, he begins to suspect that Paisley may well have some magic in her—and he's absolutely right. But where the magic comes from is the mystery. This story has less external plot than the previous books and more focus on the romantic couple. As usual, there are plenty of sensual bedroom scenes, with some of them involving Iskander in his demonic form—always kind of stomach-churning. This book contains the climactic scene in which Iskander's relationship with his blood-twin, Fen, is resolved once and for all.


CRITIQUE:
     This is an interesting series, with a fresh premise and unusual supernatural beings as the good guys, but it does have the usual alpha male heroes and spunky, sassy heroines. If you enjoy paranormal romance series, this is a good one. Each book involves a variety of mage-fiend battles, but the fiends seem to be getting stronger now, and better able to defend themselves. By the time we get to My Dangerous Pleasure, Nicodemus has built up quite an efficient and well-run empire, and Carson and Alexandrine are rescuing mage-helds left and right. I advise you to read the series from the beginning so that you can appreciate the growth and change within the fiend community. (I never thought I would ever use the phrase "fiend community" in a sentence!)

     On her web site, Jewel has posted a free, on-line short story from the MY IMMORTAL WORLD entitled Future Tense. She also has a MY IMMORTAL SERIES page that provides history and background for the series. If you click on a book title on that page, you'll find a brief biography of the hero and heroine of the book, and sometimes there is a free chapter.

This blog entry was last updated on 6/6/2011. 

Caitlin Kittredge: BLACK LONDON SERIES

Author:  Caitlin Kittredge
Series:  BLACK LONDON
Plot Type:  UF
Ratings:  V4-5; S3-4; H2
Publisher and Titles:  St. Martin’s
        "Newlydeads" in My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon (12/2007)
      Street Magic (6/2009)
        "Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go" in Huntress (6/2009)
      Demon Bound (12/2009)
      Bone Gods (11/2010)
      Devil's Business (8/2011) 
      "The Curse of Four" (e-novella,10/2011)
      Soul Trade (8/2012)
      Dark Days (4/2013)

     This blog post was revised and updated on 5/28/13 to include a review of the sixth book in the series, Dark Days. That review appears first, followed by an overview of the world-building, brief summaries of books 1-3 and full reviews of the novella and books 4 and 5: 

          BOOK 6:  Dark Days           

     As the story opens, Jack's long-time nemesis, the demon Belial, asks for Jack's help in taking down a dark power who plans to destroy all barriers between the mortal world, the Black, and Hell. When Jack does a bit of investigating, he learns that this dark entity—who calls himself Legion—is an arrogant and powerful sociopath whose plans are even worse than Belial realizes. Legion is fomenting a rebellion in Hell, siphoning off the minions of the Demon Princes and bringing them under his power, along with the Fae and other supernatural groups. The plot follows Jack, sometimes accompanied by Pete, as they track down Legion and attempt to destroy him/it. The investigation forces Jack to ask for favors and/or information from several not-so-friendly past acquaintances.

     When he is on mortal earth, Legion poses as a cult leader who calls himself Larry Lovecraft, an obvious play on science fiction author, H.P. Lovecraft, whose works portrayed a human civilization threatened by otherworldly forces, haunted by guilt, and controlled by fate (which, of course, also describes BLACK LONDON's world). When Jack learns of Legion's earthly name, he reflects on Legion's choice of name: "Lovecraft: the xenophobic twit who conceived of a vast, otherworldly madness coming to swallow humanity whole. Jack gritted his teeth. On top of all his other irritants, Legion clearly thought himself f------ hilarious." (p. 122)

     The story is told in the third person from Jack's viewpoint as he is tossed back and forth between underworld realms and earthly locations, always under attack from various demonic bad guys. When the final climactic showdown  with Legion arrives, Jack is forced to do something he has sworn never to do never to do: make a deal with the Morrigan in order to save the world from Legion's chaos plan. By the end, London has become a very different place, and Jack's future has changed dramatically—both in the immediate and the long-term. As the story winds down, it gives off vibes of being the final book in the series, but then in the last paragraph, Jack receives yet another threat, so maybe there's another book on the way.

