Nick is a daemon, and not just any daemon – he’s the son and
heir of Lucifer himself. Yet he tries to avoid all that, focusing instead on
being a witch and part owner of an occult shop with his friend and business
partner Morganna.
Until Vivian enters his life, a fellow daemon, hunting by Seraphs (warrior
angels with no sense of humour who would very much like to pound daemons into
the dirt). Sparks quickly fly between the two daemons, even if Morganna doesn’t
approve.
Nick’s also an ex-detective and is called in by local
police when they need help from someone in the know and with his woo-woo – such
as when a small child disappears in mysterious circumstances. Nick’s sure there’s
more to the disappearance than it seems – but is also heavily distracted by the
issues consuming Vivian’s life. Especially when the two appear to be linked and
the enemy discovers him, Lucifer’s son, as an excellent prize.
This book has massive props for originality. Nick is a
daemon, the son of a demon and a mortal woman. Actually, he’s the son of
Lucifer and a mortal woman and Lucifer’s heir; not just a paperwork exercise,
he’s expected to step up and take over just as his father did from his
grandfather.
He and his dad don’t get on, as can be imagined – and that
not getting on is rather well done. There’s a combination of revulsion and
rejection of what his father is and stands for, linked with his abandoned-child
desire for acceptance and respect coupled with a fear and shame of not reaching
his father’s standards. And all of that is done without pages and pages of
angst and moping.
Nick as a character has a lot of intriguing elements, as
does Vivian, his love interest. Together they have a lot in common and not just
their heritage – they’re not saints by any stretch and they don’t pretend to
be. While Nick has a conscience that he does apply and lines he doesn’t cross,
he’s also not a nice person and doesn’t have many illusions about that.
Sometimes this goes too far into behaviour that crosses from “not a nice person”
to “inexcusable arsehole” but usually doesn’t – it’s a balance that needs to be
addressed. In general he’s quite deep and involved with a strong level of
characterisation to make him very compelling very real, someone you want to get
behind and support while, unfortunately, having moments when you want to punch
him a few times.
Vivian and Nick’s relationship generally works for me –
it starts out purely physical and more than a little based on the woo-woo. There’s no desperate love at first sight –
there’s a lot of lust at first sight and a lot of obsession at first sight, but
not love. There are moments when he’s overly defensive of her, especially when
Morganna isn’t a fan – but it reads as much as him objecting to Vivian being
dismissed because of her daemon blood as much as him loving her. We do get very
very high levels of trust and affection between tem awfully quickly, but a lot
of that is explained by the situation they’re in and lack of other options –
so, generally good especially if you’re willing to go with the positive spins,
some unfortunate speeded-up-relationship issues if you’re not going to buy the
story’s plot justifications. Personally, it worked for me.
The story itself is one of those excellent plots for a
first book. Involved, intriguing and twisty enough to be a great story in its
own right, while at the same time dropping enough information to set up this
excellent world with its angels and demons, witches, various monsters and Nick’s
own heritage and what that means. Both fit together quite well and the plot isn’t
used as a hollow excuse for the world building and nor is the world building
ignored in favour of the story. It’s pretty well balanced – and I did like the
story a lot, it twisted, it was unpredictable, it was pretty nicely paced and
had a number of compelling characters. It did have several different storylines
that came together perhaps a little clumsily – especially since we started with
one, left it and didn’t pick it up as the main thread until very near the end
of the book. On the whole it worked, it needed some trimming and smoothing out,
but it really did work well and it was one of those books where, when it ended,
I felt disappointed that the story was over.
The writing style is a little more hit and miss. It’s
written in that hard boiled, film noir style, reminiscent of early Laurell K
Hamilton (who was really good at it). It has a lot of dramatic monologues, a
lot of what would be, in any other book, infodumping. It largely works. Largely.
The problem is that Nick’s sarcastic, slightly callous, darkly cynical
viewpoint fits the style – but his humorous, fun loving, rather light trickster
side? Doesn’t fit it at all. Sometimes I think he’s trying to lampoon film
noir, then he plays it straight – one or the other, not both. The tone jars and
occasionally what is dark and evocative film noir commentary becomes a guy who
really needs to not talk to so much. Even if he is funny.
So, generally pretty good, right? Well, no because when
we look at marginalised people we hit a great big break wall and get some
Problems.
