Demon's Fall by Karalynn Lee -- Review (**18+over material)

 

Demon's Fall

by Karalynn Lee

Publication Date: 10/25/10

Rating: 3 / 5 Stars

Thank you Netgalley & Carina Press for the electronic ARC.

Synopsis (courtesy of Goodreads):

 

When Kenan, an incubus, finds a caged angel for sale in the Hellsgate marketplace, he sees her as a challenge. Certain that his skills in seduction will work as well on a heavenly creature as they do on mortal women, he buys Jahel, intent on having her soul as a novelty in his collection.

Knowing he must gain Jahel's trust if she is to come to his bed willingly, Kenan treats her more as his guest than as his slave. When she reveals what brought her to the mouth of Hell in the first place-retrieving the soul of a young girl she was guarding-he even offers to help her complete her mission.

Though he has promised Jahel freedom, Kenan soon realizes she has captured his heart instead. And as their passion for one another grows, they find themselves caught in a struggle between Heaven and Hell, one that will lead them to the very edge of the apocalypse...

  

Review:

Demon’s Fall is a sweet, almost novella-length paranormal erotica story where Kenan, an incubus, purchases a captured angel, Jahel, with the intent to collect her soul through his incubus powers – sex of course. Kenan collects souls, which once extracted from a person/being, become token coins. With the purchase of Jahel, he sees her angel soul as the ultimate soul that would be in his collection. These initial plans, however, do not go as planned as he becomes more and more enamored with Jahel’s physique, and also after he decides to be honest and truly trying to gain Jahel’s trust by offering to help Jahel with her mission which brought her to Hellsgate in the first place.

I found the angel-demon relationship and dynamic to be an interesting storyline – and I especially was fond of the originality of the setting and some parts of the mythology / Biblical references. The author provided very well written descriptions of the places and different characters and beings encountered in the story. The story’s time period is a bit unclear, but from Kenan’s mentions of his previous conquers and souls collected, it sounds like it could be anywhere from (what I think) the Middle Ages up to early/mid 1700’s. Though when this story takes place does not really have much, if any, significance to the story.

I really did enjoy reading this story. Though I thought it was going to have more elements of erotica in it, the scenes and elements that are found in the story are well written and fun and exhilarating to read. Though this book is put under the “erotica” genre, it pretty much only went as far as soft-core erotica, so for those that are looking for steamy sex scenes between angels and demons in every other page, this would not be a story for you. I’m a sucker for the forbidden love element, so the story delivered with Kenan and Jahel falling for each other. The ending was especially adorable, and a happy ending is always a plus.

 

Teaser Tuesday (April 19)

Hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading

My teaser this week:

"It's a character flaw of mine," I said with a shrug. "But seriously, for all we know, Lida might currently be loaded to the gills with Xanax, which wold help with the whole image of not being worried."    

~On kindle:  "906 of 4259", "Secrets of the Demon (#3) by Diana Rowland

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

 

City of Fallen Angels 

by Cassandra Clare

Synopsis (courtesy of Goodreads):

City of Fallen Angels takes place two months after the events of City of Glass. In it, a mysterious someone’s killing the Shadowhunters who used to be in Valentine’s Circle and displaying their bodies around New York City in a manner designed to provoke hostility between Downworlders and Shadowhunters, leaving tensions running high in the city and disrupting Clary’s plan to lead as normal a life as she can — training to be a Shadowhunter, and pursuing her relationship with Jace. As Jace and Clary delve into the issue of the murdered Shadowhunters, they discover a mystery that has deeply personal consequences for them — consequences that may strengthen their relationship, or rip it apart forever.

Meanwhile, internecine warfare among vampires is tearing the Downworld community apart, and only Simon — the Daylighter who everyone wants on their side — can decide the outcome; too bad he wants nothing to do with Downworld politics. Love, blood, betrayal and revenge: the stakes are higher than ever in City of Fallen Angels. 

Review:

Where to begin...

Though I really enjoyed reading the first three books (aka the complete trilogy - not this "oh wait, let's write 3 more books for the series"), I was sincerely disappointed with City of Fallen Angels.