     This series continues to be dark and frequently without hope for the lead characters—and humanity in general. As each book gets increasingly bleaker and more harrowing for Jack and Pete, my love for the series diminishes another notch. By this time, the back stories of the lead and supporting characters are so complex that it's hard to remember enough details to make sense of the characters' frequent references to past events. This book is not one to read as a stand-alone, so I would recommend that if you are at all interested in this series you either read book 1 (Street Magic) or the e-novella, "Curse of Four" just to get a taste for the atmosphere and the writing style.

          WORLD-BUILDING           
     In the early books, the Black is the magical section of London, where the time is always just about midnight, and the supernatural creatures gather at the Lament Pub. In that form, the Black is reminiscent of the magical London Nightside that is featured in Simon R. Green’s NIGHTSIDE series. In later BLACK LONDON books, the meaning of the Black expands to include the magical world in general.

     The heroine of the series is “Pete” Caldecott, who begins the series as a detective for Scotland Yard. (You’ll have to read to the end of book 1 to discover Pete’s actual first name.) Sixteen years ago, Pete and her friend Jack Winter, a powerful mage, had a fateful demon-summoning experience that ended tragically. Pete and Jack have a complex relationship that waxes and wanes throughout the series. 

     One of the high points of the series is Kittredge's talent for describing the gritty streets of London in eloquent images. Here, Jack visits the neighborhood of an old friend: "Peckham echoed the ghost of an older London, one skinny and bleeding, with teeth out of its head, Thatcher in power, half the population drunk, out of work and pissing in the gutter. There was graffiti here, crime, dirt, and the howls of the city...A few badly punctuated BNP propaganda phrases, gang tags, an attempt at artfulness across one of the storefronts that showed a cluster of giant eyes staring down at passersby as they floated on a murky blue-black sea of stars and flowers." ("The Curse of Four," p. 49)

     This is an action-packed UF series with extremely complex leading characters and compelling plots. Even the demon Belial's character has depth, occasionally showing signs of empathy and understanding (but not enough for us to forget that he's a demon). The tone of the series is very dark, and Jack's constant flow of sardonic wisecracks gives new meaning to the phrase "black humor." Each book plunges the reader right into the conflict from the very beginning, and the struggles and strife don't end until the last page. 

     One downer (especially in the earlier books) is the awkward and contrived use of English slang expressions (e.g., blokes, bloody, wankers, sod, git, bugger all), which don't really ring true and are used to the point of tedium. In general, though, this is a great, can't-put-it-down series, which should be read in sequence, beginning with Street Magic. If you begin in the middle of the series, you won't understand a lot of the action, and you won't have a clue about the motivations of the characters. Both Pete and Jack have made many dicey decisions throughout the series, all of which continue to affect their lives in many dangerous and unpredictable ways. Both also develop stronger and stronger magical powers as the series progresses. Jack is a crow-mage under the power of Morgana, and Pete is a Weir, "a channel for the darkest and oldest powers in the Black." (Soul Trade, p. 17)

          BOOK 1:  Street Magic          
     In the series opener, Pete must solve a series of child kidnappings, and Jack reappears, seemingly from the dead, with magically retrieved information about the crimes. During the years of his disappearance, Jack has become a drug addict, and Pete has a tough time reconciling herself to the changes in his life.

     Together, Pete and Jack head into the Black, where they battle villainous sorcerers and a powerful ghost who wants to live again. They also must deal with their own relationship problems.       

          BOOK 2:  Demon Bound             
     As the second book begins, Pete has resigned from the police department. She and Jack are living together and are partners in a paranormal investigation agency.   

     The plot deals with a bargain Jack made thirteen years ago with the demon Belial. That debt, which Jack has kept secret from Pete, must now be paid off, with horrible consequences for Jack. Pete knows that Jack is keeping something from her, and when he takes off for Bangkok, she follows him into yet another dangerous situation.

     Although both of the first two books are written in the third person, Street Magic tells the story from Pete’s point of view, and Demon Bound follows Jack.

          BOOK 3:  Bone Gods          

     Book 3 finds Pete—who is all by herself for most of the book—in search of a killer who is responsible for two murders, a villainous necromancer she battled earlier in the series who is trying to bring an ancient spirit (Nergal) back to Earth for nefarious reasons. When Jack does his mysterious reappearance act once again, Pete tries to believe that he is there to help her, but circumstances soon change her mind. 

     Just as in Michelle Rowen's LIVING IN EDEN TRILOGY, the Malleus (an organization of anti-magic fanatics) is among the villains. The ending is a bit of a cliff hanger that will have long-lasting repercussions on their future relationship.       

          E-Novella:  Curse of Four          

     If you'd like to get a taste of the series, this is a great place to start. You don't really need to have read any of the earlier books to understand and enjoy the story told in The Curse of Four. The novella takes place after Bone Gods, just four months after Jack has kicked his heroin habit. As the story opens, Pete's former partner, Detective Inspector Ollie Heath, asks Jack for assistance in solving the murder of Fiona Hannigan, one of Jack's former girlfriends back in the days when he sang with a punk-rock band and stayed strung-out on drugs and alcohol. Heath believes that magic may be involved in the crime, and he is absolutely correct about that because when Jack visits the murder scene, he realizes that Fiona has been involved in binding a ghost. 

     Jack's investigation takes him back to his former drug provider, a mage named Gemma, who buys and sells magical ingredients, including those needed for ghost binding. As the plot advances, Jack soon learns that he is being set up to take the blame for Fiona's death as well as the murders of three other magic users.  As the climax approaches, Jack is on the run from the police and from a mysterious mage who is determined either to frame him or kill him. Jack knows that a lot of people hate him, but which one hates him this much?         

          BOOK 4:  Devil's Business               
     As this book opens, Jack is on the hit list of every magic-connected group in London. He can't go anywhere without being attacked because everyone in the Black hates him for the chaos he caused when he helped bring Nergal back to Earth in the previous book, even though he did send the monster back to Hell as soon as he could. Pete and Jack's relationship is rockier than it has ever been, and she is on the verge of leaving him.    

     When Pete gets an invitation from a colleague in Los Angeles to help him solve a murder that involves magic, Jack insists on accompanying her because he believes that it is a trap meant to harm Pete in order to get to him. The Los Angeles murder turns out to have demonic connections, and soon enough Belial is back in the picture, demanding that Jack catch the killer, who happens to be yet another a very powerful and evil creature who escaped from hell and must be sent back.   

     This book follows Jack as he tries to talk his way through a series of violent episodes with several really bad guys, all of whom have connections in Hell and all of whom want Jack to join them so that they can make use of his crow-mage powers. In this story, Pete stays primarily in the background, serving as Jack's one and only weakness. As the action climaxes, she is in dire danger and he puts his life on the line for her. The ending leaves Jack and Pete on the verge of another strenuous and dangerous chapter in their lives. The level of violence in this book is higher than in the other books, so I rate it a "5."      

          BOOK 5:  Soul Trade           

     In the opening scene, Pete is on a stake-out in a graveyard on the lookout for a menacing ghost who turns out to be a wraith instead. As she is leaving the cemetery, a group of five pale figures surround her and give her an invitation to a gathering of the Prometheus Club, a group with which she is completely unfamiliar. When she gets home and opens the invitation, a black-inked geas (aka compulsion spell) appears on her hand, and the invitation says that to decline the invitation is to invite death. Jack tells Pete that Prometheus is a group of typically arrogant mages who spend their time gathering power for their own nefarious uses.

     Because the powerful geas won't let her decline the invitation, Pete and Jack find a babysitter for baby Lily and take the train to Manchester, Jack's hometown, where the Prometheus meeting will be held. When they arrive, a seemingly nutty man runs up to Pete on the street, slips a package into her pocket, mutters a vague warning, and is killed when he runs in front of a city bus. Soon, Morwenna, the Prometheus leader, grabs Pete and Jack off the street and threatens them into helping her discover just what's going on in Overton, a village in Herefordshire. She also wants them to track down one of her men who has disappeared in Overton and to infiltrate the ranks of another mage group, the Prospero Society. 

     Morwenna also has some surprise information that is guaranteed to win Pete's cooperation. All the way back in book 1 when Pete was still a police detective, she solved a case involving the serial kidnapping of children by a soul-sucking sorcerer. Even though she caught the villain, it came too late for three children who were left as hollow shells, with no minds or souls. Pete has always blamed herself for not rescuing the children in time, and when Morwenna tells her that the children are in Overton and are in danger, that's all the motivation Pete needs to get involved.