From the first few pages of the book, I thought it was going to focus on Simon and dealing with his new life, and vampire-sexiness. But no. I had to endure more "let's smash the happily ever after" between Jace and Clary. There are only so many times you can flip-flop from "he loves me, he loves me not" and "I live for her and love her, I should forbid myself to love her and even look at her". In my opinion, this scenario was already a pretty big plot line in the last three books, and like some other reviewers commented: you, Ms. Clare are over-doing; flogging a dead horse. Seriously, essentially every time this drama between Jace and Clary happened in CoFA (which was hmm like 80% of the book, give or take), I was rolling my eyes mentally cringing at Ms. Clare and skimming those parts of the book.

Oh, and because clearly we don't have enough soap opera love drama already, Simon has to deal with his lady issues -- and it really seemed just to be "pfht" and inconsequential.

There were two other big things that bothered me:

1) the growing biblical theme and introduction of Lilith:
While I thought that the first three Mortal Instruments series did not over do the demons/angels/heaven/hell topics and plots, I was thoroughly annoyed with this book taking those plots/topics one step too many. Ms. Clare should have really not went beyond the world and settings she had already created in the first 3 books. Isn't there enough material (aka monsters and races of characters) already within the mortal instruments world that could pose sinister plots and such?

2) the title:
"City of Fallen Angels" -- before reading the book, I assumed that the story line might be about *gasp* fallen angels, devils, or types of "demons" we had not yet been introduced to. Ummm... yeah.... there were no "Fallen Angels" in this book. The phrase is not even mentioned in the book.
I can guess some of you are about to argue "Lilith is a fallen angel" -- No, she is not. Her story was that she was Adam's first wife, gone done somethin' bad, and got kicked out of the garden of eden and into Hell - thus becoming a demon.
Ms. Clare, where are these Fallen Angels? With a title like that, I think this book might have had potential-success if it had a plot line and story involving or revolving around something to do with fallen angels. But alas, it fell well short of being a successful attempt at a continuation of the mortal instruments series.

Rating: 2 / 5 Stars

 

Pale Demon (Rachel Morgan/ The Hollows #9) by Kim Harrison

Pale Demon (Rachel Morgan/ The Hollows #9)

by Kim Harrison

Publication Date: 2/22/11

Rating: 4 / 5 Stars

Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins for the ARC!

Synopsis (courtesy of Goodreads):

Condemned to death for black magic and shunned, Rachel Morgan has three days to somehow get to the annual witches convention in San Francisco and clear her name. If she fails, the only way she can escape death is to live in the demonic ever after . . . for ever after.

Banned from the flight lists, Rachel teams up with elven tycoon Trent Kalamack, headed for the West Coast for his own mysterious business. But Rachel isn’t the only passanger along for the ride. Can a witch, an elf, a living vampire, and a pixy in one car survive for over 2,300 miles? And that’s not counting the assassin on their tail.

A fearsome demon walks the sunlight, freed after centuries of torment to slay the innocent and devour souls. But his ultimate prey is Rachel Morgan. While the powerful witch with nerves of steel will do whatever it takes to stay alive, even embracing her own demonic nature may not be enough to save her.

Review:

OMG - I seriously cannot get enough of Jenks and his adorable "Tink" swears. They make me laugh so hard. 

Ok, that aside, I really enjoyed this book and would rank it as probably my favorite book in the series thus far. Not only do we catch up on how Jenks is doing with his deep loss that occurred in the last book, but also ALOT more about Trent, Al, Newt, the going-abouts in the demonic ever-after, and Rachel too. I think this book is really pivotal in the series in the sense that Rachel has come to realize and accept her status as "of demon origin" and that, hey, it might not be so bad to use black/demon magic against evil comes in the form of a crazy, lunatic day-walking demon that eats souls to live (eww to the imagery involved...).

I was pleasantly surprised how well the book was written, since the last 2-3 books kind of were "Eh" and dragging. But it seems that Kim Harrison has gotten her second wind (hopefully for the next few books too!) with this well written 9th book in the series that reflect upon her early books in the series.

There is a lot of action and fighting that keep you enthralled with the story and rooting for our merry band of characters (Ivy, Jenks, Rachel, Trent)....and sometimes Al too. ;) But along with all the action, there is a lot of focus on changing/evolving relationships between characters (Ivy/Rachel, Rachel/Al, Rachel/Trent, Rachel/Newt) so be prepared for some tears, some WAhhhhhh? moments and some surprises that come out of the left field.

Can't wait for the next book to see what happens! ^^