     The rest of the story follows Pete and Jack's adventures in Overton, where they go up against greedy humans, zombie-type creatures, and Jack's long-absent father, Donovan. Here, Pete summarizes the situation: "Something about a void in the Black leading to an in-between place like nothing anyone has ever seen, unlimited power, big bad evil, blah blah blah." (p. 234) That description loosely fits just about every adventure that Pete and Jack have ever had! The final quarter of the story is full of twists and turns, betrayals and double-crosses. As usual, the tone is extremely dark, with Pete and Jack always in danger from forces they don't understand until it's almost too late.  

     In the Epilogue, Belial turns up with a problem that he hopes Jack and Pete will solve for him. When he promises to free Jack from the Morrigan's clutches in return for their help, they take the deal and walk off with him into an uncertain future. Although I love the characters of Pete and Jack, the sustained darkness and unrelenting hopelessness of their lives is starting to take a toll on my interest in the series. Perhaps it's time to give the couple some type of HEA and move on to a new series, particularly now that there's a baby in the family.

Marta Acosta: CASA DRACULA

Author: Marta Acosta
Series: CASA DRACULA 
Plot Type: CH
Ratings: V3, S4, H4
Publisher and Titles:  
      Happy Hour at Casa Dracula (Pocket, 2006)
      Midnight Brunch (Pocket, 2007)
      The Bride of Casa Dracula (Pocket, 2008)
      Haunted Honeymoon (Gallery, 2010)

     Milagro de los Santos is a frustrated writer, taking advertising jobs to pay the rent while she works on her novels.  When she accidentally shares blood with Oswald Grant, a handsome vampire, her life changes completely. It seems that Milagro is the only human ever to survive vampire infection.  Soon, Milagro is running for her life—away from her ex-boyfriend Sebastian, who wants to use her body for various horrendous experiments, and toward a possible life with Oswald.

     Other possible love interests, however, do turn up, including the sexy and powerful vampire lord, Ian Ducharme. Oswald and his family see themselves not as vampires but as people with a "condition"—an enzyme deficiency that can be controlled only through ingesting excessive amounts of protein, specifically red foods supplemented by blood. The high sensuality rating is related to the bloodletting (with scalpels—they don't have fangs) that occurs during sexual scenes.  

     Plots involve various attempts to kidnap Milagro for the special qualities of her blood.  Book 1 centers on events that follow the too-passionate kiss between Milagro and Oswald, including Milagro's adventures as she avoids Sebastian, meets Oswald's family, and gets used to her new "condition."  

     Book 2 follows Milagro as she goes off to a resort on a screen-writing job that turns out to be more than she bargained for.  Book 3 finds Milagro preparing for her wedding to Oswald and becoming frustrated by crazy wedding coordinators, the Vampire Council, and her growing attraction to Ian.  In book 4 (the final book), Milagro gets jealous of Ian's relationship with a sexy neighbor, loses her memory, has regrets about leaving Oswald, and winds up in a happily-ever-after ending—just as we always knew she would.

Michelle Rowen: LIVING IN EDEN TRILOGY

Author: Michelle Rowen

Series: LIVING IN EDEN TRILOGY
Plot Type: SMR 

Ratings:  V3, S3, H3

Publisher and Titles: Berkley Sensation
      The Demon in Me (2010)
      Something Wicked (2010)
      That Old Black Magic (2011) (FINAL BOOK)

     This blog entry was revised and updated on 2/27/12 to include the third and final book in the series: That Old Black Magic. That review follows this overview of the series so far:


     Psychic Eden Riley is a part-time police consultant who becomes possessed by the demon (Darrak) when his  human host is killed in a police manhunt. Eden also works in a small detective agency, along with her partner, Andy McCoy, who plays a supporting role in Eden's adventures. 

     By night, Darrak exists inside Eden's head, but by day (for reasons that are tied to Eden's psychic powers), he becomes a corporeal human—unsurprisingly, a tall, dark, and sexy human.  Darrak needs Eden's help to break the curse that took away his body and forced his spirit to move from host to host over the centuries, draining the hosts' energy until they die—which occurs after approximately one year.  

     In The Demon in Me, Eden is caught between two love interests: Ben Hanson, a down-to-earth, nonmagical police detective, and Darrak. When Eden learns that Darrak has been cursed, she helps him track down Selina, the witch who cursed him, with troubling results.

     In Something Wicked, Eden learns the truth about her father, who disappeared before she was born; Darrak meets up with one of his old demon friends; Andy has a life-changing supernatural experience; and Ben joins the opposition.  We also meet Eden's next-door-neighbor, Lucas, who turns out to be more than just a school teacher—much, much more!  

     The plot for the series focuses on Eden's adventures as she helps Darrak try to break his curse and prevent her own death.  Another ongoing theme is Eden's constant battle against using the dark magic that she acquires as a by-product of her possession. Each time she uses it, her soul gets darker and darker.  Villains include various evil supernaturals as well as the Malleus, a centuries-old magic-hating human organization that was responsible for such tragedies as the Salem witch trials.


     As That Old Black Magic begins, Darrak and Eden meet with Maksim, a wizard, for help in removing the spell and the curse that Selina placed on Darrak. Here, Maksim summarizes their problems as he speaks to Darrak: "Another witch from long ago—she cast a spell, correct?...Sex magic. Sleeping with you made her a black witch. And now the same has happened with Eden....And I can sense your curse as well....It's a big one." (p. 11) So...the problem is that Eden is a black witch, but she is also a nephilim—with an angel father and a human mother. Her soul grows blacker every time she is possessed by Darrak (which is every night) or uses her magic or has sex with Darrak. Eventually she will lose her soul. Meanwhile, Darrak is still under the curse that forces him to use Eden's human body as a host. Darrak's circumstances are complicated by the fact that he is becoming more and more angelic the longer he possesses Eden, so by now he's half demon and half angel—a dangerous predicament for an archdemon. What a mess! Maksim explains that there is a slightly dangerous possibility that Eden can break the spell and the curse because her magic has the exact same signature as Selina's. When they give it a try, Eden is able to break the spell, which helps a little, but she is unable to break the curse. 


     Meanwhile, Eden's old boyfriend, Ben, has joined the Malleus, but he's beginning to have second thoughts. He discovers that they are lying to him and keeping dark secrets about just who their prisoners are and why they are being imprisoned. The plot mostly follows Darrak and Eden as they try to solve all of their many problems. More complications arise when Eden's dead mother shows up in the body of a living woman, and she is determined to force Eden away from Darrak, whom she perceives as an evil demon who is after Eden's soul. Then, Lucifer stirs things up when he bullies Eden into making some terrible deals with him. Eventually, the situation goes straight to Hell—literally. Since this is the final book of the trilogy, you know that there is an HEA ending, so I'm not giving you a spoiler here, but—trust me—the couple goes through some horrendous trials and tribulations before they earn their happy future together.


     This book brings the series to a close in an intricately drawn plot. The characters, particularly Lucifer and Darrak, have always been interesting, with a nice mix of light and dark. Throughout the series, both Eden and Darrak have struggled with the fact that they are bound together. To some extent they learned to enjoy it, but they're so different in character that they've had to make a lot of compromises, and neither one has been particularly graceful about that. Their efforts have been fun to watch as they've made the best of what started out a a really bad situation back in book 1. When they got to the really tough decisions in book 3, both of them put their lives on the line for each other (in true paranormal romance style!). If you're going to read the series, I recommend starting at the beginning so that you'll get the entire story, including Darrak's history with the wicked witch, Selina.

     Rowen has also written the NIGHTSHADE series, which tells a much darker story than LIVING WITH EDEN. Click HERE to see my review of NIGHTSHADE. 

Lilith Saintcrow: JILL KISMET SERIES

Author: Lilith Saintcrow 
Series: JILL KISMET
Plot Type: UF
Ratings: V5, S3, H2
Publisher and Titles: Orbit
    Night Shift (2008)
    Hunter’s Prayer (2008)
    Redemption Alley (2009)
    Flesh Circus (2009)
    Heaven’s Spite (2010)
    Angel Town (2011) (FINAL BOOK)

     This blog entry was revised and updated on 11/26/11 to include a review of the sixth and final book in the series: Angel Town. That review follows this synopsis of the series: 

     Jill Kismet ("Kiss") is a psychic and a demon hunter in Santa Luz, a city in the American Southwest. Trained by her late teacher, Mikhail, Jill works as an occult consultant with the local police department. As the liaison between the paranormal community and the police, Jill’s job description includes exorcism and spiritual extermination. Jill’s police department contact is Montaigne (“Monty”), who provides human backup and tries not to know too much about the dark side of Jill’s supernatural adventures. 

     Jill’s nemesis is Pericles (“Perry”), the powerful hellbreed (demon, aka 'breed) who runs the supernatural part of town. On her right wrist, Jill wears Perry’s hellbreed mark (in the shape of puckered lips—a kiss), which gives her demonic strength and near immortality, but also tries to pull her to the dark side. Jill accepted the mark with Mikhail’s blessing to attain strength enough to make her town safe from even the most powerful dark forces. 

     Jill’s love interest is Saul Dustcircle, a Native American were-cougar, who arrives in Santa Luz in book 1 in search of his sister’s killer. Although Saul is a powerful supernatural, he is also a house husband, doing all of the cooking, cleaning, and decorating of the couple's home—almost too gentle for a fierce heroine like Jill. 

     Each book focuses on the rise and fall of an evil and violent creature in Santa Luz, including a rogue were, several psychotic hellbreeds, and a wendigo. (The author includes a glossary of demonic terms in each book.) Battle scenes are graphic and brutal. Although Jill is nearly immortal, she sustains an incredible number of horrible injuries and spends many conscious and unconscious hours healing from various traumas. 

     This is a great series, with well-developed world building, strong characters, and action-filled plots that play out perfectly. Jill is a truly great UF heroine, torn between her dark and light sides and always conflicted as to what path to take in her life. She is driven to protect her city, but she doesn't always make the "right" decisions as she does so, and she must live, or die, with the dark consequences of her actions. Perry torments Jill constantly, always rooting for her dark side to surface, so Jill's life is always fraught with danger and uncertainties. 

     In Heaven’s Spite, Jill learns some very disturbing facts about Mikhail and has a life-changing experience that leads directly and shockingly (in mid-word, no less) into Angel Town, the final book in the series. Don't read the ending first...you'll regret it! 

     As Angel Town opens, Jill awakens in the desert, with no memories. Here, she takes a good look at herself: "My forearms were pale under the screen of filth. On my right wrist, just above the softest part, something glittered. Hard, like a diamond. It caught the moonlight and sent back a dart of brilliance, straight through my aching skull. The sight filled me with unsteady loathing, and I shut my eyes. Start with the obvious first. Who am I?...Who am I? I tilted my head back and screamed, a lonely curlew cry. Because I didn't know." (p. 10)

     Jill (and the reader) wonder about that mysterious and ominous wrist jewel that seems to make her much more powerful than she was before. As Jill makes her way back to Santa Luz, she remembers her name, and then—very gradually—other memories begin to return, but not before she makes a few wrong decisions. After a reunion with Perry, which ends violently, Jill finds Saul and her friends and tries to make sense of what has happened to her. While she was gone, the 'breeds (under Perry's command) started an all-out war against both the were-community and the voodoo community, so by now, the supernatural citizens of Santa Luz are either dead or in deep hiding. Jill soon realizes that Perry has some big plans that involve using her to achieve his ascension to power, and she is determined to stop him. The finale is extremely violent (as usual), as a wide assortment of forces—both good and evil—all come together in a huge clash that brings this great series to an exhilarating and most satisfying conclusion. (Keep the title in mind as you read the book.)

Here is Jill as she muses on the different ways people react to monsters:

     "Some hunters say it's not the big weird that wallops you the hardest. It's the just-slightly-off, the subtly wrong. Because it echoes inside your head and builds until you want to scream. I've lost civilians to both. Some people crack....Some go screamingly, eye-clawingly, gratefully insane when faced with something that breaks all their base-level assumptions about how the world works. Still others take the whole enchilada, seem okay, then walk home and ventilate themselves. You just can't ever tell. You can only visit the grave afterward and feel the horrific tightness in your chest that means you didn't do a good enough job protecting them." (Angel Town, p. 150) 

    As one amazon.com reviewer elegantly and accurately states, "Nobody writes visceral, blood-and-guts-and-ichor, guns-and-knives-and-silver bullets, heaven-and-hell, demons-and-werecougars, dark urban fantasy like Lilith Saintcrow." He's absolutely correct. I highly recommend this series to all lovers of urban fantasy. The best way to read JILL KISMET is to start with Night Shift, and work your way through the books in order. Please don't start in the middle because you'll hate yourself later. 

     If you enjoy reading about light/dark conflicted heroines, here are two other series you might enjoy. Both are high on my top-ten list of all-time UF favorites:

   Click HERE to read my review of Stacia Kane's DOWNSIDE GHOSTS series.  

   Click HERE to read my review of Kim Harrison's THE HOLLOWS series.

     Saintcrow also writes stand-alone paranormal novels, including The Demon’s Librarian (ImaJinn Books, 2009), in which a motorcycle-riding librarian teams up with a half-demon to battle the forces of darkness. 

Kate Douglas: THE DEMONSLAYERS

Author: Kate Douglas
Series: THE DEMONSLAYERS
Plot Type: SMR
Ratings: V4, S4, H2
Publisher and Titles: Zebra
     Demonfire (2010)
     Hellfire (2010)
     Starfire (4-2011)

     Douglas is best known for her erotic series WOLF TALES 1-11. Now, she brings us a soul-mate romance series that includes an alien race and a major demon war.  

     Set in northern California and Arizona, the series follows two plot lines. In the first, demons are pouring through various portals and vortexes, led by the evil demon king and intent on doing terrible (if undescribed) things. The second plot line involves the land of Lemuria (an Atlantis twin), whose citizens relocated to the depths of Mount Shasta (but on a different plane of existence) after their original land space sank into the sea.  

     In Demonfire, Dax (a reformed demon), Edwina (called Eddy—a human newspaper reporter), and Eddy's father (a true believer in both Lemuria and demons) are forced to fight for their lives against the demon invasion.

     In Hellfire, two supporting characters from the previous book take center stage: Alton (an outcast Lemurian royal) and Ginny (Eddy's seemingly human best friend). Alton becomes strongly connected with the Lemurian plot line, when he discovers information about some terrible things that his father (head of the Lemurian council) has done, and which Alton must avenge. This plot line takes a feminist turn in Hellfire that will play out in Starfire, where the lead characters are Selyn (a descendant of a Lemurian female warrior) and Dawson (a human veterinarian friend of Ginny and Alton and a supporting character in Hellfire).

     In each book, the main couple meets, mates, and goes on to the next battle.  They, of course, have many second thoughts and misgivings along the way, but the romances proceed down a very familiar SMR road.  I wish I could like this series more, but I have a problem with the amount of repetition: physical descriptions, emotions, and just plain information are repeated endlessly, in a manner similar to Stephenie Meyer's constant repetition of Edward's physical description every time that he is in a scene. (Just hearing the phrase "marble chest" still makes me shudder!)  How many times do you have to present the reader with a fact or a description or a feeling?  We get it, already!  An additional problem is that the characters could use some fleshing out; they're a bit shallow. And some of the situations are faintly ludicrous.  At one point in Hellfire, for example, Ginny refuses to give up her 911 operator's job, even though she is the only one in the entire world who can wield the Darkfire crystal sword to thwart the demon invasion that will destroy us all. Here's how Ginny sees it: 

          "I know this battle is important, but I can't quit my job.  I've been   

           there for seven years.  I'm good at what I do." (p. 186)

Let's see...minimum wage job versus demon domination.  Let's get our priorities straight, Ginny!  One last thing:  It's hard to understand why these demons never fight with or harm any humans. All they seem to do is attack the main and supporting characters—over and over again.  In the first book, the demons possess inanimate objects, and in the second book they possess small (and a few large) animals—but only one drunken human and only temporarily.  Douglas never makes clear just what these particular demons have in mind for the long term and why they pose such an extreme danger to humankind.